Madrilenians invest a huge amount of their time and energy in eating and drinking. Forget all that stuff about the Mediterranean diet and don’t even think about cutting down on sugar, salt, fat or alcohol. Being in Madrid is really not compatible with healthy living. The buzzwords here are cholesterol, caffeine and calories. Breakfast should [...]
Archive for the ‘Madrid’ Category
Extreme gastroburgers at Nimu
Posted: July 9, 2011 in Madrid, Spanish food and wineTags: gastrobotanica, gastrohamburguesa
Posh burgers are everywhere these days, but when your burger bun is bright green, something tells you the game has been upped a level or two. Hardly surprising really, as the burgers at Nimu, a restaurant that opened last night in Madrid’s is-it-really-trendy-or-still-just-grotty Triball neighbourhood, have been dreamt up by chefs Rodrigo de la Calle [...]
In the afternoon sunshine, I stood in the noisy queue that snaked around the church of San Antonio de La Florida, on the bank of the Manzanares river in Madrid. It was June 13, the feast day of St Anthony of Padua, and I was joining the hundreds of women of all ages who were [...]
Madrid reveals the secrets of its origins
Posted: February 23, 2011 in MadridTags: Almudena cathedral, Arab Madrid, city walls, Medieval Madrid, Museo de las Colecciones Reales, Palacio Real, Royal Palace
This crumbling bit of wall doesn’t look much, I’ll give you that, but it’s one of the oldest bits of Madrid, providing the evidence on which the city’s history is based – until now, that is. It’s on the Cuesta de la Vega, the hill next to the Royal Palace and the Almudena cathedral, which [...]
Mooching around…. Lavapies in Madrid
Posted: January 16, 2011 in MadridTags: casa a la malicia, corralas, La Tabacalera, Lavapies, Madrid, zarzuela
I have often read that if Dickens were alive today he would be writing scripts for Eastenders, and the same probably goes for Benito Perez Galdos, his Spanish contemporary. At the end of the 19th century, Galdos was a prolific writer on the wretchedness of daily life in Spain, and many of the characters in [...]
In the footsteps of Mario Vargas Llosa in Madrid
Posted: October 12, 2010 in MadridTags: Cafe Central, Madrid cafes, Madrid Golden Age, Mario Vargas Llosa, Plaza de Oriente, Teatro Real, Templo de Debod
The Spanish papers have been full of articles about Mario Vargas Llosa since he won the Nobel Prize for Literature last week. The one that I found most intriguing was in El País and talked about how he spends a typical day in Madrid, where he has had a flat for the last [...]
A secret allotment in Madrid
Posted: April 25, 2010 in Madrid, Spanish cultureTags: Descalzas Reales, Golden Age, Madrid
There aren’t a lot of allotments in downtown Madrid. In fact, I’ve only ever seen one, and that’s a bit of a secret. As I took a shortcut through the Corte Inglés department store in the heart of the city, I was pretty sure I was the only one of the thousands in there who [...]
Madrid has lost a lot of its traditional old shops in the last few years, and now a real institution is having a closing down sale. The Corseteria La Latina (Calle Toledo 49) has been in business for 85 years, specialising in underwear for the larger lady. Well, the largest ladies of all really. When [...]
A tale of two markets
Posted: February 8, 2010 in Madrid, Spanish food and wineTags: Madrid markets, Mercado de la Cebada, Mercado de San Miguel
Madrid’s Mercado de San Miguel was absolutely heaving on Saturday. Right by the Plaza Mayor, the dainty ironwork structure dates back to 1916 and housed a neighbourhood food market until a couple of years ago. Changing shopping habits meant that it been struggling to keep going for years, with an increasing number of empty stalls. [...]
The Mystery of Madrid’s ‘Golden Triangle’
Posted: January 2, 2010 in Madrid, Spanish cultureTags: Golden Triangle, Madrid, Paseo del Arte, Paseo del Prado, Puerta de Toledo, Spain, travel
I just read a piece in The Times – Madrid – a lesson in the dark arts – with a subhead about ‘Madrid’s golden triangle of art museums’. This is a very common expression, crops up all over the shop. Thing is, it doesn’t make sense. If you’ve been to Madrid, just think about it. [...]
