Spain’s popular menú del día, a tradition for decades, may be slowly disappearing under pressure of rising prices and changing habits.
Rising costs of ingredients, combined with changing lunch-time habits for Spanish employees are making it hard for restaurants to make a profit and still keep it at a reasonable price, typically €14-15. With more workers having only an hour for lunch, and the rising popularity of fast food, restaurants lose economies of scale that helped keep prices down.
The menú, usually consisting of a couple of choices each for a starter, a main and a dessert, became popular in the 1960s, aimed originally at showing tourists Spanish gastronomy at a reasonable price, but becoming highly popular among city workers, providing a reasonably-priced mid-day meal. The Spanish Hospitality Association estimates that around four million are served every day across Spain.
Similar meals exist elsewhere—France’s ‘la formule’, for instance—and may be experiencing similar pressures.
