Plekken in Madrid

Spain's exclusive La Cabra outpost for coffee and bakehouse

The Villalón brothers' wine temple just off Gran Vía

The Retiro-edge canteen of Castellanos and Morales

Arzábal's garden restaurant inside the Reina Sofía

Persian market cuisine from a one-woman kitchen

Calle Argumosa's alternative tapas terrace

Grilled sardines and El Rastro Sunday ritual since 1977

1892 bodega, vermut de grifo and one of Madrid's best tortillas

Herzog & de Meuron culture house with a vertical garden

1827 taberna on Cervantes' old street

Madrid's championship tortilla inside Mercado de la Paz

Loewe's house-like flagship in a 19th-century Serrano building

The Cava Baja institution of huevos estrellados since 1974

A 1920 taberna reborn, ibérico-and-truffle croquetas and noble menú del día

The locals' temple of battered bacalao near Plaza Mayor

1941 bullfighting tavern famed for its fried merluza

Reborn 1950s vermouth tavern on an 8-metre marble bar

Refined Uruguayan parrilla over oak and vine shoots

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

Specialty-coffee espresso bar in Salamanca

Pescaderías Coruñesas' Salamanca seafood institution

Steamship-styled seafood house in the business north

Seasonal market cooking and a cult cheesecake in stripped-back Chamberí

Influential contemporary gallery in a Justicia townhouse

The chef who brought Nikkei to Spain, on his own terms

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

Yong Wu Nagahira's Japanese-Spanish fish maturation

Plaza de San Ildefonso specialty café and work-friendly hub

Cantabrian cooking in a minimalist-chic Salamanca townhouse

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

1929-rooted tin-bar taberna by the Retiro

Juanjo López's seasonal cocido house by the Retiro

Navarrese vegetable and produce temple in Justicia

Classic seafood and casa-style tapas on Ponzano

Bohemian all-day kitchen with a Michelin-pedigree hand

Quiet old-school tapas bar beside the Conde Duque centre

César Martín's modern Spanish cooking with cult croquetas

Bohemian Basque pintxo bar on Cava Baja since the 1980s

Malasaña's mid-century living room, all day into the night

Home-style Senegalese on Plaza Nelson Mandela

Arzak-trained signature cooking on Doctor Castelo

The credible Turkish kitchen Madrid actually has

Salamanca's real neighbourhood food market

Chueca's real food market with a rooftop terrace

Lavapiés's real neo-Mudéjar market, from fishmongers to natural wine

Chamberí's 1933 market reborn as a boundary-pushing food hall

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

Beirut-rooted Levantine cooking, modernised in Chueca

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

Tiny Georgian bistrot for khachapuri and khinkali

Three-decade Galician seafood house near the park

Lázaro Rosa-Violán-designed mansion hotel in Salesas

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

Japanese-Mexican fusion in residential Chamartín

The barrio's benchmark for biryani and cheese naan

Artisan sourdough bakery across from the Conde Duque centre

Eco specialty coffee and all-day brunch in Lavapiés

Two-star chef's most personal 10-seat room in Salamanca

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

The world's oldest restaurant, a once-in-a-lifetime cochinillo pilgrimage

Wood-fire asador with a Neapolitan oven in Chueca

Reborn Castellana grande dame with Jesús Sánchez's Amós

The chefs' beloved cult bistro of Chamartín

Belle Époque ducal palace-hotel with a private garden

A Chamartín izakaya with a 12-seat omakase counter

Madrid's oldest tavern, untouched since before 1787

A 'wine cult' with 400+ wines by the glass on Ponzano

Beam-and-stone Cava Baja wine taberna with a deep Spanish list

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

Small wine-led tapas tavern off the Retiro

Cava Baja vermut taberna with the secret 'Manuela' pour, since 1996

Neo-taberna with sharp Spanish tapas on the Conde Duque edge

1908 tiled-facade tavern for vermouth and tapas

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

Toma's Chamberí roastery room near Plaza de Olavide

Three-chef Bib Gourmand with half-portion freedom

Peruvian-Asian tasting counter inside Mercado de Vallehermoso

Conde Duque specialty roastery cafe with natural wine after dark

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