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Bar Las Teresas yesterday, and a chilled late Sunday afternoon vibe. I stopped by after a lunchtime tapas tour for a penúllitma and a chat with the guys. This is one of the many family-run bars in Sevilla that I’ve developed a close friendship with over the past 24 years. Seeing these bars now being overrun by greedy copycat food tour operators is really heartbreaking. But there are still occasional moments like this.
This takes me back to a subject near and dear to my heart …. the many tapas bars I have come to know and love during the many years in Sevilla. And since starting my Sevilla Tapas Tours many of them have also become places I have enjoyed a working relationship with. This is a job I created for myself that I love, and one that has developed organically since I began the original Sevilla Tapas website in 2007. Then in 2014 I created We Love Tapas as a complimentary “sister company” so I could offer a slightly different style of food & wine tours that would maintain the quality of the ones I had built up over the years.
It was while I was developing We Love Tapas that I first noticed a huge increase in the number of food tours being offered in Sevilla. And upon closer inspection I saw that some of them were actually blatant copies of my own tours. A little further research showed how the copycats had previously been in touch with me for information, or had even sent “clients” on my tours so they could see what I did, where I went, etc. And I found this disturbing. Not because I have a problem with healthy competition – something that can indeed keep you on your toes and stay aware of changes in the market. But because many of these new tours were cutting corners and were so inferior in quality that they were an embarrassment. It always seriously upsets me that someone would ever leave Sevilla thinking the food here is anything less than amazing.
Well, that’s the free market for you. And as I say, nothing wrong with competition perse. BUT… what the fuck is it about people who just copy tours without a care for the bars themselves? I mean, I have personally known all of the bars that have ended up being a part of my food tours for many many years. I know the owners, the staff, we already had a relationship. And we also respect each other. So I’ve never asked them to give me a “deal” on prices, I’ve never insulted them by saying I was “supporting” them and was “good for their business”. Frankly, none of the places I go to on my tours need my business because they are always busy and buzzy… which is WHY I go to them. I love them.
Let me repeat. I LOVE them.
So when I see many of the aspects of why I love them being abused and eroded by thoughtless and greedy tour operators it pisses me off. I don’t have formulaic scripted food tours like these other ones. Mine are very personal and they vary a lot, depending on the number of people and client preferences. For example, there are bars I will only go to with two clients, and other bars I know are good for larger groups of up to 6, because they have the space and we won’t “stick out” like a group of tourists. Which is to say that I respect the “ecosystem” of these bars.
Because these types of bars do have their own “ecosystem”, many having been developed over generations, with family and friends and regular clients that are a part of the fabric of what makes them so special. Of course these are the places that everyone wants to visit. But what I do is choose the ones that I think work well for visiting, and for the others I give a list to my clients and recommend they go on their own.
Something that these Copycat Food Tour Operators haven’t seemed to figure out (duh) is that … you can’t just fill the same bars with more and more tourist tours and expect them to remain “authentic” and “local”! Also guys, there are MORE THAN 3000 TAPAS BARS IN SEVILLA. Surely if you are a new company starting out you should look to find your own favourite bars, and make yourself appear unique by not just doing what others are doing. Think about it.
Stuff like this just makes my day. After a couple of hours sorting out “papeles” at the social security office for my online digital certificate, and then setting up appointments for blood tests and my next oncology appointment, it was definitely BEER O’CLOCK. But then I remembered reading about a place I’d never been to (yep, there are still a few of them out there) so Peter and I walked over to the 
Preview tasting menu: “solid cocktail” of Hidalgo fino, Lustau vermouth with trout roe and orange zest; grilled oysters with toasted butter and artemia; onion crisp topped with larded tuna, onion purée and tuna fat; cod liver salad on mushroom slivers, baby spinach and lettuce, fish emulsion and spicy vinegar; squid ink potato parmentier with cuttlefish roe and chipirón; sea bass with confit black trumpet mushrooms and fish emulsion; lemon meringue “pie” on a crispy biscuit.
A bit like when you see bullheads in a bar, you can always spot an inauthentic travel piece on Sevilla that talks about all the “spit and sawdust” bars here, with napkins strewn all over the floor. I’ve lived here for over 23 years and the very few bars in the centre that used to put down sawdust have long since stopped this practice. But every now and then you find one. This was taken at Taberna Azahar, a bar I’ve been planning to go to for ages (mostly for the name, truth be told). It’s up in the Macarena barrio, not a place I frequent very often. Anyhow, although they still put down sawdust, there are little bins throughout the bar for paper napkins.
Chef Óscar here at Casa Morales has no idea what the barmen have written on the specials board. Do you? The past couple of days I’ve been checking in at my usual “tapas tour bars”, saying hi to everyone, you know, just staying connected. And today this happened. Cracked me up…
Back in the “old days” women in Spain (as in many countries) weren’t allowed in bars, so of course there was no need to have a toilet for them to use. You can still sometimes come across old urinarios like this one, which didn’t even used to have doors on them. This relic is in one of my favourite sherry bars, 
It’s orange and lemon season in Sevilla.
Going through old pics today, attempting to catch up on 
After suffering through an hour surrounded by pijos at a new bar opening, this was the antidote. Sevilla’s oldest bar. Felt like myself again…