What to Know About Food on the Camino de Santiago

A typical day on the Camino de Santiago goes something like this: get up, walk, eat, walk, eat, relax, eat, nap, eat, sleep.

Naturally, there’s more to it than that, but it’s true that eating is a big part of the Camino experience. In this post, I’ll tell you what to expect during all those mealtimes and other opportunities to eat.

From the types of foods you’ll typically find at each meal to the cost of food and more, here’s what to know about food on the Camino.

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Find my complete travel guide for the Camino de Santiago here.

IN THIS POST

Typical Meals on the Camino

First, an overview of the types of food you can expect to find for each meal of the day on the Camino.

Note that your mileage may vary with respect to the actual types of food you’ll find on the Camino, depending on which route you walk. For example, typical meals on the Portuguese route might be different than the foods you’ll find in Spain.

Plus, regions of Spain tend of have their own local specialities, so keep an eye out for changing menu items as you progress along your route.

Breakfast(s)

On the Camino Frances, I frequently ate two breakfasts per day: one at around 8 am, as my first stop after several miles of walking, and one around two hours later, or whenever I needed to take another break.

A typical Camino breakfast consists of:

Spanish tortilla (an egg dish, often with potatoes and/or onions) OR some sort of pastry
An apple or banana
Sometimes, a piece of bread
Cafe con leche (coffee with milk)

Some places offered (or were able to make) fried eggs with ham, which was always a real treat after a few weeks of the typical breakfast offerings (which became a bit monotonous).

A plate of food: a Spanish tortilla, tomatoes, a churro, and some bread.

By the way: my favorite breakfast on the Camino Frances, hands down, was at The Essential Coffee Home, a few miles outside of Palas de Rei.

Lunch

The easiest lunch to find on the Camino is the bocadillo — a basic Spanish sandwich with the meat and cheese of your choice on a hoagie roll.

Bocadillos are not, as a general rule, terribly good or interesting sandwiches, but they are effective at providing energy. I would often eat half of a bocadillo and then save the rest for later in the afternoon, after I arrived at my destination.

Depending where you stop for lunch, you can also find lunch foods like pizza, sausage, salad, cooked vegetables, potatoes, and more.

If I had a short day of walking, I would often wait to eat lunch until I arrived at my destination for the night. On this type of day, I would usually meet up with friends at a restaurant in the town square and enjoy drinks and food for an extended period of time.

Dinner

Naturally, you can go to a restaurant and order the meal of your choice, as you would anywhere.

But there are few special types of dinners that you’ll find on the Camino — particularly, communal meals and pilgrims’ menus. Let’s get into it.

Communal Meals

Some albergues offer communal meals where, for a reasonable price, you join together with other pilgrims staying at the same albergue (often around one long table) and eat a multi-course meal cooked by the people running the albergue.

I loved these communal meals and always opted in for them when they were offered. They’re a wonderful way to meet new fellow pilgrims, and the food is typically good.

In fact, my best meal of the entire Camino Frances was one of these communal dinners — at Hostel Suseia in Zubiri. The hostess, or hospitalera, is a phenomenal cook and serves up creative foods and local specialities you won’t find elsewhere on the Camino! Definitely stay there on your way through Zubiri.

Pilgrims’ Menus

Many restaurants offer a pilgrims’ menu, or la menu de la dia.

This is a multi-course meal where you normally get to choose between one or two (or three) options for each course. The exact offerings vary, but it’s common to choose between soup and salad for the first course, paella or some form of chicken (or other meat) for the main course, and various desserts or sweets for the final course. Typically, you can also choose between wine and bottled water to drink.

Note that some restaurants also offer pilgrims’ menus at lunch. This can be a good option if you wait to eat lunch until after you are done walking for the day — especially if you prefer to have your largest meal in the middle of the day, rather than the evening.

Other Food

A few more things to be aware of with respect to types of food you’ll find on the Camino:

Some of the larger cities that you walk through are wonderful places to look for tapas (or pintxos, depending where you are). Some of my favorite evenings on the Camino were spent hopping around restaurants, hunting for the best tapas and unbelievably cheap glasses of wine. (Pampona and Logroño were especially great for this!)

Be sure to try out local specialities in the regions you walk through as you go. For example, if you eat octopus, the region of Galicia is famous for its pulpo. And certainly keep an eye out for tarta de Santiago, an almond cake you’ll begin to see more frequently as you approach Santiago de Compostela.

For snacks, you’ll pass through tons of towns with shops, and there’s the occasional stand along a random stretch of trail selling cans of soda, pieces of fruit, and packaged treats or pastries. But keep an eye out for donativo tables, where generous souls are offering food or drinks (or both!) for whatever amount you choose to donate.

A table full of plates of snacks, with a spot for people to add their donations.

Cooking on the Camino

If you’re not really up for buying every one of your meals at restaurants, you may have the opportunity to cook at times.

Specifically, some albergues (particularly municipal ones) have kitchens and cooking supplies that pilgrims are free to use.

When you stay in one of these albergues, you can buy ingredients at local supermarkets and prepare your own meals.

A fun and cost-effective way to take advantage of this option is to pool together with other pilgrims staying at the same albergue and cook together! I only did this once on my own Camino, but it was a great time and an excellent opportunity to meet a bunch of new pilgrims from many different countries.

Pilgrims dish up food they cooked together in an albergue.

Cost of Food on the Camino

Food is refreshingly inexpensive on the Camino — which is great, since you’ll need to eat a lot of it to fuel all that walking.

A typical cafe breakfast on the Camino — coffee plus a pastry or tortilla — often costs between €3 and €5 or so. If you also get any fruit or juice, you can expect to pay a little more.

For lunch, it’s not unusual to pay between €5 and €8 for a bocadillo and a drink. If you choose something else, like a cooked meal, you might pay between €10 and €15.

Prices for dinner vary wildly depending on your choices. Pilgrim’s menus typically cost between €12 and €17. Similar prices are not unusual for other types of restaurant meals, though you may spend a bit less if you order just one course.

Of course, if you join together with other pilgrims to cook your own communal meals in albergues, you’ll spend quite a bit less — as little as €2-3 per person on dinner.

If you purchase any drinks at local bars, you can expect to pay a few euros for a glass of wine, a mixed drink, or a beer.

A glass containing a tinto de verano drink.

A Kas lemon soda sitting beside a swimming pool.

In short, if you are on a tight budget and are willing to get most of your food from supermarkets and other local stores (rather than cafes and restaurants), it is possible to spend perhaps €10-15 per day on food. If you instead buy most or all of your food from cafes and restaurants, you can expect to spend closer to €25-30 per day (or more, if you eat at particularly nice places, regularly drink alcohol, etc.).

Personally, on the Camino Frances, I spent €27.90 per day on food. I ate virtually exclusively at cafes and restaurants, and occasionally bought some snacks from supermarkets. Additionally, I drank alcohol most days, which increased my costs.

Is the food good on the Camino?

Last but not least is perhaps the most important question: is the food on the Camino good?

On this, I can only speak to my own experience on the Camino Frances.

But here’s my answer: ehhhhhh, sometimes.

Sorry, I wish I had a more positive answer. I did have some genuinely great meals now and then. But, in all honesty, my average meal along the Camino was merely okay at best.

If you are a serious foodie, and have the idea that walking the Camino is a good opportunity to have a ton of fantastic Spanish food — well, I recommend getting rid of that vision ASAP. Like many places, Spain has lots of good food and lots of just okay food, and a little bit of bad food. That’s true on the Camino, too.