Travel with Heike

Spain’s capital is having a moment, and it earns it. Madrid is one of my core Spain picks — big-city energy, serious food, and neighbourhoods made for wandering and tapas-hopping.

But here’s my favourite thing about Madrid: it rewards slowing down. This is a city that still stops for a long lunch, takes its aperitif standing at a bar counter, and saves its best light for the end of the day. You can race through in two days and tick off the sights — or you can do it the Madrileño way and let the city set the pace. These are the eat, stay and play picks I send my clients, the ones that make a Madrid trip feel like the second kind.

Where to eat in Madrid

Sobrino de Botín — Founded in 1725 and recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest restaurant in the world, Botín still cooks in its original wood-fired oven. Order the cochinillo, the roast suckling pig with shatter-crisp skin, and try for a table in the vaulted cellar rooms if you can. Yes, it’s famous — but it earns it. Book ahead, because everyone else has the same idea.

Desde 1911 — Madrid is landlocked, yet Madrileños joke that theirs is the best seaport in Spain — and this restaurant is why. Desde 1911 belongs to Pescaderías Coruñesas, the family fish merchants who have been bringing the catch up to the capital since 1911, and the menu is written around whatever came in that day. Let the fish be the event: simply prepared, impeccably fresh. This is my pick for one special seafood lunch.

Casa Dani — Tucked inside the Mercado de La Paz food market, this little bar is famous across Spain for one thing: its tortilla, made con cebolla — with onion, which in this long-running national debate is the only correct answer, at least here. Expect a queue at lunchtime; it moves fast, and the tortilla itself, still juicy in the middle, is worth every minute of it. Eat standing at the bar with a caña, like a local.

Mercado de San Miguel — The beautiful glass-and-iron market hall just off Plaza Mayor is Madrid’s great grazing ground: dozens of stalls, one long, delicious lap. My strategy is to not commit to the first thing you see — walk the whole hall once, then circle back for the greatest hits: a vermouth here, oysters there, something fried, something sweet. It gets busy, and I send people anyway, because it’s fun.

Zalacaín — A Madrid institution. Opened in 1973, Zalacaín was the first restaurant in Spain to earn three Michelin stars, and it remains the city’s classic special-occasion address: proper old-school service, legendary dishes, a dining room that takes dinner seriously. If you want one grand, traditional fine-dining night in Madrid, this is the name I give.

Where to stay in Madrid

The Madrid EDITION — The modern landmark on my list: a sleek, design-led hotel just off Puerta del Sol, made for travellers who like their base to have a scene. The headline is up top — a rooftop pool looking out over the old-town rooftops, made for a slow late afternoon after a morning of sightseeing. This is one of the names I reach for when clients want contemporary Madrid.

Gran Hotel Inglés — The grande dame. Madrid’s oldest luxury hotel opened in 1886 on Calle Echegaray, in the Barrio de las Letras — the literary quarter — and it was ahead of its time, among the first buildings in the city with electric light. After a full restoration it pairs all that history with Art Deco glamour. I love it for travellers who want their hotel to be part of the story of the trip.

Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid — The classic. A Belle Époque palace hotel in the Golden Triangle of Art, between the Prado and Retiro Park, reopened after a meticulous, years-long restoration — all pale façade and palm-shaded garden. If your Madrid is museums by day and elegance by night, this is the address I put at the top of the list.

Brach Madrid — The new name on Gran Vía. Brach opened in December 2024 at Gran Vía 20, inside a 1920s building, designed by Philippe Starck: warm woods, terracotta tones, and a literary streak — a young Victor Hugo once lived in the palace that stood on this spot. It’s the design lover’s pick, right on Madrid’s great boulevard.

Only YOU Boutique Hotel — My boutique pick. A 19th-century palace on Calle Barquillo, on the edge of Chueca and Salesas, reimagined with blue-and-white tilework, vintage suitcases and a glass-roofed courtyard lounge. It’s stylish without being stuffy — and the neighbourhood outside the door, tapas bars one way and smart boutiques the other, is half the experience.

What to do in Madrid (beyond the obvious)

Museo del Prado — One of the great art museums of the world, and my non-negotiable in Madrid. Go to the giants: Velázquez and Las Meninas, Goya from the bright early portraits to the dark, strange late works, and Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which people stand in front of for a very long time. My one rule stands: arrive at opening, while the galleries are still quiet.

Retiro Park & the Crystal Palace — After the Prado, cross into Retiro, Madrid’s green living room. Row a boat on the Great Pond if the day is fine, then find the Palacio de Cristal — the glass palace built in 1887, which hosts rotating exhibitions from the Reina Sofía museum and might be the prettiest room in the city when the sun comes through the glass. No ticket strategy, no rush: just a park doing its job, and slow travel at its best.

El Rastro flea market — On Sunday mornings, the streets of La Latina fill with Madrid’s centuries-old open-air flea market: antiques, vintage clothes, prints, ceramics, and a great deal of cheerful junk. Go early for the best hunting, then do what everyone does — drift into the surrounding bars for a vermouth and tapas as the market winds down.

Círculo de Bellas Artes rooftop — The Azotea, the rooftop terrace of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, gives you the postcard view: the Metropolis dome up close, with Gran Vía and Alcalá running away below. Time it for sunset, order something cold, and watch the city turn gold. It’s the ending I build into almost every Madrid itinerary I plan.

Chueca & Malasaña — Two neighbourhoods, one perfect evening. Chueca is all lively terraces and tapas bars; Malasaña — birthplace of the movida madrileña, the creative explosion that followed Franco — is scruffier and cooler, full of vintage shops and old taverns. Join la hora del vermut, the vermouth hour, then hop bar to bar: a tapa here, a glass there, no reservations, no plan.

How I’d spend one slow day in Madrid

If you gave me one day and told me not to rush, it would look like this. The Prado at opening, while Las Meninas still has room to breathe. Then straight into Retiro — a wander to the Crystal Palace, maybe a boat on the pond, definitely a bench in the shade. A grazing lunch at Mercado de San Miguel, a little of everything. A slow afternoon — a siesta is a legitimate strategy in Madrid — then vermouth hour in Malasaña as the neighbourhood wakes back up. And when the light starts to turn, the Círculo de Bellas Artes rooftop for sunset over Gran Vía. Dinner can be late. In Madrid, it should be.

Planning a trip?

I plan custom Europe trips with no planning fees — tell me your dates and how you like to travel, and I’ll build the Madrid days around you.

DM me ‘MADRID’ on Instagram @travelwithheike, or email travelwithheike@yahoo.com.

— Heike, Travel with Heike

Europe specialist 🇩🇪 • Hidden gems, storybook towns & river cruises • Custom trips, no planning fees