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Spain is an essential foodie pilgrimage, and no city holds a candle to Madrid when it comes to variety of national and international cuisines. Its cutting-edge restaurants helmed by celebrated chefs make the city one of Europe's most renowned dining capitals.
When it comes to dining, younger madrileños gravitate toward trendy neighborhoods like bearded-and-bunned Malasaña, gay-friendly Chueca, rootsy La Latina, and multicultural Lavapiés for their boisterous and affordable restaurants and bars. Dressier travelers, and those visiting with kids, will feel more at home in the quieter, more buttoned-up restaurants of Salamanca, Chamartín, and Retiro. Of course, these are broad-brush generalizations, and there are plenty of exceptions.
The house wine in old-timey Madrid restaurants is often a sturdy, uncomplicated Valdepeñas from La Mancha. A plummy Rioja or a gutsy Ribera del Duero—the latter from northern Castile—are the usual choices for reds by the glass in chicer establishments, while popular whites include fruity Verdejo varietals from Rueda and slatey albariños from Galicia After dinner, try the anise-flavored liqueur (anís), produced outside the nearby village of Chinchón, or a fruitier patxaran, a digestif made with sloe berries.
Most budget prix fixes in Madrid are limited to lunch, but La Sanabresa offers a budget three-course dinner as well. Choose from more than 20 appetizers and 40 entrées that comprise a highlight reel of grandmotherly Spanish cuisine: gazpacho, ensaladilla rusa, fried anchovies, chicken cutlets, and on and on. Service is old-school and no-nonsense, just like the decor (think white paper tablecloths and wooden straight-back chairs).
Find primal pleasure here picking the meat off a hake head served in a cauldron of gingery broth or slurping your weight of wok-charred noodles tossed with chicken and seafood. Stir-fried okra, sweet-and-sour pork ribs, and shrimp soup are other perennial favorites among the mostly Chinese clientele.
Unhinge your jaw and devour a bocadillo de calamares, the classic Madrid sub overstuffed with fried calamari, at the most popular outpost of this local chain; ask for lemon and aioli to zhuzh it up.
Hand-rolled New York–style bagels, made fresh daily, hit the spot when continental breakfast fatigue sets in.
The scenic cobblestone street that winds down to La Latina from Mercado de San Miguel is lined with mediocre touristy tapas bars—this, however, isn't one of them. Inside the stone-walled tavern, locals and visitors alike chow down on the house specialty: griddled mushrooms with jamón (dry-cured ham) and garlic-parsley oil.
This bar opened in 1964 and has been feeding garlicky griddled mushrooms to the hungry masses ever since.
Get your brunch fix here with killer homemade pastries, eggs Benedict, and single-origin coffees.
This mom-and-pop lunch-only staple has paper tablecloths, walls hung with ceramic plates, and a chalked menu. The ever-rotating prix fixe menu is the move here—for €15 (or €18 on weekends), choose from, say, rustic bean stew, a huge T-bone steak, or a wild-mushroom scramble, followed by homemade chocolate cake.
Some of the best tacos you can gobble down in Madrid are found, improbably, in tourist central, just off Plaza Mayor. There are also pitch-perfect classics like cochinita pibil (slow-roasted marinated pork) chalupas, huitlacoche quesadillas, and pozole (choose from three types), as well as real-deal margaritas and cajeta (caramel) crepes. Outdoor tables with heat lamps are available for those who book ahead.
When Enrico Bosco arrived in Madrid from Italy in the early '90s, he couldn't find a decent Italian restaurant, so he decided to open one. Always bustling and frequented by families and young couples, this trattoria seems like a direct transplant from Naples with its superb fresh pastas, pizzas, and focaccias.
Ice cream made on the premises with fresh fruit, top-quality chocolate, and all sorts of other add-ins make this corner heladería a neighborhood favorite come summer.
