A square the tourist routes bypass
Plaza de la Trinidad sits in Centro, about ten minutes on foot from the cathedral and not quite on the route between any two things that most visitors need to reach. This is precisely what makes the bars around it worth knowing. Casa Pasteles is a neighbourhood bar and café on the square: it opens early for coffee and pastries, stays open through the day, and serves tapas from lunchtime onward.
The crowd here is not the Calle Navas crowd. There is no tourist menu, no large English-language sign outside, no queue at the door before 14:00. The people at the bar at noon are ordering coffee, reading a newspaper, or eating a mid-morning pastry. By lunchtime the mood shifts to beer and tapas, and the square outside fills with people from the university faculties nearby.
What to order
The kitchen is not trying to be memorable. It does the Andalusian standard list without shortcuts: tortilla española that holds its shape and is properly soft inside, croquetas de jamón with a thin crust, and the rotating free tapa that in Granada comes with every drink without asking. In the morning, the napolitanas de chocolate (the flaky pastry filled with dark chocolate) are good enough to justify an early visit before the cathedral opens.
For drinks, draft beer and house wine at the usual Granada prices: €2–3 per drink with a tapa. If you want a more considered choice, the bar also keeps a small selection of local wines by the glass.
The setting
The square has a garden in the centre with benches and a few large trees that provide shade through the afternoon. In warm weather the bar has tables outside that face the square. The atmosphere is local rather than architectural: this is where students eat a quick lunch, where local families stop for a drink on Sunday morning, where the pace of the city is closer to everyday life than to tourism.
Getting there
Plaza de la Trinidad is easy to walk to from the cathedral: head west along Calle Mesones or Gran Capitán and the square is about eight minutes on foot. The bar is at street level on the square's edge. For a more substantial dinner in the area, Calle Navas and its cluster of tapas bars is a ten-minute walk east.
