Happy hour, Tuesday – Friday, 3 – 6 PM, at the bar.

In Spain the afternoon has a pause. The shops close, people go home, the streets go quiet, and the day starts again around six. They call it the siesta. America never got one, so it invented happy hour instead, and we are happy to run the American version: three hours in the afternoon when the bar is open, the tapas cost a few dollars, and the house cocktails cost a few dollars less.

The name is not a bar’s invention. It comes from the United States Navy, a century ago, when a ship’s “happy hour” was a scheduled break in the afternoon for boxing, films and music, to keep sailors sane at sea. Sailors came home with the phrase, and after the Second World War it settled on what it means today: the hour after work and before dinner when a drink costs less. It is not the siesta, and it does not pretend to be. The siesta is a rest; happy hour is a reward. But both are an afternoon pause that a whole culture agreed on, and Spain has its own drinking version too, the hora del vermut before lunch and the tardeo, the long afternoon at the bar. So we feel entitled to it.

Happy hour is served at the bar, where Mete can look after you properly; it is not on the dining-room menu. Take a stool, order in rounds, and stay for dinner if the evening turns out that way.