If you like sherry, this is your place. It was packed with people around 9 pm on a Friday night…read more We bellied up to the bar, and asked the bartender what was good. He asked whether we liked soft or strong. We said strong (of course!) and ordered two glasses of the Amontillado (like in the Poe story, but not!). It was promptly delivered with a small complimentary bowl of green olives. We also ordered two of the anchovy on toast tapas (one of the best things I've had in Madrid so far), and a chorizo tapa with small crackers. Of course, we had to order another Amontillado to wash it down. All of this set us back only 16.60 euros, which is about the cost of one glass of wine back home in West LA. Not bad. Then it was off in search of garlic shrimp! This is a great little bar, and we plan to visit it again before we leave the city.

No lock on the bathroom stalls p.s only one stall in total, can't flush in the toilet and staff ruderead more

This is a great wine bar in Chueca. They will serve you the perfect glass based on your…read morepreferences, no need to study a menu and try to choose. Let your server guide you! There are a variety of tapas to snack on if you're hungry. Be aware that this is a popular neighborhood spot and small, so it fills up quick any night of the week. I'll definitely be returning on my next trip to Madrid!

Possibly our highlight of our 4 days in Madrid. As a big fan of Spanish wines, I let our hosts…read morerecommend the wines to accompany our amazing selection of Spanish cheeses (and the olive oil was amazing as well), and all were amazing.. The wine list is entrely Spanish wines and our hosts did a great job telling us about the wines. Very impressed and would definitely make another trip here if we find ourselves in Madrid again.

We were walking back to our hotel one evening and realized bodega de la Ardosa was nearby. We had…read moreit in our list to try but had just finished dinner at another tapas spot so saved it for a different night. I don't eat olives unless I'm in Spain, I don't really like olives at all but for some reason when I'm abroad I can stomach green olives and eat several. Theirs were yummy. The Spanish tortilla and artichoke were my fav! I could have ordered two of each. We had a glass of wine and a few tasty plates and were all set. This place is bustling in a great way! Highly recommend. Bar service was great!

Perfect little stop for vermouth. Cozy, warm vibe with dim lighting and a lively crowd. Small space…read morebut super inviting, and the prices are great.

Good spot to get a bite if you are going to the Prado. The Spanish omelet was cold and a bit under…read moreseasoned. The ham croquettes were very tasty. It was a nice atmosphere and a good place to sit and chill for a bit.

We did A LOT of walking on this vacation exploring various cities and small towns, taking walking…read moretours, and just generally meandering around seeing all the little shops and investigating potential places to eat. The problem with searching for places to eat in an unfamiliar town, esp a high tourist traffic town, is it's hard to tell which places are worth hitting up. Cervantes was one of those places. We pretty much scouted 3 or 4 places to have lunch and this one seemed like it had the most locals eating in it, the place was packed and full of smiling faces from satisfied customers. Luckily we were seated quickly and something that I appreciated was the menus have english descriptions for us limited spanish speaking people (some places we ate at did not.) We ordered emanadas, ham croquettes, garlic shrimp, and some sheep's cheese in olive oil. Sounds like a nice small lunch but I can assure the portions were sizeable and super filling. We couldn't finish all of it even though everything was delicious. I think my favorite were the ham croquettes as well as the empanadas. One thing about the empanadas is I was thinking they'd be like the latin american-filled pastry-hand pie type, but they were actually pie-pie type...like a slice of double crusted pie filled with savory tuna goodness. We each ordered one but could've just gotten one to share since they were pretty huge. Overall this place was great. Friendly service, good food, and a welcoming atmosphere. We definitely left with satisfied smiles on our faces too.

We were looking for inexpensive dining options and Lateral was recommended by our hotel staff. The…read moremenu had a very unique take on familiar options. I was craving a burger. They had one but it as made with veal, which kind of turned me off. Instead I decided to have the gyozas. (Dumplings which were half with veggies and half with minced chicken.). They were good, but they were not quite warm. They came with a dipping sauce which added a little kick of flavor. My sister had the veal, which was very thin and breaded. She said it was quite good. The restaurant was clean inside, but very informal and plain. Service was good and they had a full bar. Lateral was good; but nothing special to warrant a second visit.

This place was recommended by our Airbnb host. This was his favorite spot for tapas…read more You should know, majority of Spain eats dinner late by American standards, like 9-11pm so we were lucky that they were open at 6pm. I'm embarrased to say we ordered like typical Americans and ordered like half the menu lol. The restaurant had AC, clean bathrooms, and everything was delicious!

This is another place I wish I could give half stars, in this case 4.5. On one hand, it's the…read more*exact* sort of quietly-pretentious cocktail bar experience I absolutely love, where all the drinks have been carefully curated with a bunch of small-batch ingredients, most of them, in this case, made in house. Each drink we ordered had an absolutely precisely perfect, super-unique presentation, and you could tell they were all carefully designed. I especially loved, while they don't advertise being a distillery, several cocktails even use their own in-house spirits, which if you ask about it and you're ordering a bunch of cocktails, you can just try a tasting flight for free. That was just super cool - you can buy bottles of some of them, too. Bit pricey at ~40 euro for a half-bottle, but they also distill some seriously unusual stuff, including one, used in their now-my-gold-standard bloody mary, distilled from a variety of mixed vegetables, the first time I'd *ever* seen a spirit distilled entirely from vegetables. On the other hand, with the exception of that bloody mary, all the drinks we had, especially for the price, were just... good. I loved the attention to detail on all of them, I could tell a lot of intention and effort went into each one, and again, it's always cool when you're drinking something that was distilled specifically by and for the bar you're at. But I also feel like I remember, mostly, a lot more about the presentation of the drinks and how much work went into some of the ingredients, than what most of them actually tasted like. On the third hand... that bloody mary. Seriously probably the best bloody mary I've had, as you'd expect from a place that hand-crafts literally everything including the base spirit. Assuming they still have it and it wasn't only on a temporary/seasonal menu... I'd go back for more of those, if I were ever back in Madrid. (If it was on a temporary/seasonal menu... too bad for me. I'll be savoring the half-bottle of the spirit I absolutely brought home with me, anyway! Though I still won't be making their bloody mary, which also used their own mix of several fresh-made stocks, for maximum flavor while also being totally clear still. That was super cool, and again, absolutely delicious.) Would I put it in my own personal "best bars anywhere on the planet" list? Probably not - that's a... lot of competition. Is it the best cocktail bar in Madrid? Also in my opinion, no, if I could only recommend one craft cocktail bar in Madrid, it'd be Salmon Guru. But if someone just asked me for recommendations for Madrid cause I'd been there, I could recommend any number of places, and they liked fancy, not-cheap craft cocktails? This would also go on the list, if that hypothetical person had time for two, as we did. Definitely do make a reservation, though. When we got there right when they opened, we were the only ones there... but that definitely didn't remain true.

Angelita had pretty good food, cocktails, and ambiance. I visited around 9 PM without a reservation…read moreand we got a seat in the basement bar. We had a few drinks and dinner. They serve the same food menu downstairs as well as upstairs. I liked the decor a lot; dark but comfortable. FOOD Smoked beef ham croquette - €3.5 each - pretty good croquettes Organic "ratatouille" with egg yolk and rosemary mayonnaise - €17.5 smaller portion - it was a little like ratatouille. It was not very attractive looking -- it was a vegetable mush. It didn't seem like a full dish on its own; it needed meat. Oxtail stew cannelloni with Sherry hollandaise - €10.5 - pretty good; get two if you are sharing They also gave us some olives (tasty) and then later some nuts (bad because they were unsalted / unseasoned). DRINKS Apio y Citricos - tequila with celery etc - interesting and tasty Resina y Sombra - mezcal with mushrooms etc - also interesting and tasty Moscow Mule Citronela - it was a moscow mule. not very interesting. Topinambo - whiskey, chicken skin etc They were all €13 or €14 We liked two of them a lot, less so the other two.

We were recommended this spot when visiting, and came for dinner on our first night out. They have…read moreall the classic tapas, and we got quite a few to share along with a pitcher of sangria. The sangria was a little watery for our taste, but not bad. The food came out quickly and we had quite a large spread - jamon, pan con tomate, patatas bravas, pork cheeks, spanish omelette, and calamari. Most of them were good, with my favorites being the pork cheeks, potatoes, and jamon. I would skip the spanish omelette next time as it wasn't quite up to what I was hoping for. Prices were reasonable as well for the portion sizes. Pretty good spot overall but not a must try.

This was one of the recommendations from my friend who's lived in Madrid for the the last 10+…read moreyears. For a chain restaurant, I think it's is close to as good as it gets. They don't take reservations so you have to wait in line, and depending on the time of night, it could take up to an hour wait. We came here on our first night in Madrid - it happened to be just around the corner from our hotel which was super convenient. We had a super late and big lunch that day, so we didn't go until around 11pm. It was a Friday night and we waited about 25min to get a table. It was quite cramped in there, with tables basically on top of each other, though that's typical in Europe. We started with a bottle of red and some small plates including octopus, ceviché, pork with caramelized onions, beef nigiri, etc. In fact, we actually ordered multiple orders of some of them cause they were so delicious! We were so incredibly full with the small plates we didn't get to order many of the other items from their extensive menu. I never thought I'd have room for dessert but when the server said they had hazelnut gelato I knew I had to get it. Well, let's just say we did not waste any of it! Even my husband who's normally not a sweets person ate his fair share cause it was so good! We had a great time there, and the prices were extremely reasonable. We liked it so much that we decided to come back 4 days later for lunch before heading to our next destination - Barcelona!

Since we were on a Tapas Run... we stopped off at this place for more vermouth, more tinto de…read moreverano, and crochets, patatas bravas, stuffed mushrooms, and other goodies... We wandered our way in, and lucked into a couple of seats at the bar. Oscar was our bartender and he was both funny and animated in communicating with the other staff. He was great... nice, attentive, and pure entertainment who balanced the bar and the wait staff serving the rest of the place. The vermouth was good, but Liz's tinto de verano was refreshing and less heavy. The papas bravas were really good. The tomato and pepper sauce and the cream were much heavier and flavorful than what you get at some other locations. The stuffed mushrooms didn't just taste good, they looked amazing... topped with like a quail egg or something. The crochets with iberian ham pieces were creamy. It was a good time and the type of place you think of when you think tapas bar. Worth a visit.

Yummy spot away from touristy area. The staff is Spanish speaking only so time to practice ordering…read moreen espanol! We enjoyed the Iberian ham croquetas, they were creamy and delicious. They have a nice selection of wine, you can also ask for the "tinto de verano" for a light local drink, which is red wine/part soda or lemonade.