The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Milling About in Madrid
OK, so we're in Madrid with two full days left. We will be with my colleague and his wife from four until we collapse tonight. What do we do with our morning? First, get coffee and a churro ... then figure something out. Margene said the only place she really wanted to see was the Royal Palace ... and since that was within walking distance, we walked. The day was getting warmer but the sun was low enough at 10am that there was still a shady side of the street.
We walked two blocks from our hotel to the Puerto del Sol, the geographic center of Madrid. The street scammers were already at work. There was a crew of them in costume (Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob, Papa Smurf, etc. -- all appropriate royalties paid, I'm sure!) Their deal was to draw families with children, pose for a picture and then demand money for their efforts. The same deal went for the guitar player. If you wanted to get a photo you had to pay. I never did quite figure out the golden ram. It just made its mouth go clap-clap-clap until you put money in the can. It's a living!
The Cathedral of Almudena faces the Royal Palace. Part of it is now a museum but we took a pass. The 2000-room Palacio Real (Royal Palace) is quite a spread although only 24 rooms of it are open to the public. The current royal family now lives in a mansion a few miles away. The place was packed with tour groups so we did a slow shuffle along the one-way circuit until we blissfully excaped into the cooler air outside. They are very strict about no photography inside so we have no first-hand shots, but apparently other sneaky types did manage to get a few pix and post them online. I include a few to give you a sense of the lavishness of the place -- impressive, but it was no Versailles.
The viola is a Stradivarius, part of the only matching quartet set in the world -- two violins, a viola and a cello.
We were walking back toward the hotel looking for a place to get a bite of lunch when we stumbled upon Mercado Ferpal. The place was crazy busy but it had what we wanted -- light sandwiches and a beer -- and was definitely "none of the above." That's the kind of experience I like.
A bit of a siesta and we were ready to meet David Downard and his wife Maria. David and I had some business to discuss so we retired to the hotel bar and the women went off in search of ... probably more scarves! David wants to take the lead in bringing A Place of Hospitality to the UK, a process we will probably kick off in the fall.
Then it was off on a pub crawl through the wonderful world of tapas along the Calle de la Cava Baja, home to dozens of some of the best tapas bars in Madrid. I may add more explanations later but for now I will let the photos do the work. We probably headed out around 7:30 or 8:00 and the street was virtually deserted. By the time we left (around 10:30) it was a whole different scene!
Dining this way is such a civilized idea, it seems strange that it has never really caught on in the US. Some of it is cultural, of course, and some may relate to the fact that the Spanish tend to eat much later in the evening than we do. Perhaps the increasing number of places with bar menus is a step in that direction. I don't know that a place could survive serving only tapas, but most of the restaurants we visited had more entree-like offerings as well.
The big surprise as we wandered back to the hotel was the Mercado de San Miguel. This was a very well done collection of food and wine vendors offering just about anything you could want to eat or drink with a very hip and happening vibe. While the ladies went off in search of desserts, I was able to turn David on to Clio, a truly amazing Spanish wine from Jumilla. Try it, you'll like it!
© 2012 Restaurant Doctor
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