CITRA Restaurant
 

I read about this restaurant located at Castello 18 in Madrid in Fodor's Spain 2008 book. This was our first contemporary spanish dinner and aside from being the most beautiful and delicious food I had ever tasted, the staff was above and beyond what I expected. First of all, I do not speak spanish but did the best I could. The staff was more than accomodating in so many ways. First there was Francisco, CITRA's Sommelier. He was so helpful in translating the menu to english for us and helping choose a perfect bottle of red wine. Jaime brought us a delicious assortment of breads to choose from and then brought us one course after another, my favorite being the mushroom ravioli with truffle sauce. At one point I asked my friend to tell me how to say restroom in spanish. I practiced "bano" as I got up and, as I walked toward the bano there stood Alvaro (who also waited on us) with a smile on his face (no doubt amused by my trying to learn the word bano or my pronunciation of it) as he opened the door to the bano for me. He was later extremely helpful in finding just the right local dance spot for us, calling a cab and explaining, in spanish, to the cab driver where to take us. After finishing dinner we moved to the bar for a cocktail before leaving. There we were greeted by Elias, Chef and Co-Owner of CITRA. He asked if we enjoyed our meal and he smiled with great pleasure as we just couldn't find the words to describe this amazing food he had just prepared for us. Before leaving we also had the pleasure of meeting Owner, Geraldine. She took the time to tell me more about where she came from and a little more about CITRA. She asked how we heard about the restaurant and I told her from Fodor's. I was the second person she had heard that from that night.

Everyone from CITRA was gracious, professional and also had a wonderful sense of humor. I loved it and would be sure to include dinner at CITRA's anytime I am back in Madrid.

Why does this one and only post by djkich sound like a blurb?

was thinking the same thing myself..........

I doubt that it would be something written by the restaurant people.

Citra is not cheap at all, and it is not an "unknown" place here in Madrid, so I don´t feel that they need the extra publicity.

Rgds, Cova

Hi, Cova.
I usually go to Castello 9 or El Chiscón; I'll take a look next time.

As you can see from my Trip Report that is posted right before this post, we too went to Citra and had a great meal. We chatted with the owner Gerladine as well and I think we were the other people that told her we were recommended to her restaurant through Fodors. We knew her English was very good and found out that she had lived in NYC with her husband while he was studiynd at Columbia. We loved the restaurant too but did not like the cigarette smoke, so Geraldine indicated that if you request a table in the front there is no smoking allowed there.

I guess djkich's dinner at Citra impressed them a lot because it was the only thing on their entire trip they enjoyed enough to write about. I wonder if the rest of the trip was really that bad and uninspiring.

Spain uninspiring? Never!

but Robert, my point was that djkich went to all the trouble of finding this website, registering here to make a report, and didn't find a single thing on their entire trip to Spain "inspiring" enough to write about or even mention except for this one restaurant. Don't you think that's a little odd -- that a restaurant is the ONLY thing on their trip worth talking about?

Josele, I feel that it is one of these trendy places trying hard to be like NY that come every now and then in Madrid.

Although I haven´t eaten there, so it would be better if I shut up and try it sometime. It is only that we have been pretty unlucky with the latest recommendations ( Pandelujo was a disappointment if you compare it to No-Do, Leblon was kind of a disaster, but funny, so full of "pijos" ... ).

Bye, Cova

Wow, such a fuss just because I took my first trip to Europe and was so impressed by CITRA that I had to write about my experience there. BTW, I loved everything about Madrid and Seville, especially Madrid. I loved the Flamenco show New Year's Eve at Cafe de Chinitas, I loved how the people lived and interacted, I loved the architecture, the windows, staying at the Westin Palace (another wonderful staff), the food and I just loved everything about my trip. No underlying motives here.