One Night in Madrid – A Tapas Odyssey in the Spanish Capital

Madrid might be one of our favourite cities in the world, not just one of our favourite cities in Spain, but it wasn’t on our global grand tour itinerary. When planning the yearlong trip which launched this site, with our project sponsors, we’d decided on Barcelona and Jerez instead. We were originally meant to travel over land and sea from Essaouira via Tangier to Jerez, but decided to drive from Essaouira back to Marrakech, take the overnight train from Marrakech to Tangier, a ferry to Algeciras, and a bus to Jerez. Instead, we ended up in Madrid.

Our travel plans were foiled by work on the train tracks between Marrakech and Tangier, and there was no guarantee that the train line would be open on the day we needed to travel. In true Moroccan style, the woman at the train station office told us not to listen to what anyone said on the phone, and come in on the day we needed to travel to find out whether the train was running!

Obviously, we couldn’t do that and risk being stuck in Marrakech. If you’ve been following us since we launched this site two months ago, this year we’re on a mission to make travel more meaningful and we’re on a tight schedule. We’re settling into holiday rentals for two weeks at a time, to inspire you all to travel more slowly, more locally and more experientially – ways of travelling that we believe are more immersive, more engaging, and more enriching.

A bus from Marrakech to Tangier? It’s far too slow. Plus we have accommodation booked in Jerez, then Barcelona, then Ceret, then Paris… you get the idea. So the best (and least expensive) option we found is flying to Madrid and taking the fast and fabulous train down to Jerez – provided the line was open after all the flooding in Southern Spain of course! (Fortunately it was.)

Madrid has long been one of our favourite cities in the world, not just one of our favourite cities in Spain. So we saw the stopover in the Spanish capital as both a stroke of good and bad luck. Our project sponsors, HomeAway, quickly found us an apartment rental in Madrid’s hip Malasaña ‘hood, the heart of Spain’s movida movement, where many of our favourite Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s films are set. We booked a flight to Madrid online and the next day we were there.

While our Madrid apartment rental was in a historic building, it was modern and stylish, with clean contemporary lines and cheeky, inventive touches such as a scaletrix car-racing track on the wall in the lounge room. It was in fantastic condition, too, with shiny polished wooden floorboards, new towels and linens.

There were top quality appliances, including flat screen television, a colossal fridge, Italian stove, dishwasher, washer/dryer, espresso maker, and so on. The kitchen had everything you could possibly need, from good wine glasses to an Italian espresso-maker. It’s certainly a place we could have easily settled into for a week or two.

However, we only had one night in Madrid. In fact, we had very little time – just a few hours after we got into the apartment. There wasn’t even time to settle in, as we were off again the next day. We hadn’t been to Madrid in around six years. We hadn’t had time to do any research, as we’d been focused on prepping for our next destinations, Jerez and Barcelona. And we didn’t want to go to places we’d been before.

Fortunately for us, the apartment rental’s young Venezuelan architect owner, Gabriel, was a foodie with a Madrid eating blog. So we challenged Gabriel – where would you send your guests who only had one night in Madrid for the quintessential Madrid evening of eating and drinking, albeit a local Madrid experience?

We wanted casual, no twenty-course Michelin-starred restaurant. We knew we’d be too tired from the long day spent travelling. We stipulated an early evening spot for a drink, a couple of tapas bars to ‘hop’, and perhaps a post-dinner pub/bar – all to be done on foot.

So we went with Gabriel (armed with a map and list) to his local ‘lounge room’ as he calls it, on the corner. This pub, Maravillosa, is warm, charming and inviting, with some great wines and a fantastic local vibe. After confirming our one night in Madrid itinerary we said our farewells and hit the streets…

One Night in the Spanish Capital – Our Madrid Tapas Bar Crawl

The first stop on our one-night Madrid itinerary, which would turn out to be a tapas bar odyssey, was the charming, dimly-lit Bodega de la Ardosa. It was full of character, and had we have had more time in Madrid we would have stayed longer. But it was way too crowded to even contemplate eating, so after a quick drink we moved on.

The next stop was actually called Stop – Stop Madrid may have an odd English language name, but Gabriel assured us it was as local as local can get. This was an atmospheric bar that took its wines seriously and we worked our way through a few glasses of different Riojas listed on the chalkboard, as well as some excellent (complimentary) olives and some truly melt-in-your-mouth Jamon Ibérico.

It was a good warm-up for southern Spain and once again, the place was packed – though we weren’t complaining; it was full of locals and there wasn’t a tourist or a guidebook in sight.

Duly fortified, we headed off to our next destination, one that Gabriel was a little bit cautious about overselling. Firstly, Madrid’s renovated Mercado de San Miguel looks fantastic – far more inviting than it used to be before renovation.

The market is now filled with individual specialty shops and stalls that seemingly sold everything that’s great about Spanish food. Gabriel warned us that tourists also go there, but we found the clientele to be around 95% Spanish. Only the Spanish gasp in awe as you walk past carrying a plate of brilliant Jamon Ibérico!

We were like kids in a candy store, this being our first night in Madrid in so long. The only problem was actually getting served as just about every stall in the market was packed.

We’re still dreaming about the oyster stall that we never managed to get served at, but we had more fantastic Rioja from a serious wine bar – and no plastic cups here, our big reds were served in colossal red wine glasses so they could well and truly breathe.

When it comes to food and wine – and many other things – the Spanish never fail to delight us with their effortless sophistication.

As the stalls started to shut, we plotted our next move. Gabriel had suggested the rustic cave bar, Meson del Champiñones – famous for… Si!, you guessed it, champiñones! While the karaoke and dancing (at one stage they were waltzing) in the back room was a little disturbing – as were the two guys playing the organ at once – we turned our attention away from the David Lynchian scene and onto the mushrooms.

The mushrooms here are cooked head down, with the stem removed and the centre of the mushroom packed with chorizo, salt, olive oil, bread crumbs, and a little lemon juice. Two toothpicks are placed in the mushroom and the idea is that you eat it without spilling the juice of the mushroom that has pooled inside the mushroom body. Absolutely delicious!

Several plates of mushrooms and several rounds of glasses of Rioja with a Puerto Rican banker we got talking to, and the karaoke was starting to sound good, so we bid our goodbyes to Meson del Champiñones and one very fun night of eating and imbibing in Madrid!