Una Grande Libre reads the sign above the entrance to a bar-restaurant in Madrid’s Usera neighbourhood. This was Francisco Franco’s motto for Spain – one, great, free – and it is accompanied by a large portrait of the dictator superimposed on to the window.

The exteriors of El Cangrejo in Ciudad Real and Casa Pepe in Despeñaperros are a little bit more subtle, but not much: decorated ostentatiously in the red and yellow of the Spanish flag. The accompanying historical symbols on display, such as the yoke and arrows of the Falange and the Eagle of San Juan, remove any doubt: the year is 2026 and you have encountered one of Spain’s network of bars and restaurants that proudly glorify Franco and his dictatorship.

These unsettling and unusual places tell a vivid story about the unique way that Spain deals with its past – or fails to. They seem all the more confusing in the context of Pedro Sánchez’s recent historical memory legislation, and beg the question: how do these places still exist?

Portraits of the dictator are non-negotiable in these restaurants: you’ll find them on the tables in Ávila’s El Rincón Nacional, for example, alongside the 1kg steaks they serve. Una Grande Libre has a stone bust of Franco on display, alongside numerous pictures of him on the walls, while Restaurante El Cangrejo has the most unique version I’ve come across, where they’ve Photoshopped El Caudillo into a Real Madrid shirt. After a meal of rustic Spanish fare, order a coffee and you’ll find the packets of sugar pay tribute to the 1981 attempted military coup. You may well hear........

© The Guardian