Spain's Daily Set Lunch Faces an Uncertain Future as Eating Habits Shift

Shortly before midday on working days across Spain, menus appear in chalk, marker and printer ink on blackboards, whiteboards and sheets of paper taped to restaurant windows. They advertise the menú del día, the daily set-price lunch that has been part of Spanish life for more than half a century.

About 4m of these meals are still served each weekday, but the habit is slowly losing ground. In 2009, the country's best-known chef, Ferran Adrià, declared it dead, blaming changing eating habits, economic downturns and bistro-style restaurants charging €20-€30 for what should be a simple starter, a hearty main and a choice of pudding or coffee, with bread and a drink included. Seventeen years on, that verdict looks premature.

A new book by Spanish food journalist Lakshmi Aguirre, Menú del Día: Everyday Scenes of a First Course, a Second Course and Pudding, traces the tradition's history and evolution. She argues that it is in trouble but not finished.

The story starts with an uncomfortable fact. The menú began in the mid-1960s as a tourist menu devised by Manuel Fraga, information and tourism minister under the dictator Francisco Franco. After the "years of hunger" that followed the Spanish civil war, the regime wanted foreign visitors to see that food was plentiful, good and affordable. Establishments were required to offer a soup starter, a main of egg, fish or meat chosen from at least three options with a side dish, and a pudding based on fruit, something sweet or cheese.

Prices were fixed between 50 and 250 pesetas. To stop owners watering down the drinks, the law also required the accompanying quarter-litre of wine to be pure, clean and pleasant Spanish red or white with an alcohol content of at least 12%. In the early 1970s the offer was renamed, both to make it look less like an effort to attract, and sometimes overcharge, tourists, and to encourage ordinary Spaniards to treat themselves.

The menú is now so common that many people do not know where it came from. Aguirre said that when she mentioned Fraga while researching the book, many threw their hands up in shock. "It says a lot about us Spaniards; we forget very quickly," she said. She described it as part of the country's history that has reflected the evolution of Spanish society, and said nostalgia is growing as people realise it is fading.

The pressures are many. The average price is now €14.70. Many people short of time opt for a quick lunch, bringing food from home or microwaving a supermarket ready meal. Rising energy and food costs make it harder for small, family-run restaurants to offer a rotating daily choice. Some have turned to a single "dish of the day", while others have added Latin American staples to reflect Spain's changing demographics. Aguirre accepts this, saying the menú has always mirrored the society that eats it.

Her own ideal is a simple vegetable stew, then hake in green sauce or baby squid in ink, followed by leche frita or rice pudding. Her tests for a good venue include simple dishes, a regularly changing menu, chips that are not frozen, a chorus of regulars, and a chalkboard free of words such as avocado, burrata, tartare, truffle or sourdough bread. Bonus points go if the owners' child is doing homework at a table at the back.

For Aguirre, what is at stake goes beyond a cheap meal. "What's being lost is a meeting point," she said, describing a place where families with limited means can eat out and people who live alone find company. The true privilege of the menú, she added, lies "not just in being able to pay for a meal, but also in having the time to enjoy it".