Incredible dishes in Granada, Spain

It would only be natural to start the list of the best dishes a Spanish city has to offer with an essentially Spanish appetizer - tapas. They are starter snacks served hot or cold. Traditionally, tapas were nothing more than some scraps of food consumed to improve the appetite before the main meal and cover drinks from flies, but over time, a tradition developed to serve pieces of bread with more and more additional ingredients. Modern tapas are diverse enough to make up a meal on their own.

A good place to start exploring the local food scene would be Capitán Amargo.

If tapas are not enough for you, there is always an option to try something more substantial, something that can stand on its own. Croquettes are often served in tapas bars where customers want a heftier meal. These dumping consist of a thick binder combined with a filling that gets breaded and deep-fried to hold all the elements together. Chopped meat, seafood, cheese, rice, pasta, mushrooms - all the classic options of croquette filling are available.

You can find what you are looking for at EntreBrasas Granada.

This offering is not exclusively Spanish, as meatballs have been around since the years of ancient Rome. The idea of rolling ground meat into a ball is not the hardest to come up with, but the tricky part has always been finding the right kind of meat and additional ingredients. This is where Spanyards have succeeded, perfecting the original recipe time and time again. Depending on the chef, many restaurants can offer a visitor amazing meatballs of almost any kind.

One of such places is El Conde.

This offering is actually considered by people outside of Spain to be a Spanish national dish, although Spanyards themselves narrow it down to the Valencian region. "Paella valenciana" is the traditional recipe of paella consisting of round-grain rice, bajoqueta and varieties of green beans, rabbit, chicken, sometimes duck, and lima or butter bean. Other variations of the dish may include many different ingredients, including seafood.

Mesón el Cordobés de José Peregrina is a good place to try some paella.

Heavier, more serious meals in Spain rarely appear on the table without chorizo in one form or another. This type of sausage can be fermented, cured, or smoked and can serve as an ingredient of a dish or the dish itself depending on the recipe and the preference of the consumer. Chorizo is eaten sliced in a sandwich, grilled, fried, or simmered in liquid, including apple cider or other strong drinks, which makes it particularly popular at tapas bars.

Some of the most inventive uses of chorizo can be found at Aliatar. 

This item on our list is rather simplistic when compared to other dishes listed above. Migas is actually most often found on more conservative tables, as it was invented as the food of shepherds  popular across the Iberian Peninsula. The ingredients of migas vary across the provinces of Spain. In Granada, migas is similar to North African couscous, using flour and water, but no bread. Preparations commonly feature a variety of ingredients, including fish.

Bar los Pipos actually has great migas.

Most of the dishes on this list are usually served hot. Here is something very different - a chilled soup. Salmorejo is actually a dish originating from Andalusia and very popular in Granada as a local invention. The soup consists of tomato, bread, extra virgin olive oil, and garlic. There are several variations of salmorejo in Andalusia, including ardoria and porra antequerana that uses bits of tuna as topping. The dish is served cold and may be garnished with diced Spanish serrano ham.

Restaurante Vegano Hicuri has wonderful salmorejo.

There is another soup similar to salmorejo but visually different in the orange texture and thickness. Gazpacho is a cold soup and drink made of raw, blended vegetables. Due to its refreshing properties, the soup is mostly consumed in Spain during hot summer time. Aside from the traditional vegetables and bread, there are many modern variations of gazpacho with avocados, cucumbers, parsley, strawberries, watermelon, grapes, meat stock, seafood, etc.

Restaurante Ruta del Azafrán Granada is noted for having great gazpacho.

The next soup is actually a traditional Mexican dish that made its way back to Spain and became popular in Granada, which is in no way exclusive. The soup made with cow's stomach in broth with a red chili pepper base has been gaining fame across Europe for a while. Lots of different ingredients can be used to make menudo, and the result can be garnished with chopped onions, chiles, cilantro, and sometimes lime juice.

El Mercader has pretty decent menudo.

Yet another Spanish offering that has become a staple food in upper middle class restaurants across the globe. Jamon is a type of dry-cured ham similar to Portuguese presunto and to Italian prosciutto, but the production differs by a longer curing phase. Due to special conditions for making and distributing it, jamon is a prohibitively expensive product for other countries to import, which does not lessen the demand one bit.

Entrevinos has great jamon.

Granada is a city of many wonders, old and new. Enjoy all of them while trying some of the most incredible dishes Spain has to offer.