Fair Food Prices

Food culture

Madrid's tapeo culture treats an evening out as a crawl between two or three small, traditional tabernas around areas like La Latina, ordering a plate or two and a drink at each rather than sitting through one long restaurant dinner, and dinner itself starts noticeably later than in most of Europe. The city's weekday menú del día — a fixed, multi-course lunch that traces back to a 1965 law requiring restaurants to offer an affordable set meal — is still the default way office workers eat their midday meal rather than a tourist-only bargain. Prices climb fastest in the streets immediately around Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor, where restaurants catering to one-time visitors charge noticeably more than similar cooking a short walk away in residential neighborhoods like Lavapiés or Malasaña.