Bocadillo de calamares: what it is, how to order it, what to avoid

Overview

A bocadillo de calamares is the simplest thing imaginable: rings of squid, dusted in flour and deep-fried, stuffed into a length of crusty white bread. No sauce in the classic version, no salad, nothing else — just the fried calamares, the barra of bread, and usually a wedge of lemon to squeeze over. It is eaten standing up or walking, with your hands, and it is one of the things this city is most identified with.

The oddity, and the reason it is worth a moment’s thought, is that this is a fried-seafood emblem in a city about as far from the sea as anywhere in the country. The joke Madrileños make is that their landlocked capital is nonetheless one of Spain’s great fishing ports, because its enormous wholesale market, Mercamadrid, moves a volume of fish that rivals the actual coast. Squid keeps and travels well, it was cheap, and a floured-and-fried portion of it in bread became the affordable snack of a working city. So the dish is genuinely Madrid’s own, not because the squid is local — it is not — but because the bocadillo is a thing this particular city made of it.

Its heartland is the arcaded square at the centre of the old town and the narrow streets around it: the bars there have sold this roll for generations, and eating one within sight of Plaza Mayor is close to a civic ritual. That fame is also, as below, exactly where the worst versions hide.

What to order

The vocabulary is short, because the thing is short. You ask for un bocadillo de calamares (or, more casually, un bocata de calamares), and what arrives is the roll described above. The decisions worth making:

• Lemon or not. The traditional dressing is nothing but a squeeze of lemon, and most bars bring a wedge with it. This is the purist version and it is the right place to start.
• Sauce, if you must. Some bars offer alioli (garlic emulsion) or mayonnaise, and asking for it is common enough that nobody blinks. Purists consider it unnecessary on a good one, where the squid and the bread carry it; it is a matter of taste, not a wrong move.
• The drink. A caña — a small draught beer — is the standard companion, and ordering the roll and the caña together is the ordinary way to do it.

What marks the roll out as good is not an ingredient you order but the frying: the coating should be thin, pale-gold and crisp, and the squid inside tender. It is meant to be eaten immediately, hot, while the coating still has its crunch — this is not food that improves on the walk back to your table.

What to avoid

The enemy here is the frozen ring. Industrial calamares come as machine-cut, perfectly uniform rings in a thick, pre-applied batter, and a great many bars — especially the tourist-facing ones — simply drop them from a freezer bag into the fryer. The tells are easy once you know them: rings that are all identical in size and thickness, a coating that is pale, puffy and gluey rather than thin and crisp, and a roll that arrives lukewarm and a little greasy, the bread already going soft. Fresh squid, cut by hand, gives rings of visibly irregular sizes and a lighter, closer coating.

The second thing to avoid is the setting rather than the dish. The terraces on Plaza Mayor itself, with waiters at the door and the roll pictured on a laminated board, charge terrace prices for what is often the frozen version. The better bocadillo is almost always at a plain, busy bar a street or two off the square — no terrace, a crowd of people eating standing at the counter, squid being fried to order behind it. A queue of locals at such a counter is real information; a half-empty terrace with a tout at the door is the opposite.

Finally, be wary of one that has obviously been sitting: a pre-assembled roll pulled from a display and handed over cold is the thing this snack should never be. It is fried to order or it is not worth having.

Practicalities

This is where the bocadillo earns its place in a visitor’s day. Spanish kitchens keep long hours but close between services — roughly mid-afternoon to the evening — and that gap catches a lot of travellers hungry with nowhere serving a proper meal. The fried-squid bar bridges exactly that gap: the bocadillo is made all day, so it is the reliable thing to eat at four in the afternoon when the restaurants are shut. It is a snack or a light, cheap lunch, not a sit-down meal, and it is eaten at the counter or on your feet rather than at a laid table.

Expect to pay roughly €3.50 to €6 for the roll at an ordinary bar, a little more with a drink. A price much above that almost always means the square’s terrace rather than a better sandwich; the roll itself does not get more expensive than this, only the chair does. Because the good versions are small, old, standing-room bars, they are the likeliest in the city to prefer cash for something this cheap, so a few coins save fumbling. And eat it on the spot: a bocadillo de calamares is a five-minute pleasure and a sad object by the tenth.