Spain puts early dinner on table for tourists

In the 1892 edition of his classic guidebook to Spain, the British traveller Richard Ford wrote that Spanish inns served “a substantial luncheon” at 11am or midday and dinner at six or seven in the evening.

The Spanish timetable has drifted since then. The country is now famed for eating late, and lunch is usually served in most areas from 2pm to 5pm and dinner from 8.30pm to 11pm, or later. Most Spaniards would not think of supper until after 9pm.

Although many hold that eating earlier is for children, others suffer hunger pangs from midday. But it is foreigners who are most troubled by the “odd” hours.

At midday this week, Margaret Thompson, 63, from Chester, was looking for a restaurant that was open and serving lunch in the central Barrio de las Letras district of Madrid. “I’m OK going without for a while but he’s not,” she said, pointing to her husband, Richard, 66.

“I’ve been up since six, because she woke me snoring,” he said. “And I haven’t had a bite since breakfast.”

Help is at hand, however, in the Spanish capital at least.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the region’s conservative leader, has called upon restaurateurs to “seduce” foreign visitors by opening earlier for lunch and dinner as the capital, and country, experience a boom in tourism.

“We want to attract tourists by being flexible, opening our establishments earlier at midday and at dinner time,” she said. “In the same way that happens to us Spaniards, that many times, when we are abroad, if we don’t watch the time, we don’t eat or have dinner because everything has already closed.

“So it’s the other way round too. We understand that we have to adapt to those who visit us, to those who honour us with their visit and trust us.”

Some restaurants in central Madrid now open at 1pm and 8pm to cater for tourists. The regional government says they should consider opening at midday for lunch and 6pm or 7pm for dinner, a timetable followed at present by only a few of the most tourist-dependent restaurants and considered barbaric by many Spaniards. Quite how restaurants would organise workers’ shifts to deal with foreign and Spanish customs is unclear.

The guidelines offered by Ayuso, her government insists, would not affect indigenous mores.

“Ayuso is trying to support Madrid’s outstanding cuisine and make it known to as many foreigners as possible,” said Ramón Pérez-Maura, president of the Brotherhood of the Good Table, a distinguished group that is dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of Spanish food.

He added: “She’s right to start by advancing opening times for foreigners, who are not used to Spanish eating timetables. But I’m sure most foreigners will discover our gourmet cooking is better suited to finishing lunch at 5pm and dinner at midnight.”

Left-wing groups, however, point out that locals’ complaints are intensifying about the negative effects of mass tourism throughout Spain, particularly on rising property prices. At a recent protest in Madrid, marchers chanted: “Fuera turistas de nuestros pisos” — “Tourists get out of our flats”. Thousands took part in protests on Sunday in holiday resorts across the Canary Islands.

Some fear that the stampede of tourists has already taken a toll on Spanish luncheon practices. In Barcelona, locals used to sauntering down for a pre-lunch drink on a restaurant terrace at 1pm are being told that they cannot sit down unless they eat. Even some foreign visitors are offended.

“We have been visiting Madrid for over 20 years but today we were rudely turned away by a waiter in the plaza de la Platería de Martínez when we tried to have a coffee on a terrace at 1pm,” said Liz Daly, 53, who was on a trip from Dublin. “He snapped ‘We are a restaurant not a café.’”

Yolanda Díaz, the communist labour minister, provoked outrage this year when she said Spain’s hours were out of step with the rest of Europe. She added that “it is not reasonable” for restaurants to be open at one in the morning and described the difference in opening hours with the rest of Europe as “madness”. Díaz said her department was planning to rationalise working hours.

Ayuso attacked her “socialist puritanism” and defended Spain’s “different” approach to nightlife.

How did the clash of hours arise? Some blame Franco because in the 1940s he decided Spain’s clock should be aligned with Nazi Germany. Others accuse the hot climate: for many a summer timetable means that the day starts early and finishes at 3pm, when lunch is eaten. Another argument holds that the timetable is due to moonlighting during the years of poverty after the civil war. It was then common to have one job until two in the afternoon and another after lunch until late at night.

Whatever the history, Ayuso does not want cultural differences to impede the tourism boom in Madrid. She said: “We have coined a rallying cry, ‘Welcome tourist’.”

This post was originally published on here