What's the food culture in Seville?

Seville eats later than Madrid, and Madrid already eats later than anywhere you've been. Breakfast is a tostada con tomate at a bar counter around 9:30am, olive oil pooling on warm bread, a café con leche on the side, 2.50-3 EUR total. Lunch doesn't start until 2pm and runs past 4. Dinner rarely begins before 10pm, and on summer weekends you'll see families with children sitting down at 11. The tapas window opens around 1pm and never really closes. That said, the rhythm matters. Show up at a good tapas bar at 8pm on a Tuesday and you'll have the place to yourself. Return at 10:30 on a Friday and you'll be standing three deep at the bar, shouting over a hundred conversations bouncing off tile walls. By 11pm on Fridays, the crowd spills onto the sidewalk.

Skip Santa Cruz for food. The streets around the Cathedral and Reales Alcázares look beautiful, but restaurants there charge 14-18 EUR for a plate of mediocre croquetas and print their menus in four languages. Cross the Puente de Isabel II into Triana instead. Bar Las Golondrinas on Calle Antillano Campos does pavías de bacalao, salt-cod fritters in saffron batter that crunch through to a soft, briny center, for 3.50 EUR. Casa Cuesta on Calle Castilla, open since the 1880s, serves carrillada braised in red wine until the pork falls apart at the touch of a fork, about 4 EUR as a tapa. North of the centre, the Alameda de Hércules area draws Sevillanos in their 20s and 30s. Bar Eslava on Calle Eslava does a slow-cooked egg over mushroom cream for about 4 EUR. The Calle Feria corridor in Macarena is the least touristed good eating street in central Seville, and the bars along it pour manzanilla from the barrel for 1.80 EUR.

Mercado de Triana sits at the Triana end of the Puente de Isabel II, rebuilt in 2006 on the foundations of the old Castillo de San Jorge. The fish stalls open by 9am, and the smell of raw prawns and wet salt hits you before you're through the door. It still functions as a working market, not a food-hall conversion, so prices stay honest. A half-kilo of boquerones runs about 4 EUR. Mercado Lonja del Barranco, a block south along the Guadalquivir in a restored 1883 iron-frame building, went the food-hall route. Stalls sell individual portions of rabo de toro for 8-10 EUR and montaditos for 3-4 EUR. It's tourist-priced, but the building is worth walking through. For neighbourhood groceries, the Mercado de la Encarnación underneath the Metropol Parasol keeps more regulars than visitors.

Wine in Seville means sherry. Fino and manzanilla arrive cold in small catavino glasses, poured from the barrel at spots like El Rinconcillo on Calle Gerona, open since 1670. A copa costs 1.50-2.50 EUR. Tinto de verano, red wine cut with lemon soda over ice, is the summer default at about 2 EUR. During the Feria de Abril, typically 6 days in late April, the local drink is rebujito, manzanilla mixed with Sprite, served from pitchers in the casetas. Mind you, most casetas are private and require an invitation. Look for the public ones along Calle del Infierno. One warning about summer. Seville currently hits 35-36°C in June, and terrace restaurants become uncomfortable between 2pm and 7pm. Locals handle this by eating lunch indoors and not going out again until after 9pm.