This restaurant resembles an old-fashioned convenience store and it has become one of the best "gastronomic bazaars" of Madrid.
Located in the eclectic Chueca neighbourhood,, Bazaar serves creative Mediterranean food of reasonable quality in a trendy environment with the modern at a price that is more than reasonable.
The square-shaped upper floor has big windows facing the street, high ceilings, and hardwood floors; the downstairs is larger though less interesting.
Standout dishes include the tuna rosbif with mango chutney, chicken crepes in salsa verde (green sauce), the ox sirloin with parmesan and arugula and for dessert, a popular choice is the chocolatísimo (chocolate soufflé).
To get a table, arrive by 1 for lunch and by 8:30 for dinner.

Bufalino is in a tinny street behind the Gran Via and is quite a subtle place where you are very gently attended.

Run by an Italian and Argentine couple, Bufalino takes the cuisines of their respective countries and fuses them together, offering up a fine selection of fresh pastas made on site every day, along with panini and polenta.

Set on a narrow historic street whose edges once marked the perimeter of Old Madrid, this is a venerable tasca, with all the requisite antique accessories.

Opened in 1974 this restaurant held by very famous Lucio, is one of the references for the Castilian cuisine.

The classic Castilian menu might include Jabugo ham with broad beans, shrimp in garlic sauce, hake with green sauce, several types of roasted lamb, and a thick steak served sizzling hot on a heated platter, called churrasco de la casa.

The Spanish Royal family sometimes entertain guests here and you may run into a few sports figures and movie stars.

Casa Manolo Restaurant is a typical Madrilenian tavern from the late 19th century which still recalls that time through its decoration: wood, mirrors on the walls and marbel bar and tables.

This place is mainly famous due to two of their offers: delicious freshly-made churros with hot chocolate or coffee for breakfast, and excelent ham croquetas -their speciality- for tapas.

Castellana 8 is a modern restaurant offering Spanish cuisine. Known as Jazzanova until recently, Castellana 8 remains a supremely smooth bar-restaurant-club with its avant-garde design, is located in the centre of Madrid.
It has a cosmopolitan ambience and is suitable for any moment of the day; to enjoy a good meal, or visit their cocktail bar with a group of friends, since at night, the restaurant becomes a cocktail bar with magic shows and DJ's.
This is a modern restaurant, without forsaking traditional Spanish dishes. The menu is renewed frequently to take advantage of fresh seasonal products. Brunch on Sundays is dished up with cocktails and live music, though not, sadly, on the terrace outside, which is limited to drinking only.

Lately redesigned, Club 31 has preserved the same atmosphere which attracts, since 1950, hype people of Madrid. Cool and contemporary but sophisticated and classical at the same time, this club is one of Madrid’s most popular restaurants.
The Cocktails Bar remains really trendy and the chart from now on under the control of chef Angel Paracuellos, did not take a wrinkle with its traditional dishes like the lasagnes with foie gras, Suzette crepes, and the Soufflé of potatoes.
Decorated in earthy tones, Club 31’s décor is bang up to date, taking hints from nature while remaining cool and sophisticated with touches of high design.

It's red, it's urban, it's aspirational. Colby Urban is the flagship of a string of cool eateries and chilled-out cafés with a concept. The location is handy, the custom is pretty and the diner-style food hits the spot.

This is one of Madrid's smartest Greek eating spots offering the full gamut of Hellenic fare and then some.

The atmosphere is friendly and the taberna-style decor gets you in the right mood to enjoy the food. Pikalia megali is the ideal full-bodied appetizer, combining many familiar Greek tidbits on a single platter including taramasalata, tzatsiki, black olives, feta cheese, and dolmades (stuffed grape leaves).

The Hellenes' favorite meat, lamb, scores highly here: Try the delicious Delfos version cooked with nuts and honey.

Diurno is a venue with a unique atmosphere located in Madrid. It opens from 9 am to 1 am, and its kitchen, which prepares special homemade dishes, is open from morning to night.

An extensive sunlit area for corporate events situated on a corner, with large windows, high ceilings and an open-plan lounge.

Although there's a dining room at this Chueca neighbourhood favourite, it's more fun to stand with the regulars at the bar and see what they're ordering.

Adorned with bullfighting posters, El Bocaíto serves Andalusian-style fried fish, but also cooks gourmet creations such as salt cod with caviar.

“El pez gordo” is a very good place in the center of Malasaña, it offers good typical Spanish dishes. Popular with audiences and actors from the nearby Teatro Alfil, the Fat Fish buzzes at night and is fabulously mellow during the day.

It’s crowded but we like it because the atmosphere is warm and food is good and cheap.

The main attraction comes in the shape of the creative tapas. Try fried plantain with guacamole, goose confit with red fruit compôte, and garlic breadcrumbs with chorizo and other Cantabrian specials from the blackboard menu.

Botin is a traditional restaurant offering Mediterranean cuisine. It could be the oldest resto in Spain, and of great notoriety, founded in 1725 to give shelter to the many immigrants and travelers coming to the Court,later the family Botin, took over directly the business in 1860 and it converted into a bakery and food place of the highest quality.

The restaurant is also mentioned in the book Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós (published 1886-1887) and Goya supposedly worked here before becoming a painter.

Try the jamon iberico for entree then the roast suckling pig or cochinillo a house specialty for traditon and good Spanish taste.

This bustling three-story restaurant is located right on Plaza de la Cebada close to the Rastro market and labyrinthine lanes of Lavapiés. We recommend this nice restaurant with the very New Yorkean style decoration and its terrace upon on the roof, sunny in summer.

The food, a mixed array of Mediterranean dishes and barbecued meats, is delicious, if a little overpriced. The carpaccios are melt-in-the-mouth and the pastas, particularly the taglioni marinera, drip with flavour. Grilling is the big thing here with an emphasis on Uruguayan chorizo (a sausage of red peppers and pork), salchichas (sausages), and beef, but the wide-ranging choice also covers salads, pinchitos (shish kabobs), and couscous.

Prices are very reasonable and there's a first-rate prix-fixe menu.

This restaurant is part of a famous Spanish restaurant chain - Jose Luis. In this temple for the luxury tapas, you can either eat standing up (more likely) or at one of the tables (if you come early enough). It was founded in 1960 and is one of the more traditional restaurants in Madrid, where you can enjoy traditional Basque cuisine, prepared in a creative way. The star tapas are Spanish omelette and grilled pork loin and if your appetite is up to it, try the brascada (sirloin with ham and onions); otherwise there are delicate little canapes of smoked salmon tartare, melted brie and similar treats.

La Bola, founded in 1870, is considered by many to be the home of cocido, the huge and hearty stew beloved of madrileños and a test for the biggest of appetites.. Once you find Calle de la Bola, it's not hard to spot the bright red painted walls of the taberna.

When in Madrid, take a break from the tapas restaurants and make time to go to La Bola and enjoy Madrid's traditional chickpea-based stew for lunch.

Step inside and you step away from the bustle of modern Madrid into a charming old-fashioned dining room with gleaming dark wood paneling, red-and-white dressed tables, walls covered in bullfighting photos going back through time.

Catalan celebrity chef Sergi Arola was the brains behind La Broche, an elegant restaurant in the Hotel Miguel Angel by the Paseo de la Castellana where you'll find the select dining enclave where Arola's incomparable menus have already gleaned two stars from the highly prestigious Michelin guides.

Some of the dishes almost defy description and might include a salad of sea and land snails roasted in lard, a deconstructed Catalan stew of beans and meatballs, a confit of cockscombs, or maybe even loin of horse with tomato bonbons.

La Chata is usually quite crowded but it is worth a visit for a taste of their delicious 'callos' stew. They serve Iberian ham of the highest quality (several 'Pata Negra'cured hams decorate the place). Their cheeses (Manchego, de la Serena) are also a must. Tostas with 'morcilla' blood pudding, 'gulas' ('faux' baby eels) with ham, mushrooms and brie cheese, 'pisto' (ratatouille-like vegetable dish) or tuna are some of the suggested dishes, to be tasted along with a cold beer or a glass of wine.

La Chata is one of the most traditional and authentic taverns in the city. It is noticeable from the street due to its façade, covered in tiles representing traditional scenes from old Madrid. The inside is decorated with more tiles and wooden beams, as in the old times.

Moorish designs in the doorways, beautiful tiling, and the dim glow of light through lamps and tapestries bring the Middle East to Malasaña.
It's popular with a young and studenty crowd, who linger long over speciality teas - try Taj Mahal (with cinnamon, orange and rose petals) or Oriente Express (green tea with apple, cloves and orange) - plus different types of couscous, salads and tajines.

Situated close to the Royal Palace (Teatro Real) and owned by an ex-priest, Father Lezama, this Basque restaurant is known for its tasty tapas selections, fresh ingredients, and options of dining at the bar or in the rear of the tavern.

With a quiet terraza on the street that runs along the north side of the Teatro Real, it is still one of the most popular post-theatre dining spots, serving traditional tapas at the bar and Basque cuisine in the restaurant in the back.

Photographs of famous former patrons, including Nelson Rockefeller and race-car driver Jackie Stewart, line the walls. The restaurant in the rear is said to be one of the city's best-kept secrets.

It is not a Casino but a Social Club founded in 1836. The Club is always private but its restaurant is freely open for amateurs of high gastronomy.

The very staid environs of this gentlemen's club dining room (wear a tie) provide the unlikely setting for a restaurant inspired and partly overseen by superchef and molecular gastronomist Ferran Adrià.

La Terraza del Casino de Madrid obtained its second star by Michelin’s guide without surprised when you will known that the chief is Paco Roncero with a menu imagined by Maestro Ferrán Adriá. Menu starts with a Cocktail called “Caipirinha Nitro” funny before going towards more traditional savors like: lobster, piglet, gambas, cod…Fabulous!

La Viuda Blanca ('The White Widow') is in a quiet and elegant street just off the main tourist route and two doors from the HH Campomanes, one of Madrid's trendiest hotels.

The décor in 'The White Widow' restaurant is all white, including the light-box flooring. On the other side of the bar there's La Viuda Negra ('The Black Widow'), the bar/club – handy for impromptu after-dinner dancing.

Good-looking, mostly shaven-haired waiters (apparently that's for hygiene as well as fashion reasons) wear Hare Krishna-style uniforms and glide around serving up creative but not too fussy dishes and providing some eye-candy for the girls.

Carlos and his wife, Frederique, took on a challenge converting what was once a bullfighting-themed tavern into a Parisian bistro. For those of you not in the know, this means simplistic décor, wooden floors, and lots of wine.

Though some elements, such as the long brass copper bar, hint at its castizo ("authentic," as in old and traditional) origins, there's much that's truly French here, including the service, the wine, and the cocktails.

Specialties include deep-fried brie; garlicky snails, cod brandade, coquilles St Jacques, Châteaubriand and so on.

One of the oldest delicatessens in Madrid, Lhardy was founded in 1839 by Emilio Lhardy from Switzerland and it soon became a meeting spot for the aristocrats of the time.

This landmark restaurant is credited with having introduced French haute cuisine into the culinary wilderness of Madrid.

On Lhardy you'll find a formal restaurant decorated in the ornate Belle Epoque style of Isabel Segunda. Specialties of the house include fish, pork, veal, tripe in a garlicky tomato and onion wine sauce, and cocido, the celebrated chickpea stew of Madrid. Soufflé sorpresa (baked Alaska) is the dessert specialty.

Part Spanish and part Scandinavian, Olsen's Restaurant is renowned for its fantastic cuisine and Scandinavian-inspired selection of vodkas from around the world, with flavours such as tamarind curious, chocolate, banana, pistachio, violet and even cinnamon.

It is situated right in the centre of Madrid, near Plaza Santa Ana in an environment dominated by pale wood and clean lines. Its vaulted basement was transformed into a winter Martini Lounge, with decor inspired by a Finnish birch forest.

This restaurant is like the love child of Penélope Cruz and Björn Borg.

Olsen offers a Nordic-inspired tapas, salmon, smoked meats and fish, and a lunch menu for 10 or 15 euros.

Easily missed, this co-operative-run fair trade café and shop is an absolute gem. All profits go to good causes, with products such as Mecca Cola (20% to Palestinian kids) given top billing.

The charming co-owners take turns in the kitchen, each lending ideas from their home country to the daily-changing menu, so chicken in peanut sauce from Equatorial Guinea sits alongside Senegalese bobotie and Mexican chicken mole.

Located in the Sol area, Taberna Alhambra is a classical Spanish tavern and tapas bar. Here you can find a friendly atmosphere, a helpful staff, and a great selection of all sorts of Spanish tapas, complimented with a variety of beer, wine, and sangria.

Its name is Latin for Madrid, but Matritum has a great selection of tapas and wine from other regions of Spain, most notably Catalonia.
You just need to look at the paintings on the walls to see that this is a place where wine is appreciated.

You can order it by the glass or the bottle from a selection that includes Spanish, Italian, French, Chilean, German, and Australian varieties.

Try gambas all cremat (prawns with burnt garlic) or fabulous canapés such as cabrales cheese with apple compôte or sobrasada - a spicy, spreadable, Mallorcan sausage.