Mercado de San Miguel

Mercado de San Miguel near Plaza Mayor is sure to be one the first places that you'll hear about if you're looking for a "foodie experience" in Madrid.  The newly renovated market was reopened in 2009, much to the delight of Madrillenos and tourists.  The concept is an open market where visitors can wander from booth to booth while trying out all sorts of treats.

Entrance to the Mercado de San Miguel, near Plaza Mayor.

A cheese plate.

Mushroom Croquettes

Other reviews of the Mercado suggest that this is a place to buy your special groceries to take home, but we found it to be more of a total food experience for people to wander through and explore.  On our visit, we had two glasses of cava (4 euro each), two mushroom croquettes (1.50 euro each), and a cheese plate (6 euro for 2 fancy ruffles of cheese and bread).  It didn't seem like the easiest place to have a full meal because was crowded, even on a weekday.  Seating was also limited, so practice your standing-while-eating skills before going.

After having done more exploring in Madrid, we've visited several authentic markets where it seems like regular people do their normal grocery shopping.  If that's what you're looking for, then Mercado de San Miguel shouldn't be on the top of your list.  But, the Mercado de San Miguel is worth a visit, as long as you bring a wallet, some patience, and (possibly) plan on having a full meal somewhere else!

Delic

Delic cafe bar in the Lavapies & Latina neighborhood area gets a lot of buzz, and there's good reason for that: the food, coffee, and above all, the sweets are great.  We went by on an early Saturday afternoon after doing some Moroccan carpet shopping at nearby Berberia, also high on our list.

At 1:00 pm, Delic was not crowded.  The atmosphere was friendly. The staff was sitting in the back room cleaning/chopping mint, so it smelled great.  We chose a delicious salad with walnuts and blue cheese.  It was perfect for sharing.  We also had tostadas, but admit that we can't remember which kind because we were so focused on the carrot cake.

Delic takes a slightly different approach to the carrot cake.  Theirs is moist and smooth with a nice, mild cream frosting.  We're not typically fans of chocolate toppings on carrot cake, but this dark chocolate drizzle worked well.  The coffee was great too.   And we loved the round packages of Swedish hard bread above the register even if the cashier told us they bought it a Ikea!.  We will go back!

Cafeteria Trebul

One of the problems with having a cervecería or cafeteria on every corner is that you walk by so many promising places and end up ducking into the last place you see.  The agony of infinite choice.  This is probably why Spaniards tapa hop, so they don't have to make a decision.

Cafeteria Trebul was our last option, after wandering through the Salamanca district with rumbling stomachs for a little too long.  Hunger led us to simply asking the waiter for the specialty, which turned out to be a "fried seafood platter."  


As demonstrated by the picture below, this included calamares, sardines, shrimp, squid and some unidentified fish eating its own tail.  All fried.

Taking a step back, the ambiance was typical of many cafeterias in Madrid. Long bar showing off the food items, clean, very bright.  Perhaps it was the time of day, but Cafeteria Trebul was full of older people.  The waiters almost seemed glad to see patrons younger than themselves.  But, you learn a lot about a place by how they treat an indecisive abuela and these waiters were kind and patient.

Back to the fried seafood platter, which we would almost never had picked but for being tired and open to any suggestion.  It wasn't bad, although we are not fried food kind of people.  The fish-eating-its-tail was actually the most savory part of the dish, with a lightness that reminded us of Scandinavian boiled whitefish.  The calamares were good, better than we experienced on a tapa-hopping night earlier in the week.

We left feeling like we hadn't chosen the right dish for us, but that we should give it another chance.  We'll keep you posted.  Bottom line for now ... we'll go back, but unless we have six other people with us, we're not ordering that fried seafood platter.

Cafeteria Trebol

+34 914.35.6623

Avenida Felipe II, 10

(south of Goya)

Del Diego

We are suckers for the "36 Hours in __" Series in the New York Times because it almost always delivers a nice set of options.  So, we happily referenced the 2009 version of 36 Hours in Madrid, which led us to Del Diego, a smart and self-assured (but not smug) cocktail bar.

We had plans to go to a 22:00 flamenco show and we really just wanted to start off with a drink.  Fingers crossed that the bar wouldn't be too crowded at 8:30pm on a Saturday, we were happy to see plenty of tables.  (Okay, veterans of Madrid might laugh at our concerns ... after all, bars don't fill up in Madrid until way, way late.)

The bar is full of intimate seating spaces with dangerously low-hanging lamps.  Very cool vibe.  Even at such an early hour, we saw a nice mix of madrileños and visitors.  Potato chips and nuts were served right away with our cocktails.  We tried the Old Fashioned (solid) and the house specialty Del Diego (balanced, light and fruity in a good way) pictured below.

Bottom line? Very positive. We'll definitely drop by Del Diego again.  Perhaps next time, we'll sit at the bar and watch the cocktail makers in action, instead of the flamenco show.  We hear that Madrid is not quite a cocktail kind of place, at least outside of the international hotel scene, but we're hoping that's not entirely the case.  If Del Diego is the only cocktail show in town, however, we're going to be fine.

Del Diego
+34 915 227 544
Calle de la Reina, 12
(Gran Via)

Lateral

What to do on an American holiday in Spain? We were aiming for a longer lunch somewhere, but while doing other errands, we came across Lateral at their Velázquez 57 location. The modern chairs looked promising and we were getting tired, so we went in.

Instead of a full lunch menu, Lateral serves up individual sized tapas and larger "porciones" to share. We had the excellent Lateral salad (tomatoes, mozzarella slices and jamon), which was a recommendation from the waitress. We also got croquettes with jamon, and two slices of toast with brie and sweet olive tapanade. For dessert, since it was a holiday, we had coffees and a slice of chocolate cake served with cream. (Full disclosure: We weren't sure if the cream was for the cake or for the coffee, but we just put it on anyway). The total bill came to 27 Euros with two glasses of wine.


During the lunch hour, the place got pretty busy. One interesting thing was that you could press a button at your table to call your waitperson or ask for the check. After checking out their website when we got home, it looks like we stumbled on a art/food/culture center with several locations across town. Bottom line: we'll return.