Spain is a little rougher and readier at the table than its closest Mediterranean neighbours. But while it does not always reach the heights of the best French or Italian cuisine, food in Madrid is fun and often very good. Whether you stand at a bar nonchalantly chomping on seafood tapas or sit down for a meal at one of the city's better restaurants, the experience is generally pleasant (for the palate and wallet) and frequently delightful.

Madrid is undergoing something of a tastebud revolution. In the mid-1990s local food lovers would drool over a handful of restaurants offering exotic cuisine. What started as a trickle has taken on critical mass and foreign (especially Asian) eateries are springing up all over the place. The designer restaurant with hard-to-define 'international' and Mediterranean cuisine has also emerged as a genre, as have stylish chains. And those all-time favourite snack options in London, Paris, New York and Sydney, kebabs and falafels, have now landed in force. An elderly couple were recently observed peering inside one such joint with evidently diffident curiosity. Ah, 'what is coming over this city!' they must have thought.

Many bars and some cafes offer some form of solid sustenance. This can range from bocadillos (filled rolls) and tapas (bar snacks) to more substantial raciones (basically bigger versions of a tapa) and full meals in comedores (sit-down restaurants) out the back. Cervezerias (beer bars), tabernas (taverns), tascas (snack bars) and bodegas (cellars) are just some of the establishments in this category.

For a full meal you will most frequently end up in a restaurante, but other names will pop out at you. A marisqueria specialises in seafood, while a meson (a 'big table') might indicate (but not necessarily!) a more modest eatery.

Madrid's Cuisine
Madrid has attracted as many cuisines from the provinces as hopefuls to royal, liberal, republican and dictatorial courts. To speak of a distinctly madrileno cuisine is difficult as a national hotchpotch rules, which is one of the beauties of the place. You can sample anything from Valencian paella and Basque high cuisine to Galicia's seafood specialities.

Good thing too, really, because the city's history is hardly one of culinary richness. Medieval Madrid was a simple place and the bulk of its inhabitants scraped by on a limited diet, the staple of which was cereals (often barley). Meat was a rarity and seafood (unlike today) unheard of. Fruit and vegetables, typically grown along the Manzanares, were by no means available to all. Olive oil, a standard element of much Mediterranean cooking and an integral part of the Muslim diet, was an expensive luxury to madrilenos. In such a calorie-poor diet, wine (bad wine) played an important nutritional role, but even that was in chronic short supply. That was then!

In spite of the harsh history of inland Spain, the nation's cuisine as a whole is typically Mediterranean, liberal in its use of olive oil, garlic, onions, tomatoes and peppers. A particular spin comes from the country's long history of Muslim occupation, reflected in the use of such spices as saffron and cumin, and for dessert the predominance of honeyed sweets. The high place accorded to almonds and fruit also shows the Muslim influence.

The regions of Spain all have their own specialities. The Catalans and Basques are the most serious and inventive about their food. Their tables are replete with seafood and meat and in both cases various sauces play an important role. Farther west along the coast, fish and seafood rule, especially in Galicia. Valencia brought us probably the country's single most famous dish, paella. At its best it is a huge wok-like pan of saffron-coloured rice dripping with seafood bits.