Tapas and restaurants for vegetarians

In Madrid, I loved Vega, a completely vegetarian restaurant. Food was great. It is small so be sure to make reservations. In Seville, I loved Dona Rufino. They had lots of vegetarian options for me. I still dream of the eggplant fries with the special sauce. In Seville you also might like cooking classes that they offer at the big market. We took one and really enjoyed it.

There are a chain of restaurants in Spain with locations in Madrid called "Honest Greens". The food is delicious and cheap. Great choices for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians like my husband. Really good quality and inventive recipes. So if you want a quick bite, check out Honest Greens.

Thanks so much itsv. This info is great and we will definitely be trying these places.

My wife is vegetarian, though eats seafood (but honestly, very limited "safe" seafood), and did not seem to have any problem finding tapas she enjoyed. I recall any number of fried or fresh vegetables (fried eggplant with a drizzle of honey or molasses, padron peppers), cheese, potatoes bravas, croquettes, olives, breads with any number of non-meat toppings. That is just the basic stuff, many places will have some creative non-meat options.

In Seville, we did stumble on "Senora Pan" we liked the menu, not realizing it was mostly vegan. They do a vegetarian paella that was very good, and really everything we had, and saw, was very good.

In non-vegetarian restaurants you will need to inquire about the contents of dishes. Ham is used rather a lot as a flavoring, such as in vegetable dishes. And I once bought what looked like a goat-cheese salad that had ham hiding under the cheese. I'm not a vegetarian, so it wasn't an issue for me.

The menu del dia is usually an excellent deal for lunch on weekdays. The options are often posted on a blackoard or sandwichboard out on the sidewalk. Descriptions of offerings are likely to be more cryptic than you'll see on a standard menu.

I'm another veg (who occasionally eats local seafood) and I have pretty much lived on tapas when traveling in Spain. I just peruse what is on offer on the counter and point to order, supplemented with some high school Spanish. I have an obsessive cookbook collection, so I like to prepare by perusing them before a vacation.
One dish that can be a lifesaver for a vegetarian in Andalucia is chickpeas and spinach.
Good point to look out for jamon--I once ordered scrambled potatoes and eggs and had to reorder without the jamon topping--to the utter bufuddlement of the staff, lol.

I can only "third" the comment about ham. They manage to stick it in many things, very similar to the American South where pork comes in greens, potatoes, rice, gravy, salad, fish dishes, jello even, I suppose.

You may find this podcast on the topic interesting

http://wheninspain.blubrry.net/2019/08/28/vegan-vegetarian-spain-with-the-alternative-travelers/

Thank you Carlos for this fantastic article. I now can’t wait to get to Madrid specifically for the food! Lots of other reasons as well of course.
Thanks everyone else too for great suggestions.

I forgot to mention, try to sign up for the Granada Tapas Tour. Wonderful owner and fabulous tour. We learned a lot not only about tapas but also the city of Granada and its history. A highlight of our trip. Just tell them how many vegetarians and they will make sure to have options for you since the tour pre-selects the tapas on the tour.

In Granada try to book a Carmen for a dinner. You go right before sunset and see the view of the Alhambra and it is magical when darkness falls and it is all lit up. We did ours at Las Tomasas. They had lots of vegetarian choices for me (I do eat seafood).
I found it was pretty easy to eat great vegetarian dishes in Spain.

Sounds great, the tour and Carmen. Could you tell me who runs the tapas tour? Also could you say where to find out more info about Carmen?

A "carmen" in Granada is a traditional house with an inner garden-patio surrounded by a wall and sometimes with a tower where they may grow vegetables and flowers. There are many, most of them private.

We did our tapas tour through Gayle, owner of Granada Tapas Tours. Gayle is good friends with Rick Steves. If you go to Rick's facebook page for one of his posts in May, you will find him talking about eating tapas and touring with Gayle (which he did the night before our tour). Rick posted a video of the two of them talking about tapas.. You can sign up at this link https://www.granadatapastours.com/
Ramon was our guide and he did a great job.

For info on the Carmen dinner, I just looked at previous posts here on the Spain forum. This post had a lot of good suggestions. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/spain/carmen-rec-in-granada
Taxis are cheap in Granada so we took one up the hill to the restaurant. The restaurant then called a taxi for us at the end of our meal. In Granada we stayed at the NH Victoria which I thought had the best breakfast options for vegetarians out of all the places we stayed at during our trip.