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 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.

I absolutely adore this restaurant! I have visited it twice, and definitely next time I go to…read moreMadrid, I will visit it again. The restaurant is located in the heart of Madrid on a very cute street, and it is easy to find and walk there if you stay in the city center. The place is not very big - both times I went there for lunch, there were no tables available, so I had to sit at the bar; once I even had to wait about 7 minutes until one bar spot became free. The restaurant's design is simple, but pretty and lovely. Overall, the restaurant is in very good condition and was perfectly clean both times I visited. The only small downside is that the place is quite noisy, but it did not bother me. One of the best things about this place is the people who work there - both a guy and a lady at the bar were extremely nice and friendly to me; plus, both spoke very good English. They gave me recommendations on what to try, and I followed their advice. The restaurant's menu is not big, but it has all the most popular traditional Spanish dishes. Both times I ordered Rabo de Toro (a traditional Spanish stew), Fardos (squid rolls with bacon and squid ink mousse); and once I also tried croquetas de jamón (ham croquettes). The croquettes were tasty - I loved their flavor and soft texture. One portion includes 6 pieces, and they are quite big and filling. It was my first time trying Fardos (I ordered a 1/3 portion), and it was a great experience - the dish turned very delicious after the bartender mixed it for me. The squid was cooked very nicely, and combined with the fresh bacon and ink mousse, it tasted fantastic. Rabo de Toro (I ordered a 1/2 portion) was also my first time trying this dish, and I loved it - the stew was perfectly cooked, very soft and moist, with rich flavors, and it melted in my mouth. The restaurant also offers a wide variety of drinks, especially wines. I do not drink alcohol, so I was recommended to try grape juice - Mosto, which was extremely flavorful and tasted like fresh pressed grape juice, even though it came from a glass bottle. I loved that drink! Price-wise, all items on the menu seemed reasonable. I paid €8 for 6 ham croquettes, €12 for a half portion of Rabo de Toro, €8 for a 1/3 portion of Fardos, and €3 for one glass of grape juice. It is possible to have a nice full lunch here for around €22, which is reasonable for a restaurant in the heart of Madrid. The place accepts all major credit cards and Apple Pay, which is a big plus. If you visit this restaurant, I strongly recommend trying 1/3 or 2/3 portion of Fardos, a half portion of Rabo de Toro, and their grape juice Mosto - it's enough food to feel full and experience traditional Spanish flavors.

Casa Lucas is a MUST on the La Latina tapas tour! Casa Lucas serves tapas with a creative twist,…read moreand if I'd had more time (and wasn't a party of one), I would've tried so much more! I ordered the Oxtail (Rabo de Toro) and wooooow... easily one of the most tender and delicate pieces of meat I've EVER had. They serve it boneless, but I'm pretty sure if they would have provided a bone, it would've fallen right off. The whole place gives cozy tavern vibes with a rustic interior that feels perfectly Madrid. NOTE: the portions are a bit heavier than most spots. I hate to waste food, especially when it's as immaculate as the Oxtail, but if you're a party of one, you got to do what you go to do.

The concierge recommended it for pre-dinner cocktails. It was near my hotel, the JW Marriott. It…read morelooks like nothing from the outside but inside it is very lively and colorful! The drink menu is so creative it takes a while to decide. Drinks are divided by flavor profiles: fruity, refreshing, etc. with some other creative categories. (Sadly my picture of the table of contents did not come out.) I got an Inspirasion Paloma and it was delicious. We only had one round since we were in our way to dinner. Highly recommend!

So this is another review that has been sitting in my review drafts for, now, about 5 months... so…read morethings could have changed. Certainly, with a place like this, all of the specific *drinks* may well have changed, being that they were all so technical, with so many house or freshly made moving parts, i.e. my favorite kind of nerdy cocktail bar. But presumably they're still making drinks as cool as the were a few months ago. They don't take reservations, so we just got there right when they opened, which is the way to do it. There were only a couple other people there right at 4 that day, but within half an hour, it was completely full. (Also yeah, Yelp says they open at 5 PM, but they... definitely open at 4.) Despite being *very* busy, we never had any difficult ordering drinks, nor getting them back quickly, and I ordered a... bunch of drinks (well, with my wife, who despite not normally being a cocktail person, was definitely drinking her share of all of them.) I absolutely loved the detailed descriptions of exactly how each cocktail is made (I learned a new word, enfleurage! In this case, of cardamom through peanut butter), the amount of effort that clearly went *into* all of them (house-made hop distillate, falernum, gin they re-distilled with pickle brine, the enfleurage, to quote, a "labor-intensive perfume extraction process"...), but more importantly, I can't stress enough, all of their cocktails were absolutely *wonderfully* delicious. All quite unique enough to scratch the itch for weird cocktail nerds like me, who don't want to drink classics, but unique concepts no other bar has done - but also all perfectly balanced and quite complex, both the spirit-forward ones (a Vieux Carre with mango chutney and hop extract instead of Benedictine and bitters! A Negroni that's been aged in ex-sherry barrels in a solera system like a sherry!), and the wacky sweet-savory ones (pisco milk punch and fish sauce! Mezcal and ponzu sauce, clarified through Greek yogurt! Citrus, balsamic, fancy honey and pickle gin!) All their drinks absolutely lived up to the hype. I don't know if any of those drinks are still available, but if not, I'm sure equally inventive ones took their place, so either way, I'd definitely make sure to come back if I happened to back in the area instead of halfway across the planet. We didn't get food here, just drinks - but we absolutely took *full* advantage of the complimentary chips being offered. When we discovered how wonderful their (made in-house) chips were, we kept asking for more. We went through a *bunch* of little plates of chips. Especially as they went *particularly* well with all of the cocktails, again, both spirit-forward and interestingly sweet-savory-funky cocktails, paired really well with craft chips. The drinks already made this place a 5/5, but with the free all-you-want craft chips? That's like a 6 out of 5.

Located a few blocks from the Prado museum, La Plateria offers some indoor seating and plenty of…read moreoutdoor seating (with a premium on food for sitting outdoors). Food is very reasonably priced for the area. Our server brought out a menu board written in English, which was very helpful. The food - Grilled Aspargus - grilled tender and gently seasoned Stewed Pork Cheek with Rice - this is comfort food - stewed meat, gravy, and rice - not complicated, but soul warming Patatas Bravas - a reasonable version Feel like the menu got off the rails a bit here - Duck Confit with Apple - used to a more spiced version with a pan seared skin. Duck is ok, the apple is really soft with tough skin. Paella Mixta - a very chicken and bell pepper forward version of a paella Chocolate à la tazo - hot chocolate - a thinner, less chocolatey version than we had at other restaurants. Also, it was a broken emulsion. Green Salad with Sardine and Fresh Cheese - I thought this was a weird mixture of greens, carrots, tomatoes, olives, sardines, and mild/soft cheese. It's true to the menu description, but never had this combo before.

I really enjoyed eating here. One fun fact is they have an up charge if you want to sit outdoors,…read morewhich is funny because it is winter and sooo cold outside, so we saved money by eating inside. I thought their dishes were all very flavorful and well seasoned. The duck confit was delicious. But the cooked fruit that it came paired with was a little odd. The paella rice flavor was good, but doesn't get served in a skillet like your other Spanish restaurants. There was no wait on a weekday evening at 7:30pm. Good value and we liked all the dishes.

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.

Great tacos with stun and the freshest tortillas. I stumbled upon this place by accident. I'm a…read morefrequent traveler to Mexico but these tacos were the best. My cocktail was delicious too. I can't remember the name right now but it had a mango flavor with silver tequila. Also very kind staff. I was dining alone but I felt very welcomed.

This place has a nice spread. It is not over crowded and it is attached to rather inside the Hyatt…read morehotel. They have fresh fruit, omelets and meats. There are also many different pasty offerings. This breakfast spread is not cheap so be sure to go back to the food many times to eat your worth. I am not sure I would pay for a breakfast so much when there are many other dining options nearby.

We enjoyed a lunch here. Small, friendly place, great staff and delicious food! We had sampled…read moresalmon arugula salad and anchovy blue cheese pizza. Both delicious. Want to come back for the empanadas

Food was amazing!!!! Empanadas were great, and the men in my family loved the steak faoigras bread…read more Hands down my family voted this restaurant the best in Madrid and we have visited the top ones according to Yelp. Don't miss this hidden gem.