On the Snail Trail: Slurping Up Caracoles and Cabrillas in Seville

There’s one thing on Spanish menus that you might not be expecting.

It’s a delicious bar snack that comes around once a year, with locals in the south of Spain marking off days in their calendar like kids waiting for Santa.

Except they’re adults, and they’re not waiting for Santa, they’re waiting for the start of snail season.

Find out why people in Seville go nuts for snails, and where you can try them on your next visit!

Snails in Seville: Why, What, and How?

Visit Seville in the month of May and you won’t be able to avoid these little shelly boys. You’ll see locals slurping them up with joy, creating little mountains of empty, discarded shells in their wake.

The idea of eating snails is pretty squirm-inducing for most people, but these little molluscs of joy have been around in our diet for a long time. There’s evidence of snail-eating in Spain from 30,000 years ago!

Humans have always tried to eat anything that moves/crawls, and snails were no exception. For the Romans, snails were a delicacy (they even used to feed their snails meat to fatten them up). Even after the Romans, snails stuck around, becoming popular again under the Catholics.

For the Christian monks trying to get through Lent in one piece, snails were an important source of protein. Like other molluscs, the Church classifies them as seafood. Now that might sound ridiculous given that snails have never lived in water, but you’ve gotta cut those poor monks some slack.

And let’s be honest, is eating snails really any weirder than some of the other stuff humans eat? At least it’s recognisably an animal—unlike spam or baloney (I’m still not really sure I understand where either of those come from).

They’re a real delicacy in Seville and the rest of Andalucía, and well worth a try if you’re in town at the right time of year!

But as with any Spanish food, there are a lot of unspoken rules about eating snails. So today I’m here to answer all your slimy, snaily questions. Questions like: When is snail season? What do they taste like? And, why do I have to eat its face first?

Let’s dive in.

When is snail season in Spain?

The Spanish snail season is atrociously short, mostly to prevent the full extinction of snails. Walk into any bar famous for their snails and you’re likely to see entire graveyards of gastropodic communities wiped out by hungry diners.

You’ll see snails appear on menus around the end of spring, usually lasting from mid-May to the end of June. Ask for them outside of this brief window and you’re going to get waiters looking at you like you’ve asked for a slice of their granny.

How the Spanish cook and eat their snails

You’ll find two types of snails on the menus of Seville.

The most popular are called caracoles. These are the little guys, with shells no bigger than your thumbnail. You’ll get them cooked in a Middle Eastern broth of cumin, bay leaves, black pepper, and garlic—peppery without being spicy!

The hard part? They’re served in the shell, somehow looking even more like snails than they did when they were alive. They’ve got the shell, the antennae, and little faces staring at you in silent judgement.

You’ll get a small plate or even a glass with at least two dozen snails on it. This is tactile work, so put down your knife and fork and get ready to use your hands.

You need to pick the snail up by its shell, bite the head (face first), and slurp it out of the shell in one quick vacuum-like action. If you do it right, you should get all of the meat and all of the tangy, peppery broth that’s been collected in the shell in one go.

Once you’re used to caracoles, it’s time to move onto cabrillas. These are the big boys of the snail world, the jocks who spent all their time getting bulk at the gym.

You eat them much the same way as caracoles, but they’re about four times as big, so not for the faint-hearted. A bit meatier, they need a more robust sauce; made with tomatoes, paprika, garlic and green herbs.

Depending on the bar, you’ll pay around two to three euros for a tapa of caracoles, and just a bit more for the cabrillas.

Where to Eat Snails in Seville

Now that you’re all aboard the snail train, where should you go to eat them?

Like everything else in Spain, there are certain bars famous for snails. Lots of places serve them, but locals will only gather at a handful of eateries to gorge on gastropods and create wastelands of empty shells.

When you’re in Seville, check out caracoles and cabrillas at:

• Casa Diego (Calle Esperanza de Triana, 19).
• Bar Alfonso “El Rey de los Caracoles” (Calle Santas Patronas, 5).
• Casa Remesal (Calle Pureza, 64).
• Casa Antonio los Caracoles (Calle Guardamino, 1).
• Bar El Cateto (Calle Sinaí). This is the only one outside of the old town and the Triana neighbourhood, but it’s well worth the trek out past the train station!

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Looking for more things to eat? Don’t miss my guide to the 11 best tapas in Seville and where you should go to get them.

Have I missed your favourite bar for caracoles and cabrillas in Seville? Let me know in the comments if you have your own place to gobble gastropods and slurp snails. And for everything else, head to my ultimate foodie’s guide to where to eat in Seville.