Food guide
Sevillian food is not complicated. It is a few very good ingredients, treated with respect, eaten standing up with people you like.
Espinacas con garbanzos — spinach and chickpeas, Moorish in origin, ordered by everyone from bankers to bricklayers.
Carrillada, pork cheek slow-cooked until it collapses. The test of any kitchen here.
Pescaíto frito: fried fish so light it should be illegal, best from a paper cone near the river.
Salmorejo, thicker and rounder than gazpacho, from Córdoba but adopted without shame.
Jamón ibérico de bellota, sliced thin and never refrigerated to death.
Tapas are shared. Order three or four, eat them, then decide the next round — nobody orders everything at once.
Stand at the bar if there is room. It is faster, cheaper and where the conversation is.
Ask what is good today rather than reading the whole menu. The answer is usually short and always right.
Triana, around the market and Calle San Jacinto, for fish and for the bars my family has used for decades.
The Arenal for old-school taverns with tiled walls and handwritten prices.
Alameda and Feria for the newer generation of cooks doing serious things without tablecloths.
I avoid the streets immediately around the Cathedral at lunchtime. Not because the food is terrible, but because you can do so much better ten minutes away.
Lunch: 14:00 to 16:00. Dinner: 21:00 onwards. Arriving at 19:30 gets you an empty room and a tired kitchen.
Sunday lunch is sacred and busy. Book, or go early and be patient.
Monday is the quietest day for good kitchens — many fishmongers rest, so pick meat or vegetables.
Manzanilla from Sanlúcar with fried fish is the single best pairing in Andalusia.
Fino for the first round, oloroso if the evening turns into a conversation.
A caña — a small draught beer — stays cold. A pint does not, which is why nobody orders one.
Frequent questions
Private food experiences through the bars I actually use, at the hours locals actually eat.
