El Rinconcillo: The Bar of 1670
Why is it significant?
On the corner across from the church of Santa Catalina you will see an old facade, hams hanging behind the windows, and a crowd of people standing inside with small plates in their hands. Step through the door and look down at the long, dark wooden counter.
Key Facts
| Place | El Rinconcillo: The Bar of 1670 |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle Gerona 40, 41003 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.39330, -5.98830 |
| Part of Walk | Seville Tapas and Convent Sweets: Hidden Nuns, Old Markets and the Oldest Bar in Town |
| Generated | Generated |
On the corner across from the church of Santa Catalina you will see an old facade, hams hanging behind the windows, and a crowd of people standing inside with small plates in their hands. Step through the door and look down at the long, dark wooden counter. If anyone has ordered, you will see numbers written on it in chalk.
This is El Rinconcillo, the little corner, which opened in 1670 and claims the title of oldest bar in Seville. In 1670 Murillo was still painting, the silver fleets still sailed up the Guadalquivir from the Americas, and Seville was recovering from the great plague of 1649 that had killed perhaps half its people. Ever since, people have come in here to drink, eat, argue and gossip.
The chalk is the famous detail. The waiters write what you owe directly on the wood in front of you, add it up at the end and wipe it clean. No paper, no screen. Above the counter hang the hams, below it the bottles, and on the walls the old tiles of a building that has been patched and loved for centuries.
What should you taste? The classic here, and the dish Seville would put on its flag if it could, is espinacas con garbanzos: spinach and chickpeas stewed with garlic, cumin, paprika and bread fried in olive oil and crushed into a sauce. Its spices tell you where it comes from. The cumin and the bread thickening go back to the kitchens of al-Andalus, the Moorish centuries, while the chickpea was the everyday protein of the poor for generations. Another old favourite is salt cod, fried or with tomato, from the days when fish travelled inland only if it was salted.
A tip from Sevillians: stand at the bar rather than sitting. The bar is where the bar happens. And notice how short the visit is. In Seville you do not dine in one tapas bar, you graze from one to the next. So drink up, and walk south down Calle Alhóndiga, named after the medieval public granary, to the convent of San Leandro, where the most famous sweet in Seville is made.