Plekken in Madrid

Spain's exclusive La Cabra outpost for coffee and bakehouse

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

The Rastro's snail institution since 1942

The 1929 tavern where the Yayo was born

Madrid's championship tortilla inside Mercado de la Paz

1860 tavern of legendary bacalao, croquetas and Madrid history

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

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

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

Specialty-coffee espresso bar in Salamanca

Influential contemporary gallery in a Justicia townhouse

The anchor of Madrid's gallery street in Lavapiés

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

Plaza de San Ildefonso specialty café and work-friendly hub

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

Classic seafood and casa-style tapas on Ponzano

Bohemian all-day kitchen with a Michelin-pedigree hand

Bohemian Basque pintxo bar on Cava Baja since the 1980s

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

1931 gourmet grocer with 1,500-plus wines

Arzak-trained signature cooking on Doctor Castelo

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

From-scratch artisan gelato on Calle Goya

A collector's mansion of Old Masters and decorative arts

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

Artisan sourdough bakery across from the Conde Duque centre

Eco specialty coffee and all-day brunch in Lavapiés

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

Reborn Castellana grande dame with Jesús Sánchez's Amós

Belle Époque ducal palace-hotel with a private garden

Madrid's oldest tavern, untouched since before 1787

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

Small wine-led tapas tavern off the Retiro

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

Justicia gallery with a strong Latin American program

Conde Duque specialty roastery cafe with natural wine after dark

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