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Madrid, as you would expect from a major European capital, offers a huge choice of restaurants serving regional dishes from all over Spain, as well as everything from Argentine steaks to Japanese sushi. The tapas bars and restaurants in each of Madrid’s neighbourhoods reflect the distinct atmosphere of the barrios. While there isn’t much around the Paseo del Prado, the streets around the Plaza Santa Ana – just five minutes’ walk from the Prado – are densely packed with all kinds of bars and restaurants. This area is a great place for the tapeo – the pub crawl from tapas bar to tapas bar. There are lots of traditional restaurants around the Plaza Mayor (although it’s best to avoid the touristy ones on the square itself), as well as excellent gourmet tapas bars, a relatively recent phenomenon. Some of the cheapest and best tapas bars can be found in the traditionally poorer neighbourhoods of La Latina and Lavapiés, which have an appealing mixture of old-fashioned eating places and new, hip, small tapas bars and cafés, particularly on the delightful Plaza de la Paja.
Trendy, youthful Chueca and Malasaña have better bars and clubs than restaurants, but you’ll find everything from cheap, late-night places full of teenagers eating bocadillos, as well as dozens of stylish, more expensive places to eat. Some of the most fashionable places are restaurant, café, bar and club in one.
Salamanca is very swish and this is where Madrid’s very best restaurants are tucked away. If you’ve got a fortune to blow on dinner, this is the place to come. It’s also a good place for tapas in designer bars, but there are few places for anyone on a budget. Finally, remember that many of the bars in Madrid are cafés, tapas bars and drinking bars all rolled into one; we have only listed them once, under whichever heading we think seems most appropriate.
Eating out in Madrid is much cheaper than in most European capitals, and the very sensible tradition of the fixed-price lunch menu, the menú del día, means that it’s possible to try out some of the city’s best restaurants for a reasonable price.
Madrileños eat breakfast on the run, usually a milky coffee and a pastry at around 0730. They might leave the office for a plate of churros (curls of fried doughnut-like batter) dipped in a thick hot chocolate at around 1000. Lunch is eaten late, usually around 1430, with perhaps some tapas after work at around 1900. Dinner is rarely eaten before 2200, which can take some getting used to.
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