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Exotic Madrid


vserna

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John Sconzo asked me to elaborate on some new exotic restaurants in Madrid. I've done a little more: here's my personal guide to the best foreign restaurants in the Spanish capital. There's possibly no other European city, not counting London, with such a strong international array. Most tourists, of course, are logically attracted by local cuisine/s when they visit any country. But if you have a moment to spare, you may be surprised in Madrid.

American:

Alfredo's Barbacoa: Alfredo (Fred Gradus) is from the Bronx and he serves the best grilled burgers in continental Europe – bar none.

Gumbo and Gumbo Ya-Ya: Matthew Scott, from New Orleans, does a very serious job with Creole and Cajun dishes. Are there many more American restaurants with such a fine culinary level in Europe? I doubt it.

Memento: San Francisco-trained Karen Bell does the modern California cuisine thing very, very nicely.

Latin American:

Astrid y Gastón: Modern Peruvian, including nikkei dishes. World-class.

La Gorda: Traditional Peruvian tavern with refined cooking.

Baby Beef Rubaiyat: Top-notch Brazilian steak house – meat is from their own cattle in Argentina and Brazil.

Porto Rubaiyat: The finny version of Rubaiyat – or, a Brazilian take on Spain's 'marisquerías'.

Brasileirinho: Modest joint specializing in moqueca and other Bahia dishes. Nice musical background!

Taquería del Alamillo: Rita Sánchez, from Jalisco, is a wonderful cook.This looks like a tex-mex joint for beer-guzzling kids, but it's a lot more.

El Chile Verde: Another young Mexican cook, here Amalia Arévalo, with genuinely delicate dishes.

Chilango (basically the great quesadillas) and Tacubaya (the tacos, mainly) are the two only places in Europe where Mexican street food tastes like street food in Mexico.

Xáman Ek: Refined southern Mexican cuisine from Chiapas and Yucatán.

Palermo Viejo: A café-shop selling Quilmes beer, offering medialunas for breakfast with a copy of the Clarín newspaper, and serving excellent pastas, steaks and 'milanesa' schnitzels in a purely Buenos Aires atmosphere. Good malbec reds too.

De María: Serious Argentine steaks at the main restaurant (calle Félix Boix) of this budding chain.

North African and Middle Eastern:

Sayat Nova: An unexpectedly refined and authentic Armenian restaurant (with the usual Lebanese overtones: there's been a long history of Amenian-Lebanese relations in the 20th century!)

Al-Mounia: Outstanding Moroccan fare in a dazzling Moorish room.

San Maroun: Dirt-cheap, furiously authentic Lebanese cooking in an anonymous bar (in Aranjuez, 60 kms. from Madrid)

Asian and fusion:

Sudestada: A modest Vietnamese-Argentinian (!) diner that's become a cult place in Spain. Very fresh, 'street food'-type dishes from southeast Asia.

Diverxo. David Muñoz, 27, who schooled at Hakkasan in London, does a terrific if iconoclastic Spanish-Chinese fusion. Don't miss the 'Spanish Toltilla' dim sum…

Miyama: Sushi man Hiroo Miki's excellent sushi bar.

Oam Thong: Po Hai Chiu's rendition of Thai dishes is fiery and authentic.

Himawari: Gou Shiga's perfect Tokyo-style 'izakaya' (pub).

Naomi Japonés: A modest eatery, run for 33 years in a Madrid back street by the same family, with a strong core of Japanese customers.

Kabuki: Ricardo Sanz was a pupil of revered sushi master Kikuchi, who introduced sushi to Spain in the 1970s. His own version is unorthodox – Spain meets Japan, and the results are spectacular. (Don't miss his raw meats either.)

Don Lay: Brilliant Cantonese in a working-class neighboorhood – forget the Castilian looks, the dim sum are memorable.

China Crown:Was a dim sum pioneer in Madrid and is ever improving and changing things – a rare feature in a Chinese restaurant.

Jinjin: Dirt-cheap but exemplary noodle shop.

Circus: Not dirt cheap (it's sophisticated, in the swinging Chueca area of town), but also excellent noodles.

Himalaya: One of the many modest Indian-Pakistani restaurants in Madrid, this one is Pakistani and probably the best of the lot.

Sulú: Since 1971, Manila-born Myleen Huenefeld has run with care her unusual Filipino restaurant, with a few Indonesian and Japanese offerings.

Serious, modern Italians: Più di Prima, Taverna Siciliana, Boccondivino, Ars Vivendi (in Majadahonda, 15 kms from Madrid).

Trattorie/pizzerie: Casa Marco, Maruzzella.

French: Nothing great, but some good down-home, authentic bistrots (Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Petit Bistrot and, until the wee hours of the morning, Daniel Bouté's Caripen – best skate in 'black butter' in town).

Other European:

Olsen: modernized Scandiavian cuisine with an Argentinian accent – fun!

La Sueca: just as cool as Olsen, a fun bar-restaurant for herring, aquavit and blondes.

Tras-ós-Montes and Don Sol: José and María Graça Alves' two establishments are exemplary representatives of Portugal's cuisine. Superb codfish dishes.

Edited by vserna (log)

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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Victor, thank you or providing this extensive list. There are quite a few restaurants on there that I would be tempted to try given the time. Of course, you are correct about being attracted to the local cuisine. Amongst the list, since I was unable to make it there when in Lima, Astrid y Gaston would be particularly tempting.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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I like Tacubaya (their joint venture with Caripen's Daniel Bouté) better than Entre Suspiro y Suspiro, which is a bit too chichi and subdued for a Mexican restaurant - in my book, of course. But I do like Entre Suspiro y Suspiro and quite a few other foreign places, from Café Saigon to Nagoya to El Gaucho - they're just not among my very top favorites!

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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Wow, vserna, this is most welcome and very timely, considering that I will be in Madrid 14-25 August! Are many of these places likely to be open at that time?

If you don't feel that the subject has been covered elsewhere, I'd love to have your thoughts about my 'summer in Madrid' posting: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=105086.

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You'll have to check. A good number of them will be open in August.

One that will be closed from today until Aug. 16 (vacations) is my latest discovery, and I think a worthy addition to the list: Kanpai, which is the less-expensive annex to Miyama opened next door to the sushi bar a few months ago by chef Hiroo Miki. Sushi and sashimi are available, but are not the stars in this restaurant that favors cooked dishes, with noodles prominent, and also some fusion winks that come to remind us that Miki is a complete cook who did stages at such places as Zuberoa and considers Hilario Arbelaitz as his Spanish mentor. This is apparent, for instance, in some tasty gyoza filled with Ibérico pork meat. (All Asian cooks in Madrid are enamored with Ibérico pork!) I had a wonderful plate of yakisoda noodles with juicy morsels of chicken and al dente vegetables that was extremely tasty with its curry/soy base and also aromatic with plenty of fresh ginger. Also, light and spectacularly well fried tempura of nice Spanish langostino shrimp, local vegetables (green asparagus, red morrón peppers, zucchini and eggplant) and an unusual ingredient: small, sweet, green Gernika peppers from the Basque country. Miki winking at Arbelaitz again!

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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(All Asian cooks in Madrid are enamored with Ibérico pork!)

Wouldn't it have been easier just to say that all cooks in Madrid are enamored with Ibérico pork! :raz::laugh::biggrin: I would think that the only ones not enamored of it are those who can't use it for religious reasons.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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Wouldn't it have been easier just to say that all cooks in Madrid are enamored with Ibérico pork! :raz:  :laugh:  :biggrin: I would think that the only ones not enamored of it are those who can't use it for religious reasons.

Actually, John, I think cooks at all major seafood joints absoultely disdain Ibérico pork... :raz:

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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Wouldn't it have been easier just to say that all cooks in Madrid are enamored with Ibérico pork! :raz:  :laugh:  :biggrin: I would think that the only ones not enamored of it are those who can't use it for religious reasons.

Actually, John, I think cooks at all major seafood joints absoultely disdain Ibérico pork... :raz:

Don't they do Mar y Montaña dishes? The best dish I had at El Poblet was the Joselito pork (the Denia prawns weren't bad either :wink: )

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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No. El Poblet is not a seafood joint, a.k.a. marisquería. A real marisquería will only have, if any, one kind of Ibérico product - Ibérico ham. And that is definitely not something they will use in the kitchen, but merely slice...

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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No. El Poblet is not a seafood joint, a.k.a. marisquería. A real marisquería will only have, if any, one kind of Ibérico product - Ibérico ham. And that is definitely not something they will use in the kitchen, but merely slice...

Reminds me of the ham served at Rafa's. How prevalent are true marisquerías in Madrid?

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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I guess that it is not for nothing that Spain is one of the biggest seafood eating countries in the world.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been to Astrid y Gastón last month, July 07. Excellent. A good tip is to ask the chef to send various appetizers of his liking instead of having any main course. It will be like a delicious tasting menu (my friend from Madrid who took me there said their appetizers really outperform main dishes, and after having the meal I could only trust him).

Just trying to eat some good food and learn in the process with all the well versed foodies here. Please don't hold me too accountable for my so personal opinions! :)

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Funny, I've been there today and did almost the same thing ordering the three cebiches and the three tiraditos. That is, all the cebiches and tiraditos available in the menu. They were quite good but it looks to me that the rumors about their toning down the spiciness and the coriander are accurate.

PedroEspinosa (aka pedro)

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To my recollection, it was definitely not spice. It might have some, but nothing that stroke me as "spice food".

Just trying to eat some good food and learn in the process with all the well versed foodies here. Please don't hold me too accountable for my so personal opinions! :)

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