Bar Los Diamantes

Los Diamantes is the anchor of Calle Navas — the short pedestrian street just off Puerta Real that is the spiritual centre of Granada's free-tapa tradition. The original bar (there are now six locations across the city) has been open since 1942, still operates on a stand-at-the-bar model, and serves perhaps the best fried-fish tapa in Andalusia. The system is simple: order a caña (small beer) or a glass of fino, and a plate arrives. Order another, and a different plate arrives. Three rounds is dinner for €12.

The kitchen is narrow, hot, open to the bar, and run by a crew who have been doing the same job for thirty years. Fried calamari, battered anchovies, pimientos de Padrón, tortilla de patatas, a miniature bocadillo of pork loin with alioli — the rotation of fifteen tapas covers a complete Andalusian coastal menu. The beer is Alhambra Reserva 1925 on tap, colder than anywhere else in the city. Wine drinkers stick to a glass of Pedro Ximénez or a dry fino from Jerez.

There are no tables, or rather, there are tables but no reservation system — you stand at the bar, shoulder-to-shoulder with off-duty policemen, lawyers from the courts at Plaza Nueva, students from the university, and occasional visitors who have found the place. This is the Granada that its own residents eat in; the unofficial rule is that first-time visitors go to Chikito for dinner and Los Diamantes for the hour before. Nothing represents the city better.

For Solo Dining: Los Diamantes is the Granada solo table par excellence. The counter is its own community; the tapas come without ordering; a single glass of fino is enough to anchor an hour's meal. You will be shoulder-to-shoulder with locals rather than seated alone at a table for one. It is also the least expensive serious meal in a serious city — three rounds is dinner for under fifteen euros, and no solo traveller is ever treated as an inconvenience.