The Hidden Genius of Spain’s Menú del Dia
It’s September and Barcelona is back in swing. Buses are full, school kids have reclaimed the morning sidewalks, and businesses have taken down their Tancat per Vacances signs. The gift of the August slow-down has ended. But another Barcelona gift is just ramping up as restaurants put out their hand-lettered chalk boards and the mid-day quiet is replaced by the clatter of cutlery and the glug of house wine.
The Spanish culture of menú del dia – the ubiquitous reasonably-priced proper two-course lunch complete with drink and small dessert – is such a visible part of Spanish culture that it’s easy to assume it has been here all along. And yet, it only dates back to the mid-1960s when the Franco-led Spanish government required mid- and lower-tier restaurants to offer fixed-price set menus in order to guarantee reasonably priced meals for both the working class and for the increasing number of tourists.
The mandate was repealed when Spain became a democracy. And yet, having been so firmly embedded in the culture, the menú del dia lives on and we can continue to enjoy our mid-day lentejas, fideuà, mongetes, botifarra, and crema catalana.
But the gift of the menú del dia isn’t just a nice meal. It’s how seamlessly the experience supports our health, our sanity, and our social interaction.
How does such a simple lunch do so much?
A tasty masterclass in environmental design
If we look at the menú del dia from an environmental psychology – rather than culinary – perspective, we can see it as a clever design where the path of least resistance is the very one that leads to what we need most.
The most obvious thing it does is make healthy food choices easier. The typical menú del dia makes many of the things we know about healthy eating – sit down, eat real food, include some veggies, control portion size, slow the pace – the default rather than a choice powered by willpower, which is a notoriously fickle friend.
But there are several less obvious ways that a menú del dia guides us toward what we really need.
It enforces restorative breaks. The menú del día entices people out of their workspace and puts them in an environment more conducive to eating and relaxing. Once there, the pace of the meal makes rushing almost impossible and there really is no choice but to put work aside and relax.
It respects our limited attention. I don’t know about you, but when I sit down to a multi-page menu I find it overwhelming – it’s what psychologists call “decision fatigue.” The more mental energy we have to use for making decisions the less we have for other things like resisting the urge to order the burger and shake. In contrast, menús del dia – with their three to five options per course that I have yet to see include a burger or shake – are so much easier to navigate. We end up saving our attention for whatever comes after lunch.
It fosters social bonding. Spain has a tradition of the sobremesa (literally “upon the table”) where people linger and chat even after the last bite is finished. This is especially true during weekend or evening meals but it is also a standard part of going for a menú del dia with friends or co-workers. The glass of wine that comes with the meal and the fact that waiters never bring the bill until you explicitly ask for it also help lubricate social interactions.
What’s on your daily menu?
Even if you don’t live in a menú del dia culture, you can learn from the lesson it illuminates:
Our environments, whether we realize it or not, are always leading us down one path or another. And when we modify our environment, we can help align our default human tendencies – like doing what’s most convenient, leaning on habits, and following the path of least resistance – with our desired outcomes.
When our default paths lead us in the right direction we don’t have to spend nearly as much effort directing ourselves. And when the number of paths is manageable, we are less likely to be paralyzed by choice.
We can experiment with defaults and limited choice at lunchtime to help support better choices. If the default lunch is a healthy one you bring from home, that’s probably what you’ll end up eating. If you eat out but make the decision to rotate among a limited set of healthy options, you reduce your decision-making burden. If you make a habit of eating somewhere other than your desk you automatically get a break. And if you schedule lunches with other people, you build opportunities for social connection into your day.
But environmental design isn’t just for lunchtime. There are many ways we can think about tweaking our environments to better support us in creating the lives we want to be living.
If you want to make it easier to do the right thing, structure your environment so that desired habits require less effort and undesired habits require more energy. To read more, buy a hard copy of a good book and put it on your pillow. To scroll less, put your phone in another room.
If you want to maintain your mental bandwidth, structure your environment to reduce cognitive load. Make decisions when you are fresh. Find ways to reduce overwhelming choice. Establish easy to follow routines. Banish distractions and other mental energy thieves.
If you want to get out more, give yourself a nudge by buying advance tickets to events or making plans with friends that are hard to get out of. Even better, try and hang out with people whose own defaults align with the habits you are trying to build.
If you want to try and reclaim a bit of work-life balance, establish clear boundaries. Eat lunch outside the office. Banish the phone from the bedroom. Intentionally block out time in your calendar for non-work things.
You can think of these tweaks as “environmental design” or “choice architecture.”
Or, taking a cue from Spain, you can simply ask yourself, “What’s on the menu today?”