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.

This is a spot that feels like a little bar but is actually more like a casa with some food items…read more Here, they are big on pig and there are Iberico hams located on and around the bar for easy access. If you are vegan, coming here will only piss you off. In fact, a vegan in Madrid in general is ill-advised. The setting feels historic and rustic with exposed brick and stone that appears to be centuries old. They seem to make everything (both food and drink) behind that cramped bar which explains why most of their menu items are cold, pre-made, or easy to assemble from short lists of raw ingredients. This does not mean that anything is bad. It just means it is like producing charcuterie in a dorm room bar. A large number of items involve Iberico Ham and one of the barmen is constantly shaving off thin pieces for service. In fact the freebie snack they send out from the kitchen had some Iberico ham and Manchego cheese on it which was a really nice warm up of what to expect. Over the noonish lunch hour, I was the only tourist in the place surrounded by many locals that clearly know about this spot. I liked those odds for assuring me of a genuine authentic experience. It was an accurate predictor. I'm not the most experienced when it comes to true Spanish tapas but this seemed to be a very genuine depiction of what the locals look for in a rustic Iberico ham experience. And frankly, even if it wasn't I can't find anything to really complain about. It was a cool historic setting, there was ice-cold vermouth from a tap, and I spent an hour shoving local Morcilla (blood sausage) and Iberico pig parts into my pie hole for the better part of an hour. It was a great experience any way you choose to look at it.

Everything here was perfect: prices, quality of food, service and the authentic touch of Spain!…read more Gracias Sara!!!

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.

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.

Reseña en ingles y español…read more Tinto y tapas was the perfect place to stop in for a mid-day snack (or lunch) after touring the museums all morning. We arrived when they opened at 1:00pm. Within 15 minutes all the tables were full. Our servers were nice and attentive. I was happy that there were multiple vegetarian tapas to choose from (which are hard to find in Madrid). We ordered a spinach and ricotta empanada, a sweet onion and cheese empanada, and a Margherita pizza. Everything was delicious. The pizza was excellent. We couldn't finish everything. We left full and happy. Tinto y tapas era el lugar perfecto para parar a tomar un tentempié (o almuerzo) al mediodía después de recorrer los museos toda la mañana. Llegamos cuando abrieron a la 13:00. En 15 minutos todas las mesas estaban llenas. Nuestros servidores fueron amables y atentos. Me alegró que hubiera varias tapas vegetarianas para elegir (que son difíciles de encontrar en Madrid). Pedimos una empanada de espinacas y ricotta, una empanada de cebolla dulce y queso y una pizza Margherita. Todo estuvo delicioso. La pizza era excelente. No pudimos terminar todo. Salimos llenos y felices.

Stopped by for lunch today. We ordered the chicken curry toast and meat and spinach and ricotta…read moreempanadas. We also got two glasses of sangria which were served in generous portions. The chicken curry toast was flavorful and the slice of bread it was spread on was perfectly crispy. The empanadas were both delicious and perfectly spiced but I do wish they could have been warmer, especially the one with cheese. The server was very nice and attentive.