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A few weeks ago the veteran articulist David Sharrock published in The Times A wide report about Madrid gastronomy. So far not surprising. That in Spain we enjoy a good kitchen, with large dishes, chefs, restaurants and ingredients is no surprise. The funny thing is that in his analysis Sharrock does not talk about that. The focus focused on another symbol of homeland cuisine, one that passes through low hours and faces the complex challenge of adapting to the 21st century: THE DAY MENU.
Sharrock warns that the lifelong menu is “threatened by modern life.” And he is not the only one who thinks like that.
A figure: four million. The menu of the day is an institution in the bars of Spain. And for several reasons. The first, its long tradition, which can be traced at least 60 years agowhen in the time of Fraga Iribarne as Minister of Information the Francoist Government established that a good part of the food stores offered a menu at a fixed price. The goal: to enhance tourism.
The second key that demonstrates to what extent the formula of the daily menu has penetrated in Spanish gastronomy is its level of implementation. The Spain hospitality association estimates that some are dispatched every day four million throughout the country, which leads to its general secretary, Emilio Gallego, to claim your acceptance. “The menu of the day remains a spectacular success formula,” he says.
A price: € 14. Hospitality in Spain has not only calculated how many menus are served daily in the country’s restaurants. At the end of last year he published A report in which goes beyond and analyzes its prices, profitability and the differences between regions. Your main conclusion? That at least in 2024 the average cost of the menu of the day in Spain was around 14 euros, although there are cities in which this figure is quite higher. In Bilbao, for example, the average was 15.5 and Barcelona in 15.1, although there are those who clarify that it results today “Almost impossible” Find a menu in the center of Barcelona for less than 16 euros.
Are all strengths? No. The menu perhaps enjoy a long tradition and is rooted in the hospitality of Spain, but on its horizon they appear clouds. And one of them (and the most important) is found in its price. Although its rates increased by 19.5% between 2016 and 2024 (which in practice translates into 11.7 to 14 euros), hospitality in Spain remember that this accumulated increase remains below the general CPI (23.4%) and is much lower than that of food and beverages or the one that In your day They reached certain key products in kitchens, such as olive oil.
Between 2023 and 2024 the menus did rise above the general price index, but despite that rebound, of 80 cents on average, the collective recalls that there are many hoteliers to which it is difficult for their businesses to give benefits. To be more precise, They cite a study which reveals that 42.3% of entrepreneurs claim to have experienced a “loss of profitability” during the last year, especially due to the increase in salary costs, food and supplies. At the end of 2024 almost a third of the restaurants (32.5%) admitted that their menus had not increased that year.
“Totally in danger”. The hospitality data of Spain give a track of the first great challenge facing the menus for their survival: profitability. To succeed, a menu of the day must offer a range of attractive dishes and a certain variety, but it must also convince in another crucial aspect: the price. The key is how to fit that list (high quality, variety and low price) and at the same time the business gets more than cover costs.
A few months ago a hotelman from Vigo I recognized to The country That, despite the fact that his bar was small and that he takes care of almost everything, so that his offer is “viable” needs to sell at least 40 daily menus at a price of 15 euros. “Below that figure, it will only serve to cover costs.” “It is totally in danger, and fortunately, because it is not a sustainable model for the hotelier,” Point to the same newspaper Paco Cruz, The Food Manager, speaking precisely about the state of health of the menus. In his opinion, the formula is profitable basically in certain businesses, with a good flow of clients and experience.
The AI, to the rescue. “The customer of the menu of the day wants first five, five seconds and variety every day. But what do you do with what is left over? If everyone asks for the same, what about the dishes that are not requested? The losses are brutal and that is unsustainable from any point of view: economic, ethical and environmental,” Add Cruz. The challenge is so complex that there are those who have already sought help in AI, as Fusion was checked in Madridwhere chef Eneko Atxa and physicist Eneko Axpe presented a tool designed to design attractive menus … and above all profitable.
Objective: efficiency. “Inflation is almost 40%. The diner says they are charging me more, 19.5, but the hotelier has a hard time doing 39.2 more,” recalled During the ATXA presentation before adding to that price increase the increase in rentals and energy. The objective of the delight tool is precisely to look for “an orderly efficiency” in the menu, maximize the benefit and seek maximum efficiency in the number of chefs, customers and purchase. “The menu is an immaterial good in our culture and one of the challenges and problems facing hoteliers and diners,” Axpe points out.
Cost of costs (and something else). Although inflation and imbalance between the rise in prices and salaries is one of the great challenges of the menu of the day, it is not the only one. As Sharrock points out in Your chronicle of The Times The format has to adapt to “Modern Life”, a hospitality very different from that of the mid -60s and changing consumption habits. After all, the menu of the day remains a formula closely linked above all to a certain type of business, which is forced to compete in a scenario marked by the increase in costs, franchises and diversity.
“It is not the menu of the day that is in danger of extinction, but the restaurants that serve it,” Explain to Sharrock A hospitality in Madrid, worker of a place where menus are still offered for 15.5 euros. “Many have closed and have been replaced by Fast food as pizza or sushi. Many of these places have a much shorter life. Restaurants appear and disappear as never before. “
With that backdrop, businesses that are still betting on the menu face the challenge of managing them to offer a first and second dish, drink and dessert. All with variety, quality and prices that do not scare the customer.
New times, old menus. Not only does the sector change. They do the clients themselves and the disposition with which they go to a restaurant. Apart that the evolution of the cost of life and salaries leave workers with greater or lesser money in the pocket to pay a menu, the truth is that their tempo and rhythms have also changed. That is another of the keys that Sharrock points out: as Spanish companies have incorporated new labor habits, such as The British daythe time available for lunch employees is reduced. And that makes a menu with two dishes and dessert not always attractive.
If the teleworking is added to that, that there are employees who choose to take house food in colders, the competition of the franchises or simply that there are formulas such as breakfast and Brunchs They offer Greater margin Of business profitability, the horizon for the traditional menus of the day has just complicated. The result: urban areas in which the menu is in authentic “Danger of extinction” and its average cost is already well above the average calculated By hospitality of Spain.
Images | Jorge Fraganillo (Flickr) 1 and 2 and Andrew E. Larsen (Flickr)
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