Beach tour: Chiringuito

Chiringuito, guingueta, xiringuito…chiri what?

Instead of the Plaza Mayor as Ana Botella- ex-mayor of Madrid- advised us, let´s go to the beach to have a relaxing cup of café con leche with some friends in a chiringuito.

But what does it mean exactly chiringuito?

According to wikipedia “a chiringuito (…) is a small enterprise, usually a bar, selling mainly drinks and tapas, sometimes meals in a more or less provisional building, often on a beach or loose surface where a more permanent structure may be inviable.”

Let’s go to the beach!

Let´s see what´s the origin of the name of this kind of small bars.

The intellectual Cesar Gonzalez Ruano was the first who used this Word for a bar opened in 1913 on the beach in Sitges. Named the place as a tribute to his travels around the island of Cuba.

During the nineteenth century the workers of sugar cane in Cuba used to drink a coffee. It was cooked by pressing a stocking and the thin stream of liquid was called chiringo. In Spanish the diminutive ending can be ´ito´ or ´ita´, like Juan- Juanito, abuelo- abuelito (grandfather), and there we go: chiringo- chiringuito. Easy- peasy.

Pros and cons of the chiringuitos on the beach:

• They have a short life every year, from aprox. May to October.
• You will probably not find the cheapest coffee of the city there, but comparing with the quality of the coffees in the city, it´s a really tasty one.
• The beautiful view compensates you for everything. You can feel the salty wind coming from the sea and put your feet deep into the sand. (By the way every kitchen should have a hole in the floor under the table full with sand of the beach to start easier the sleepy mornings.)
• Depending on the popularity of the beach you can find a lot of tourists and half naked people, which could be a little bit disturbing. Don´t forget that you are in a bar/café, so at least put on a beachwear or a T-shirt and don´t sit there in wet swimsuits.