Eat & drink in Zamora: Spain's best-value food city.

The tapas culture

Bar to bar, pincho to pincho: how Zamora eats.

Zamora does not "do lunch" the way you do. It does el tapeo: a slow drift from bar to bar, one drink and one pincho at each, standing at the counter, arguing about football with strangers. Dinner can be four bars and six pinchos long, and it will cost you less than a single starter in London.

The institution that proves it: "De Tapas por Zamora", the city's own tapas route, has been running since 2006 with pinchos at around €1. While the rest of Europe's food cities got expensive and self-conscious, Zamora just kept feeding people. The pincho to start with is the pincho moruno — a skewer of marinated, grilled pork — at €1.10. Order "el pincho del bar" anywhere and you will get whatever that bar does best.

The tapas streets after dark: every bar does one thing best, and the locals know which.

The $25 cheese that costs €3 here.

Queso Zamorano DOP is a raw sheep's-milk cheese that won Gold at the World Cheese Awards 2021. In American gourmet shops it sells for $13.50 to $27 per 250 g. In Zamora it arrives at your table as a tapa — a proper wedge, with bread — for about €3, often next to a glass of the local red.

This is the single most delicious price anomaly in Spanish tourism. You are not buying a cheaper version of the cheese; you are buying the original, at source, for a tenth of the export price. Eat it every day you're here. You'll dream about it when you're home.

The wine: 100 points, 30 minutes away.

Zamora's wine country is Toro, half an hour east — home of big, dark, ancient-vine reds that the world's critics take very seriously. The facts: a 100-point Parker score for Numanthia's Termanthia 2004, and the house itself now owned by LVMH. Yet a bottle of perfectly good Toro crianza starts at around €8 in a local shop.

Winery visits run €14–65, in English, bookable online — the full plan is in our Toro wine country guide. It is the easiest great-wine day trip in Spain.

When you want white tablecloths

The province holds two Michelin stars, each in a small town rather than the capital:

• El Ermitaño, Benavente — a Michelin star since 2001, one of the longest-held stars in Castile & León.
• Lera, Castroverde de Campos — starred in 2022, and also awarded a green star for sustainability.

Back in the city, the Michelin Guide's value picks — the Bib Gourmand — go to Brigecio and La Trébede: serious cooking at prices that would be unremarkable at a midweek chain back home.

The honest maths

The average UK visitor spends about €176 a day in Spain; the average American, €274. In Zamora, those numbers buy a different category of trip entirely: the Michelin-starred lunch, the boutique hotel, the case of Toro shipped home. Or, if you prefer, a full day of tapas, cheese and wine — and most of your budget still in your pocket. That is what "best-value food city" means in practice.