Madrid, Spain’s sprawling, cosmopolitan capital, happens to be the best place in the country to drink wine. Just as Madrid’s cuisine brings together influences from all over Spain, Madrid wine lists feature the best wines from every corner of the country.
In Madrid’s democratic dining scene, bistronomía-style restaurants provide diners with the chance to enjoy world-class product and impeccable recipes without the commitment that might come with star-laden tables. Here are some of our picks to try.
You may not think of Spain as one of the best places in the world to eat meat, but it is. Spaniards are carnivorous at heart, eating all parts of the local domesticated animals with enthusiasm and in various preparations. There’s one kind of meat cooking that stands above all others in Spain, however: fire cooking.
Madrid is a global cosmopolitan city with a diverse food scene to match, but the city retains a love of traditional eateries of the type lost to time in many cities.
Spain’s greatest contribution to the world’s food may be jamón ibérico, the salted, cured ham made from the Iberian pig. This is the delicacy par excellence of Spanish cuisine, beloved in Spain and abroad, sliced razor-thin by hand and presented on fractal platters, meltingly tender. Many consider Iberian ham to be the world’s greatest ham. But Iberian ham differs from other ham.
With so much variety to choose from, navigating Madrid’s restaurant scene can seem like a daunting task. Before you even set sail, it’s worth taking stock of the city’s idiosyncratic dining customs. Most notoriously, the timetable. Madrid eats late: lunch is commonly taken between 2pm and 4pm while dinner is not much earlier than 9pm and often (especially in summer) as late as 11pm.
