Mercado Central de Cádiz

The Mercado Central de Cádiz is located on the Plaza de Abastos which was designed by Torcuato Benjumeda. It consists of a hall in the middle and a wall all around it. Shops or stalls can be found in the wall from the inside, with doric columns between the shops. Between the outer wall with the shops and the hall in the middle there is 4-5 meters of uncovered space, a kind of atrium.

It is a lively market with stalls for fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, household items and more, as well as many standing tables for eating. The fish market is in the hall in the middle, and there are vegetable stalls at all four corners of the fish hall. Strange but true. Around the fish hall in the outside walls there are all kinds of food stalls and also many stalls with ready meals. There are standing tables in the atrium on two sides of the fish hall, the other two sides have no standing tables.

There are also bar stools at the standing tables and if you manage to get hold of an empty standing table you can consider yourself lucky. The standing tables belong to each stall and you have to buy your drinks there. You can get the food from anywhere, only one person has to stay at the table at a time so that it doesn't get lost.

There are all kinds of delicious things to eat. I was particularly impressed by the dry sherry, the salty chocolate cake and the fried cochos (squid strips) & croquetas (croquettes made from ham or stockfish) 😋.

I was not impressed by the chicharrones (fried pork belly), which was nice and crispy but too salty 🤢.

It is open every day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. except of Sunday only from 12 to 5 p.m. and Friday and Saturday a hour longer in the evening.

If you want to dive into market life or eat through the food specialities of Cádiz, go there!Read more