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The menú del día
Almost every bar and restaurant in Spain that serves lunch on weekdays offers a menú del día, and for millions of people it is the main meal of a working day. The format is close to fixed. A choice of three or four primeros, often a salad, soup, pasta, rice or a legume stew such as lentejas or garbanzos; a choice of segundos, meat or fish with potatoes or salad; a postre, which may be fruit, flan, yogurt or something homemade like arroz con leche; bread; and a drink, which in many places still includes a glass of wine or beer as a matter of course. It is usually chalked on a board outside, and the price, in Madrid now commonly somewhere between twelve and eighteen euros, covers everything. Coffee is often extra, or included in a more generous version. The origin is surprisingly official. In 1965 the government introduced a menú turístico, a mandatory cheap fixed menu meant to protect tourists from being overcharged. The rule faded, but the format stayed because it suited Spanish working hours perfectly: a proper hot lunch at two, eaten in an hour, near the office, at a price people could manage every day. For a newcomer, two customs are worth knowing. When colleagues eat together, the company sometimes pays, as at Cierzo; otherwise the bill is usually split evenly, a pagar a escote, rather than itemized, and someone may simply pay for everyone and be repaid next time. And lunch is genuinely social. Talking shop is tolerated, but the meal is where colleagues learn about each other's families and holidays, and treating it as a working session, laptop on the table, marks you as someone who has not yet understood how things work.