Seville: 5 Things About Food
The Lowdown on What You Will Find
1. Tapas
You can seek out the highest-rated tapas restaurants, or you can just go into one when you decide you are hungry and test the place with a single plate or two. We do have some to recommend below. The tapas places have pretty similar offerings, so going in knowing what food words to look for will probably help. (Many have English menus, but some great small tapas places do not, as they cater to locals and not tourists.)
Common Ingredients
bacalao: salted cod
boquerones: sardines
chorizo: sausage
jamon: pork
patatas: potatoes
Some styles:
montadito: 2 -bite open-faced sandwich
bocadillo: sandwich with top and bottom bread
croquetas: croquettes, or picture a crab cake, but it can be made from other meats or vegetables
tortilla: the base is thinly sliced potatoes bound with egg
alblondigas: meatballs
Another snack you can get just about anywhere is a paper cone of jamon or cheese (above).
We liked Tabanco la Duquesa for tapas. This is a fairly new place. We found their flavors, textures and sauces to have just a little extra attention to making each special, even when it was a standard tapas offering (pictures below). El Pasaje Bar was open early! And they take reservations! We needed a 6pm dinner with a friend. We also ate tapas at El Reconcito, which was pretty good and has the old-world vibe (and a long wait) and Las Tereses, which was fine. These two get written up by lots of folks because they are both very old and well-regarded.
2. Sweets
One place to look for sweets is in convents! Many of the nuns in Spain bake cookies and cakes. Check out our page 8 Places to Buy Sweets from Nuns for addresses, recommendations, photos, and other details of our quest.
Sweets in Seville tend to be very sweet. If you like palmera (palm leaf cookies or elephant ears in the US), everyone here sells plain, covered in chocolate, or covered in an egg/jam custard with white sugar glaze . We decided we’d try one, and probably just one, so we chose La Campana as the vendor; it’s an old pastry shop with a good vibe. We picked the white glazed one (palmera huevo, 2.55 Euro), since we knew what plain should taste like, and could imagine what chocolate-covered tasted like. Served with a fork and knife, it was very good though quite the sugar bomb.
Later we returned for a chocolate-covered almonds and yemas (cones of egg/sugar which are traditional for semana santa). We found the yemas so sweet we couldn’t finish one the size of a quarter between the 2 of us. The almonds were fine.
exterior of La Campana
Interior of La Campana
palmera and other sweets; palmera huevo is second from left on the bottom
Churros and Chocolate anyone?
More sweets, though this is probably less sweet than most. The churros–fried dough–is not sweet like you may have tried in other countries. It is served with a not-too-sweet chocolate sauce. It was a pretty good snack, though one was enough for us. These are found all over the place. We had the offering at Bar El Comercio.
churros and chocolate
Bar El Comercio–well known for their churros. They also have tapas
3. Markets
The Mercado Triana is an indoor market with several meats, fish, cheese, and pastry shops, plus several restaurants. We saw plenty of tapas but what we really felt like was vegetables, and luckily found Obrador la Osa. We chose a vegetarian layered torte that was good, a bean soup that was fabulous, and fried vegetable balls with rice that was very good. We took a slice of mushroom quiche home for breakfast (very good), as well as some pre-sliced pineapple from one of the market’s fruit stands.
Mercado Lonja del Barranco is an indoor food court has 20 stalls according to its website. They are all restaurant types. The space is light and bright with seating inside and out. They are open long hours, including midday, so travelers who like to eat between 1-4 might especially appreciate this place.
5. Off Hours Eating
Want to eat between 4pm and 8pm? That’s rough in Spain. The Mercado Lonja Barranco is one of your best bets. Near the big cathedral there are restaurants catering to tourists that remain open. El Pasaje Bar takes reservations and is open.
6. Other Restaurants
Restaurante La Alcoba is a Moroccan home-cooking restaurant that was great. We really love Moroccan food and have eaten it all over the world. We tried some of those with top ratings in the city center and cannot recommend them, but this one is worth the trip if you are tired of tapas or want to try Moroccan food. We had kefta (meatballs) tajine in tomato sauce; harira (soup) which was more like minestrone than what we are used to, but it was delicious and had chickpeas and small chunks of meat in it; pastilla, chicken with almonds and cinnamon in filo dough, sprinked with powdered sugar. It was sweeter than I usually like, but not unpleasantly so, and the filling textures were great. We tried the 2 desserts they had on a Monday. Both were good and apparently, they have more variety on the weekends. (Depending on your timing, you might pair your visit with a trip to a convent nearby that sells sweets and candles.)
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