Στέκια in Madrid

Arzábal's garden restaurant inside the Reina Sofía

Persian market cuisine from a one-woman kitchen

Grilled sardines and El Rastro Sunday ritual since 1977

The locals' temple of battered bacalao near Plaza Mayor

Churros con chocolate in a marble-and-tile room since 1894

All-day West-Coast cafe with in-house bakery and La Cabra coffee

An eight-seat Michelin room hidden inside the world's great tablao

Madrid's only three-star, Dabiz Muñoz's avant-garde theatre

Communal-table specialty coffee with an Asian-vintage touch

Lavapiés roaster supplying the city's best specialty bars

A 19th-century Salamanca palace with two Michelin stars downstairs

Iron-and-glass design five-star with a Michelin-starred kitchen

Juanjo López's seasonal cocido house by the Retiro

The credible Turkish kitchen Madrid actually has

Chueca's real food market with a rooftop terrace

Hola Coffee's specialty café and bakehouse on the Conde Duque edge

The canonical Spanish painting collection, Velázquez, Goya, Bosch

Spain's modern-art museum and the home of Guernica

The collection that fills the gaps, eight centuries on one walk

Lázaro Rosa-Violán-designed mansion hotel in Salesas

An 1886 building reworked by Lázaro Rosa-Violán, beside Retiro

A 32-room 19th-century mansion on a quiet Chamberí street

Reborn Castellana grande dame with Jesús Sánchez's Amós

Madrid's second-oldest tavern, beloved of Lorca's generation

Small wine-led tapas tavern off the Retiro

Toma's Chamberí roastery room near Plaza de Olavide

Conde Duque specialty roastery cafe with natural wine after dark

Madrid's first boutique five-star, in a 1915 neoclassical townhouse

Spain's exclusive La Cabra outpost for coffee and bakehouse

Herzog & de Meuron culture house with a vertical garden

Lavapiés's avant-garde cultural centre with a rooftop terrace

Tiny Georgian bistrot for khachapuri and khinkali

Eco specialty coffee and all-day brunch in Lavapiés

Belle Époque ducal palace-hotel with a private garden

The roaster that lit Madrid's specialty-coffee fuse, since 2012