Small plates are a rhythm, not a course. Four to open, then order in waves, and keep something cold going the whole way through.
The most common way to get a tapas menu wrong is to treat it like a starter list. You read all eighty-two lines, you pick one thing each, the food arrives at once, and the table spends the rest of the night eating in silence off its own plate. That is a set menu with extra steps.
Order four to open. Not four each: four for the table, whatever four the group argues its way to fastest. They come out when they are ready rather than together, which is the point: the table eats one thing at a time and talks between them.
Then order again. A tapas meal is built in waves, and the second wave is always better than the first because by then you know what the kitchen is good at. Move to something larger when the table has committed: the paella and the whole fish are for a group that has decided to stay.
Keep something cold going the whole way through. A glass of Spanish white or a cold pour does more work across two hours of small plates than any single pairing does across one big one.
Last order is thirty minutes before close, which is later than most people assume. There is usually time for one more wave.
