Spanish meal times, and why lunch is the big one

Ordering at a bar, buying at a market, and the word that means both lunch and food

Eating is the part of a trip most people look forward to and the part their phrasebook prepares them for worst. Phrasebooks teach the restaurant. Most of the good eating happens at a bar, in a market, or at somebody's table, and those work differently.

la comida is lunch, and also food

La comida means the midday meal and it also means food in general, so ¿qué hay de comida? can be what is there to eat or what is for lunch. Context settles it every time, and the same doubling happens with la cena, dinner, and cenar, to have dinner. Worth noticing once so it does not surprise you mid-sentence.

Across most of Latin America lunch is el almuerzo instead, which removes the ambiguity and adds a word to learn.

The best value meal in Spain is on a chalkboard

El menú del día is a fixed price lunch: two courses, bread and a drink, usually somewhere between ten and fifteen euros, served on weekdays. It is not the tourist option and it is not a cut-down version of the carta. It is what people who work nearby are eating.

Be careful with the word itself. La carta is the list of everything the kitchen makes. El menú on its own usually means that set lunch, so asking for the menu can get you the special of the day instead of the choice you expected.

A caña is a size, not a brand

Order una cerveza in Spain and you will be asked a question back. Una caña is the small draught glass, about 200ml. Un tercio is a 330ml bottle and una jarra is a large one. In much of Latin America none of that applies and una cerveza is simply a beer.

In Granada, León and parts of Andalucía a tapa still arrives free with the drink. Elsewhere you order them, and algo para picar, something to nibble on, is a good way to ask without committing to anything.

At the market, the price moves

¿A cuánto está? is how you ask the price of something sold by weight, where the number changes week to week. ¿Cuánto cuesta? is for a thing with a price on it. At a counter in Spain you ask with poner: ¿me pone dos, por favor? In Latin America it is ¿me da dos?

Say it was good, properly

Está buenísimo is worth more than a dozen correct sentences. The -ísimo ending is the everyday way to say very: bueno becomes buenísimo, caro becomes carísimo, rico becomes riquísimo. It is far more natural than piling on muy, and it makes you sound much less like a book.