Where to Eat in Madrid: 16 Places From One Week

Updated September 25, 2026 · by the Crumble team

This is where to eat in Madrid according to a record rather than a memory. We spent a week there in April and logged every meal as we ate it. Sixteen of those places came out at 4.0 or above, which is what this list is. It is not the sixteen most famous restaurants in Madrid and it is not trying to be: it is one week, mostly in one part of the city, written down at the time instead of remembered afterwards.

The geography turned out to be the most useful thing about it. Twelve of the sixteen are in Centro, and most of those sit in the block of Malasaña and Chueca bounded by Fuencarral, Calle del Pez and Valverde. You can walk the entire core of this list in fifteen minutes, which matters more when planning a day than any individual ranking does.

Where to eat in Madrid: the four we would go back for first

Four things scored a straight 5.0. If you are in Madrid for two days rather than seven, this is the list.

Map the places you eat

TKO Tacos: order pork, and order too many

Calle del Clavel 5. The tacos and the enchiladas both rated 5.0. The specific advice, which we would give anyone: the pork tacos are the ones to get. If there are two of you, order fourteen pork tacos between you and stop thinking about it. Pulled beef is the other good call, and the al pastor is there if you want the variety.

TKO has several locations around Madrid, and we have seen them in Valencia too, so this is not a one-address secret. It is just very good and very cheap for what it is.

Médium Club: the cocktail bar worth planning around

Calle del Pez 18. Both cocktails we ordered rated 5.0, which no other bar on this trip managed. The room is part of it: there is a whole introduction to the drink before you get it, and it is genuinely fun rather than tiresome.

For a sense of what you are ordering: the Cuadro Maldito runs somewhere near a piña colada, built on whisky with roasted coconut cream, lime and roasted pineapple. The Abducción went the other way, with anise, lime, basil, fennel and pineapple. Both landed.

Ramen KOTSU x KOTSU: the tonkotsu that nearly beat Berlin

Calle del Cardenal Cisneros 1, Chamberí. The tonkotsu shoyu special rated 5.0 and it is the only bowl anywhere that has come close to Cocolo in Berlin, which has held our top spot for years. Great broth, pork grilled and then steeped in the tonkotsu, a good egg, black mushroom, seaweed, naruto and spring onion.

One honest note: the noodles were slightly overcooked. That is the entire criticism, and it did not stop the bowl scoring full marks. The matcha ice cream afterwards also rated 5.0, and the gyoza were solid pork gyoza at 4.0, though the bowl is what to come for.

Service was fast, though we had a reserved table, so treat that as a data point rather than a promise. If you care about this category, we ranked it against four other cities in our guide to the best tonkotsu ramen in Europe.

DIVORARE: the best sandwich we ate in Madrid

Calle de Sagasta 32. The Gravissima rated 5.0: gorgonzola, caramelised onion, balsamic and roast beef on focaccia. If you order one thing from this entire guide, order that.

The pastrami focaccia rated 4.0, and we will be straight about why it is lower: it needed something more in the toppings, onion or similar. The highest-rated pastrami in our records is a sandwich in Dordrecht that is very hard to beat, which is not really Madrid's problem.

Coffee and breakfast

Wolføx, Calle de Pérez Galdós 2, Malasaña. The best coffee of the week. Flat white and cappuccino both 4.5, dialled in properly with no sourness and no bitterness, on a single origin Brazil we liked enough to buy 250g to take home. The avocado toast rated 4.0.

Urbano Specialty Coffee, Calle de Santa Bárbara 8. The breakfast one. The brioche sandwich with egg, and the avocado toast, rated 4.5 together. They like sauce here, in a good way, and the pink pepper on the avocado toast was the detail that made it. The brioche could have used a pinch more salt, which is the only thing we would change.

Religion Coffee, Príncipe de Vergara 16, Salamanca and Epico, Avenida de Menéndez Pelayo 20, Retiro both rated 4.0 on an iced latte. Religion gets the nod of the two: two shots in the cup, and you can sit in the window. Epico could have been a touch stronger. Both are a good stop when you are already in that part of the city.

Lunch

Honest Greens, Gran Vía 7. Rated 4.5 for the bowl, and worth overcoming the name. We had the Latin Lover with piri piri chicken and chimichurri steak, roasted pumpkin and feta. It is health food that is seasoned like it is not, which is the only version of the category worth eating.

Mercado de San Ildefonso, Fuencarral 57. The chorizo croquetas rated 4.5 and are the reason to go: a good filling, and every so often a hit of chorizo across your tongue. The burrito rated 4.0, good with cheese and a green sauce with some heat. Order the croquetas first, then stay for the room.

Pizzart, Fuencarral 58. The pizza porchetta rated 4.5, with honey on it and a properly crisp base. It is directly across the street from the market, which makes the pair of them one easy lunch decision.

Dinner and drinks

El Willy HIFI Bar, Calle de Campoamor 12. A dark, Japanese-leaning jazz bar, and the room is a real part of the recommendation. Both cocktails rated 4.5. The half star is purely price: it is not cheap, and you should know that walking in.

Josefita Bar, Calle de Valverde 42. The unpretentious one. Tinto de verano 4.5, Mahou 4.0, and a room that skewed our own age rather than anybody's idea of a scene. The kind of place you end up in twice.

La Terraza de Madriz, Costanilla de los Ángeles 15. Rated 4.5. A beer, a tinto and a chorizo snack that arrived with the drinks, from a genuinely friendly host. This is the low-effort good evening on the list.

El Social, Calle de Hernán Cortés 19. Rated 4.0 across both plates: Peruvian chicken with coconut sticky rice and egg, and a steak with chimichurri. Both solid, and we would happily go back and work further down the menu.

Dessert

Mistura Ice Cream, Calle de Augusto Figueroa 5. The lime rated 4.5 and the chocolate crepe 4.0. It sits in the middle of the Chueca cluster, so it is the natural end to a day spent inside this list.

The whole list, by neighbourhood

How to actually use this in a day

Because the cluster is tight, the sensible plan is by neighbourhood rather than by rank. Coffee at Wolføx, croquetas at San Ildefonso, pizza at Pizzart across the road, ice cream at Mistura, cocktails at Médium Club is one continuous day inside a fifteen minute walk, and four of those five rated 4.5 or better.

Ramen KOTSU x KOTSU in Chamberí is the one we would cross the city for. Epico by the Retiro and Religion Coffee in Salamanca sit outside that walking cluster, so save them for a day you are already in those neighbourhoods. Both are good coffee, they are just not on the same route.

Why sixteen, and why no famous names

There is no Botín on this page, no century-old tapas institution off the Plaza Mayor and no tasting menu, because we did not eat at them. Everything here is somewhere we sat down, ate, and rated on the spot, and the list stops where our week did.

That is the trade. A list assembled from other people's reviews can cover the whole city and cannot tell you which taco to order fourteen of, or that the noodles were slightly soft in an otherwise perfect bowl of ramen. We would rather be narrow and specific. Our Dordrecht and Rotterdam guides are built the same way, and they grow as we eat.

Keeping a trip like this

Sixteen places over a week is more than anybody remembers accurately, and that is the honest reason this page exists: it was logged as it happened, one dish at a time. Two months later the notes were still specific enough to write from, which memory would not have been.

If you want to do that on your own trips, our guide on tracking food on your travels covers the method, including why a trip and a food passport beats a camera roll. The wishlist side is for the places you are saving before you go.

Map your own trip

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