Where to eat good tapas in Madrid, and more
Go
Bodegas Ricla, for its old-school, genuine appeal, and great prices for a proper selection of wines, and tasty anchovy tapas.
Casa Toni, for the wide range of choice and overall quality of the pinchos on the menu: if you only have time for one bar, Casa Toni will not disappoint.
La Casa del Abuelo, for the best shrimps you will have in your life (unless you don’t like garlic).
Try
Triciclo, if you are looking for a fancier place to eat: prices are fancier too, but what is on the plates is delicious.
La Taberna Errante, if you want to spend some quality time in a bar that is neither too old-timey, neither too hip, and far enough from tourists.1
La Duquesita, if you miss sweet food after the tapas galore and are ready to fall in love with cremadillos de crema y manzana.
Avoid
Mercado de San Ildefonso, unless you are starving and cannot find any taberna open around you.
Museo del Jamon, unless you are short on money and still hungry after the first round of tapas.
Patatas bravas, unless you really want potatoes: there are far better options taste-wise when you are in Madrid (if you crave potatoes, you can never go wrong with a tortilla). Same story for
sangria: ask waiters which Spanish wine to try.2
Extras
Plenti, because who knew tomato purée would taste so good on breakfast toasts?
Toni 2, because the night is young, and you want a joyful and unique cabaret experience.
La Venencia, because you never really tried Sherry and cecina before.
Retiro park, because you need to take a break from eating.
Mercado de La Paz, because I read The Guardian’s pretty good list of food markets to visit and this is the one I would recommend.3
You can find all the locations of these fantastic places to eat in Madrid on this Apple Maps collection📍.
The Russian salads on the menus have nothing to do with Russia, according to my Russian wife.↩︎
I stopped drinking alcohol almost two year ago and one of the best thing about Spain is how easy it is to find alcohol-free beer, compared to the situation in France.↩︎
Obviously there are many, many other wonderful places to go eat in Madrid: It was my fifth or sixth time in the Spanish capital, and I focused a lot of my food tastings on tapas, hence this — very short but focused and very curated — personal list.↩︎