The chalkboard outside every Madrid dining room looks like a legal requirement, and it stopped being one sixteen years ago. The 1965 restaurant regulation obliged every establishment to serve a set lunch of starters, soup or cream, then fish, meat or eggs with a side, a dessert, and bread with a quarter litre of wine, beer or another drink. Real Decreto 39/2010 repealed it, and the duty survives only in Aragón, Asturias and Navarra.
Is the menú del día compulsory in Madrid? No. Real Decreto 39/2010, of 15 January, repealed the 1965 restaurant regulation that required it, and the obligation now survives only in Aragón, Asturias and Navarra, for lower-category restaurants. In the Comunidad de Madrid no restaurant has to offer one, and no legal definition says which courses or drink it includes.
The menú del día is a fixed-price lunch with a choice inside each course, and it carries no legal definition in force in the Madrid region since the national rule that set one was repealed. Each restaurant deciding what is included and what is billed separately is not sharp practice; it is what happens when a rule disappears and nothing replaces it. The repeal came through the European services directive 2006/123/CE, after which tourism powers sat with the regions.
What to ask before you sit down
This is the practical consequence for a visitor, because there is no minimum content to appeal to if the bill surprises you.
With no legal definition, each house sets how many dishes appear in each course, whether bread is inside the price, whether the drink means one glass or a bottle, and whether coffee counts as the dessert or is charged separately. Asking is not suspicion, it is the only way to know. The same absence of rules explains the medio menú, a half version with one course and a dessert.
Why it was repealed at all
The answer also explains why the rule is not the same across Spain, which is the part that confuses most visitors.
The old regulation survived until a European services directive forced a review of Spanish tourism law, and the repeal followed. Since the Constitution, tourism is a regional competence, so each region chose for itself. Most dropped the requirement; Aragón, Asturias and Navarra kept it for their lower-category restaurants.
What the 1965 rule laid down
Reading the original composition is worth it, because it is where everyone’s expectations still come from even though it binds nobody.
| Course | What the 1965 rule required |
|---|---|
| Accompaniment | Bread and a quarter litre of local wine, beer, sangría or another drink |
| Dessert | Fruit, something sweet or cheese |
| Second | Fish, meat or eggs with a side |
| First | Starters, soup or cream |
None of it is enforceable in Madrid today. What survives is habit, which is why two courses with bread and a drink is still what most people expect to find.
Fitting a set lunch into Madrid hours
This is a midday product, and midday in Madrid is later than most visitors expect.
Lunch service builds from around 2pm, set out in where to eat in Madrid, and dinner does not begin before about 9pm, covered in where to have dinner in Madrid. A set lunch is almost never served in the evening, so catching one means eating on local time.
What a set lunch is not
Three things get confused with it and run on different logic, or on none at all.
Cocido madrileño is served in its own format at its own price, in cocido madrileño in Madrid. The dishes worth seeking out and their own hours are in what to eat in Madrid. And in the city’s municipal markets each stall sets its own kitchen hours, in Madrid municipal markets.
Frequently asked questions about the menú del día in Madrid
What is a menú del día in Spain?
A fixed-price lunch offering a choice within two or three courses, served on weekdays around the middle of the day. It has no current legal definition in Madrid, so its exact shape is decided by each restaurant rather than by any rule.
Do Madrid restaurants have to offer a set lunch?
No. The 1965 restaurant regulation that required it was repealed by Real Decreto 39/2010 of 15 January. Tourism is a regional competence in Spain, and the Comunidad de Madrid does not impose the obligation on any restaurant.
Where in Spain is a set lunch still compulsory?
Only in Aragón, Asturias and Navarra, and there only for lower-category restaurants. Every other region dropped the requirement after taking on tourism powers, which makes it a commercial choice everywhere else, Madrid included.
Is bread or a drink included in the price?
Sometimes, and there is no rule either way. With no legal definition in force, each restaurant decides whether bread, a drink and coffee sit inside the price or are billed separately, so it is worth asking before you sit down.
What time is the menú del día served in Madrid?
Lunch service builds from about 2pm and the set menu is a midday product, rarely offered in the evening. Anyone hoping to eat one has to eat on local hours rather than on the earlier schedule they may be used to.
What keeps the set lunch alive in Madrid is not a rule any more. It is that people keep ordering it.