142 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

This upmarket Argentine asador (steak house) hits all the high notes with its daintily crimped empanadas, regional breads, gutsy South American wines, and flame-licked vegetables and steaks airlifted in from La Pampa with just the right amount of char. In 2023, another location, Piantao Chamberí, opened by the Alonso Martínez metro station.

This coffee shop with exposed-brick walls is an adorable breakfast nook worth seeking out for its single-origin brews and well-priced plant-based brunches.

Get your brunch fix here with killer homemade pastries, eggs Benedict, and single-origin coffees. 

After browsing the art collection at the Lázaro Galdiano, walk north a block to reach this charming café suited to both working and schmoozing. There are sandwiches, chia bowls, smoothies, and pastries on the menu, in addition to teas and the usual coffee drinks. The handful of wooden tables fill up fast at brunch on weekends.

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.

This ultra-trendy butcher-shop-themed restaurant spurred the revival of Calle de Ponzano as Madrid's most exciting tapas street. Feast on eye-catching, impeccably prepared market-driven dishes like carpaccio-truffle roll-ups and grilled octopus slathered in chimichurri. Should this location be packed to the gills, make a beeline for sister restaurant SDD2 tucked behind the Gran Vía thoroughfare (Calle de la Virgen de los Peligros 8).

At this secret local hangout tucked behind Gran Vía and Mercado de los Mostenses, €12 gets you an appetizer, entrée, dessert, and drink—and a free cordial if the old-school waiters take a liking to you. The menu is a highlight reel of Spanish soul food including cocido madrileño (meat and garbanzo stew; served on Wednesdays when it's cold out), salmorejo (chilled tomato-garlic soup), sherried kidneys, Asturian fabada, and huevos rotos (lacy fried eggs and potatoes).

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.

Madrid's best modern steak house, Sua ("fire" in Basque) is dedicated to meats and wild-caught fish cooked over open flame. Occupying a stunning circular indoor courtyard, the restaurant has an ample list of Champagnes, cavas, and bold Spanish reds, fittingly luxurious sidekicks to a 40-day dry-aged sirloin from Galicia or roasted scarlet shrimp plucked from Andalusia's Atlantic coast. Desserts, particularly the cheesecake, punch above their weight.

A Lavapiés landmark opened in 1786, this taberna's regulars have included realist painter Ignacio Zuloaga, countless champion bullfighters, and King Alfonso XIII. Sip on a sudsy caña in the creaky, characterful bar area along with a free tapa or two and then scram—there's much better food to be had in this barrio.

What's that fire-truck-red stew on every table in this tiny neighborhood tavern? Callos a la madrileña, Madrid-style tripe flavored with industrial quantities of garlic and smoky Extremaduran paprika. Other San Mamés standbys include fried bacalao (salt cod), truffled eggs and potatoes, and steak tartare. Book ahead or show up early (by 9 pm) to snag a table.

Floor-to-ceiling windows, an intimate corner bar, and throwback tapas keep this "tasca moderna" packed with neighborhood dwellers night after night. Particularly addictive are the gildas (anchovy skewers) and marineras murcianas, loopy crackers topped with potato salad and draped with an anchovy.

This "gin bar" helped start the Spanish gin-tónic craze of the late 1980s, and though perhaps less avant-garde than it once was, the quality of food and drinks is consistently fantastic. Grab a cocktail at one of the wooden high-tops in the bar area, or sit down for a soup-to-nuts dinner in the classy dining room at the back—just remember to book a table weeks in advance (especially on weekends). The menu is long and eclectic with Asturian standouts such as fried rice with zamburiñas (queen scallops), roasted octopus, and verdinas (buttery green beans) with quail.

The originator of Madrid's third-wave coffee revolution, Toma—with two other locations in Chamberí (Toma Café Olavide and Proper Sound)—is a favorite among expats and local coffee geeks. After satisfying your cold brew, flat white, or pour-over cravings in the newly renovated digs, indulge in any of the delicious open-face tostas. Natural wine is also available. 

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. 

Chef Roberto Martínez Foronda turns food critics' heads with his Spanish-fusion restaurant hidden inside the Mercado de Vallehermoso, Chamberí's traditional market. The ever-changing tasting menu—a steal at €60—takes cues from chifa (Peruvian-Chinese) and nikkei (Peruvian-Japanese) culinary canons and incorporates fresh ingredients from the market.

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. 

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more romantic restaurant than this snug wine bar with a rotating menu of a dozen or so dishes and eclectic Spanish wines. Antique wooden tables are tucked among bookshelves and wine cabinets, and fresh flowers grace the entryway and wait stations. Dishes that never come off the menu include medallions of house-cured salmon with a pickle vinaigrette and a swoon-worthy hand-chopped steak tartare.

Some go to El Escorial for the monastery; others go for Charolés. It's a landmark that attracts a crowd of its own for its noble bearing, with thick stone walls and vaulted ceilings, wooden beams and floors, and stuffy service; its summer terrace a block from the monastery; and its succulent dishes, such as the heavy beans with clams or mushrooms, and the game meats served grilled or in stews. The mammoth, four-course cocido offered on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, tests the endurance of even those with the heartiest appetites.

You may wonder why bland-looking Cisne Azul is crowded with locals in this style-obsessed neighborhood. The reason is simple: wild mushrooms. In Spain there are more than 2,000 different species, and here you can sample the best from the province of León, grilled with a bit of olive oil, and served perhaps with a fried egg yolk, scallops, or foie gras. Elbow up to the bar and order the popular mezcla de setas (mushroom sampler).

Away from town and surrounded by trees in what used to be a mountain cabin, this family-oriented restaurant is coveted by madrileños, who come here to enjoy the terrace in summer and the cozy bar area with a fireplace in winter. It has a good selection of fish and rice dishes, but the meats and seasonal plates are what draw the large following. Take Paseo Juan de Borbón, which surrounds the monastery, exit through the arches and pass the casita del infante (Prince's Quarters) on your way up to the Monte Abantos, or get a cab at the taxi station on Calle Floridablanca.

Following the successful transformation of the Mercado de San Miguel, near the Plaza Mayor, the city completely refurbished this old neighborhood market into a more cosmopolitan enclave. Above the traditional market, join madrileños for booze and international food—think sushi, Greek, Italian—and tapas (seafood options are particularly noteworthy). On the third level is a casual restaurant, La Cocina de San Antón, and a large terrace, perfect for indulging in a cold daiquiri or a caipirinha on a hot summer night.