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Food guide

How to find good Spanish food and tapas

Tapas is a way of eating, not a category of food, and the American version frequently misses that — small plates ordered all at once and delivered together is a tasting menu, not tapas. The real thing is sequential, standing up, and closer to a bar crawl than a dinner.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • Jamón sliced by hand, to order — Ibérico or serrano, off the leg, thin enough to see through. Pre-sliced vacuum-packed ham has a different texture entirely.
  • Tortilla española that is runny in the middle — Potato and onion omelette, set outside, barely cooked at the centre. A firm tortilla all the way through has been overcooked.
  • Paella with socarrat — The caramelised crust on the bottom of the pan. It is the point, it takes attention, and a good kitchen will mention it.
  • Paella cooked to order — It takes 30–40 minutes and good places say so. Paella that arrives in ten minutes was made earlier.
  • Good olive oil, and a lot of it — Spanish cooking uses it as an ingredient, not a medium. Bread with oil and salt should be worth eating on its own.

What to order

  • Jamón ibérico — With pan con tomate. Start here.
  • Tortilla española — A wedge, room temperature, which is correct.
  • Gambas al ajillo — Prawns in garlic and olive oil, sizzling, with bread for the oil.
  • Pulpo a la gallega — Octopus with paprika and potato.
  • Paella valenciana or de marisco — For the table, ordered early.

Where to find Spanish food

Open listings put 722 Spanish restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 66 Miami, FL 29 Los Angeles, CA 15 Washington, DC 12 Las Vegas, NV 11 Chicago, IL 11 San Francisco, CA 10 Newark, NJ 10 Philadelphia, PA 9 Tampa, FL 8 Reading, PA 8 Boston, MA 8

Campuses with the most within a mile

The New School 25 FIT 22 NYU 21 CUNY Graduate Center 18 Baruch 17 Touro University 16 RACC 7 Rutgers 6 Essex 6 Lehman 6

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

How Savor Scout looks for it

Spanish searches read for socarrat and cooked-to-order language on paella, and for hand-carved jamón, which are the two places a Spanish kitchen either does the work or does not. Pintxos-style bars are distinguished from sit-down tapas restaurants, because they are different evenings.

Find Spanish food near you →

Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

All 1,000 cities →

When you might want this

Where to eat on a first date Where to eat when you're celebrating something Where to eat with a big group