They are thin, fragile and often ineffective at the task they were designed to perform. Yet Spain’s ubiquitous restaurant napkins, known as servilletas, have become the subject of a growing appreciation movement that views them as cultural artifacts rather than disposable tableware.

Found in bars, cafés and restaurants across the country, the lightweight paper napkins are a familiar feature of Spanish dining culture. Their practical shortcomings are widely acknowledged. They tear easily, absorb little liquid and frequently require diners to use several at a time when eating oily foods such as croquetas, grilled meats or fried seafood.

Despite those limitations, the servilleta has retained a prominent place in Spain’s hospitality industry, becoming a recognizable symbol of traditional bar culture.

In some establishments, particularly older neighborhood bars, used napkins have historically been discarded onto the floor alongside olive pits, seafood shells and other remnants of a meal. The practice, while increasingly uncommon and often discouraged by modern businesses, has long been associated with informal and busy venues where customers gather for tapas and drinks.

Beyond their practical use, however, many servilletas have developed a second life as graphic expressions of local identity.

Their thin paper surface makes them particularly suitable for printing. For decades, restaurants have used them to display logos, illustrations, slogans and references to signature dishes. What might appear to be a minor branding detail has, in some cases, evolved into a visual record of Spain’s diverse culinary traditions.

Madrid-based photographer Felipe Hernandez has spent more than a decade documenting these disposable objects.

Hernandez began collecting personalized napkins from restaurants around Spain in 2014. By 2017, after accumulating more than 150 examples, he started photographing them against a white marble background and sharing the images through a dedicated social media account.

His collection has since grown to more than 1,000 pieces. Earlier this year, he published Servilletas, a book featuring approximately 600 examples drawn from restaurants across the country.

The images reveal a wide variety of approaches. Some establishments use the limited space to advertise specialty dishes or culinary achievements. Others incorporate illustrations connected to their names, local traditions or regional food culture.

Among the examples highlighted in the collection are napkins depicting roasted meats, seafood dishes and regional specialties. In Bilbao, one restaurant features an illustration of its well-known grilled lamb skewers, creating a visual link between the food being served and the napkin used afterward.

According to Hernandez, these designs provide insight into regional differences and local identities that are becoming increasingly difficult to preserve amid broader changes affecting Spain’s restaurant sector.

He argues that personalized napkins offer a small but meaningful form of resistance to the growing standardization of urban commercial spaces. Independent bars and family-run restaurants have faced mounting economic pressures in recent years, including rising operating costs, changing consumer habits and increasing competition from larger hospitality groups.

The result, Hernandez says, is a gradual loss of visual and cultural distinctions that once characterized individual neighborhoods and cities.

Because many napkin designs are directly linked to a restaurant’s menu, they also reflect local culinary traditions. Regional ingredients, cooking styles and specialties often appear in illustrations and text, transforming a disposable object into a snapshot of place and identity.

The trend toward personalization, however, appears to be declining.

Hernandez notes that newer restaurants are generally less likely to invest in custom-designed napkins, while some older establishments have abandoned the practice as a cost-saving measure.

For businesses facing financial pressures, custom printing can be difficult to justify. As a result, generic alternatives have become increasingly common.

The disappearance of personalized servilletas coincides with broader concerns about the future of independent hospitality businesses in Spanish cities. Rising rents, tourism-driven development and gentrification have contributed to the closure of numerous long-established restaurants and bars.

One example cited in Hernandez’s collection is Mesón Planeta, a Madrid restaurant known for promoting Galician-style meats and octopus dishes on its napkins. The business closed several years ago after struggling with increasing rental costs.

For former customers, the printed napkins now serve as one of the few remaining physical reminders of the establishment.

That archival function has become central to Hernandez’s project. While restaurants may close, menus change and neighborhoods evolve, the napkins preserve fragments of local history that might otherwise disappear.

The appeal of these objects, he argues, lies partly in their impermanence. Created to be used briefly and discarded, they survive only by chance, making them unlikely carriers of cultural memory.

In the introduction to his book, Hernandez describes their value through a phrase that captures the paradox at the heart of the project: “the beauty of the useless.”

For a generation of diners, collectors and photographers, Spain’s servilletas represent more than an ineffective way of cleaning greasy fingers. They have become miniature documents of a restaurant culture that continues to evolve, one meal at a time.