The 81 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Madrid
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The best places to drink and stay in Madrid, according to the experts: Forbes Travel Guide, Michelin Guide, and The 50 have all weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. Four Seasons Hotel Madrid comes out on top.
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Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid and Rosewood Villa Magna hold the next two places. Michelin Guide shows up on more of this list than any other guide, with Difford's Guide next.
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The grand foyer alone tells you what you're in for: marble floors, birds of paradise, and ornamental stonework salvaged from the banks and social clubs that once occupied this corner of Centro. It's a luxury hotel in the most old-Madrid sense, except the rooms are thoroughly modern and the service is Four Seasons, which earns a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels. The building's angled facade at Sevilla and Alcalá has already become part of the skyline.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 2 Keys
- The 50 The 50: #66 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
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The gold cutlery is not a flex, it's just the baseline here. This grande dame hotel on the Golden Triangle of Art has been collecting Belle Époque grandeur since forever, and a major renovation brought it back without softening a single gilded edge. The 153 rooms run white and gold throughout, the marble pool is heated, and Quique Dacosta runs the kitchen. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 3 Keys
- The 50 The 50: #71 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
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A stained-glass spiral staircase and a fireplace roaring in the lobby set the mood at this Forbes Five Star hotel on the Paseo de la Castellana, where the vibe lands closer to a private members' club than a hotel you'd find on a booking app. The Salamanca address alone does a lot of the work. A spa, serious dining, and service calibrated to guests who notice when something's off round out a place that takes its understated register rather seriously.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 2 Keys
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
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A Forbes Five Star hotel on Madrid's Golden Mile, BLESS occupies a 19th-century building redesigned to feel like a noble Madrid apartment from the 1950s, with midcentury furniture, patterned rugs, and porcelain bathtubs sharing space with Bose speakers and a thermoregulatory sleep system. Most rooms have fireplaces and open balconies. A rooftop lounge, Japanese fusion restaurant, and full spa round things out for guests who treat a hotel stay as the actual plan.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Rank 4. Salmon Guru
Cocktail Bar
The bar counter runs along stainless-steel fish scales, with a fluorescent seascape glowing behind it, which tells you everything about the commitment level here. Salmon Guru is a serious cocktail bar on one of Madrid's liveliest streets, ranked among the World's 50 Best Bars, with a menu that runs from impeccable classics to stranger, chipotle-forward originals. Grab a counter seat if you can; the booths are fine, but the bar is the point.
The awards
- The 50 The 50: #37 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- The 50 The 50: #46 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4 stars · Difford's Guide
- The 50 #37 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- The 50 #46 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
- Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide
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Rank 6. Angelita
Cocktail Bar
The shelves behind the bar hold more jars of powdered acids than bottles of spirits, which tells you a lot about what kind of cocktail bar this is. Tucked beneath a wine bar in Centro, Angelita runs on the bartender's own four distillates and a small roster of bottled cocktails, with rotary evaporators doing work alongside the shakers. It landed on Europe's 50 Best Bars list, and the crowd dresses accordingly.
The awards
- The 50 The 50: #51 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- The 50 The 50: #45 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
- The 50 #51 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- The 50 #45 · Europe's 50 Best Bars
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The Rockwell Group designed the interiors here, and the results sit comfortably between preserved historic detail and modern minimalism, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. This Forbes Four Star hotel occupies Plaza de Canalejas in the Centro, meaning the Prado, the tapas bars, and Madrid's famously late nightlife are essentially at the door. An intimate spa and a restaurant run by the Sandoval brothers round out the reasons to stay in.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Four Star
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The marble pool table has an art pedigree, which tells you exactly what kind of hotel this is. The Madrid EDITION sits right on Puerta de Sol with 200 rooms, five bars and restaurants, a rooftop pool, spa, and enough designer furniture and living plant installations to keep design obsessives busy between sightseeing. The Prado and Reina Sofía are a twenty-minute walk, and Plaza Mayor is practically at the door.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Recommended
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
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Philippe Starck had free run of an ornate Gran Vía landmark and went full Starck: surrealist canvases, Paris-in-the-twenties nostalgia, and a spa that reads more like a spaceship. The hotel's 57 rooms and suites carry that same controlled theatricality, and the restaurant leans Mediterranean with a Lebanese lean. It's a place that takes its own concept seriously enough to be fun rather than exhausting.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Recommended
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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The original chandeliers are still hanging in the lobby, which tells you something about how seriously this hotel takes its own history. Sitting in the Barrio de las Letras, the Gran Hotel Inglés is an old-school Madrid institution with velvet furnishings, brass fittings, and Rockwell Group interiors that stop just short of theatrical. The lobby bar draws a well-dressed crowd that has clearly nowhere urgent to be.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Recommended
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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A former duke's palace in Chamberí, now a Luxury Collection hotel where the entrance hall gets fresh flowers every morning and the old ballrooms have been folded into the lobby as if no one thought to question it. Spanish interior designer Lorenzo Castillo's recent remodel brought the belle époque bones back into focus. The main staircase alone stops conversations. Shopping and the city's bigger draws are a short walk away.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Recommended
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A bronze phoenix crests the roofline above Plaza Colón, which sets the tone for what's inside this grand, old-school luxury hotel on Madrid's Golden Mile. The neoclassical pile has stained-glass domes, 188 rooms done in a kind of stately English-club style, and upper suites with terraces and whirlpool baths overlooking the square. Forbes Four Star. The crowd is a reliable mix of well-heeled leisure guests and executives who know where to book.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Four Star
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A trompe l'oeil ceiling in the courtyard has been fooling eyes for well over a century, and the rest of this small Chamberí palace keeps pace: marble, period furniture, and an English tea room that takes itself seriously in the best possible, no, in a perfectly committed way. It's a boutique hotel that reads more like a private home from a more theatrical era. The flowered patio is the place to be on a warm Madrid evening.
The awards
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Travel Guide: Forbes Recommended
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A 19th-century palace-house on Calle de Atocha, now a 34-room luxury hotel where the molded ceilings and ornate walls make checking into your room feel faintly like trespassing in a museum. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Key. Suites are among the roomier ones in the city, and the penthouse rooms come with private terraces over the Madrid skyline. A formal restaurant, a tavern bar, and a pool garden with weekend brunch keep you from ever having to leave, which is both convenient and slightly alarming.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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A 19th-century palace in Chueca that once belonged to a marquesa, now a boutique hotel where designer Lázaro Rosa-Violán has swapped the antiques for modular sofas and Jonathan Adler vases while keeping the azulejo tiles and moulded ceilings. The Padrino Cocktail Bar still wears the façade of the old bookstore it displaced. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Just brief your taxi driver in advance.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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The original stained-glass dome still arches over the reception, setting the tone for a Belle Epoque grand hotel that has been around forever and shows no signs of apologizing for it. Guest rooms run soundproof windows and Bang & Olufsen alongside the period-appropriate grandeur, and the location just off the Prado means the city's best museums, bars, and restaurants are a short walk in any direction. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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A Spanish Renaissance corner building on the Gran Vía, dressed inside with slate gray, camel, and butterfly chairs beneath gilded oil portraits, which reads more Manhattan than Madrid and somehow suits it. This boutique hotel holds a Michelin Key, and its 76 rooms are comfortable if quieter than the lobby's soaring ceilings and ironwork promise. The rooftop terrace, ringed with olive trees, fills at sundown with locals who treat it as their own.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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A 44-room boutique hotel tucked behind a stately 19th-century facade in the Salamanca district, where the serious exterior gives nothing away. Inside it runs decidedly contemporary, with a pillow menu for the discerning sleeper, round-the-clock room service, and a spa that punches well above what a hotel this size should manage. The Prado is a short walk, which helps explain the guests. It holds a Michelin Key.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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A stately early 20th-century palace in Chueca that a celebrated Spanish designer turned into a boutique hotel, with original marble staircases and stained-glass windows left intact, and Chinois lobby wallpaper recreated from a fragment found in a neighboring palace. Rooms run to airy neutrals rather than museum hush. The cellar spa, with its wood-paneled lap pool, operates at a satisfying remove from the rest of Madrid. The hotel holds a Michelin Key.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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Rank 20. 1862 Dry Bar
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar in Malasaña where the menu arrives with the casual aside that they can also make most other classics, in case the several pages of signatures and standards weren't enough. The room is rustic and worn-in rather than sleek, and the regulars who prop it up on weeknights give way on weekends to curious out-of-towners, at which point the basement opens up, high tables, banquette, and a caged stockroom as decor.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
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A Catalan designer took a 19th-century building steps from Retiro Park and filled it with exposed brick, industrial trim, and sudden bursts of Spanish color, blue, yellow, red, as if New York and Madrid had agreed to split the decorating. This hotel holds a Michelin Key. Rooms are warm-toned with good natural light, many with balconies, and the seventh-floor terrace looks straight out at Atocha station. There's also a relaxarium, which sounds made up but isn't.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Key
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Rank 22. La Venencia
Spanish
Sherry bars don't come more committed than this one: no beer, no wine, no water, no tips, and absolutely no photos. The ban on cameras dates, according to local lore, to the Franco era when spies used them to identify enemies. A chalk tally on the bar keeps track of what you've drunk. Order fino, manzanilla, or oloroso, let the black cat wander past, and don't ask for anything that isn't sherry.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4 stars · Difford's Guide
- Eater Eater: The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain
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A 28-room boutique hotel tucked down a side street just off Plaza de Colón, Casa Almagro is the kind of quiet that requires confidence. The rooms run from dark and sober Spanish-luxury to genuinely bright, with rain showers, good books, and space enough to actually use the seating. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, and the service carries that particular Hong Kong-group professionalism: warm, precise, never hovering.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The restaurant sits inside what was once the railway workers' union theater, stained-glass coat of arms still overhead, which sets the tone for this 137-room hotel in the Barrio de las Letras. Four connected 1913 Beaux Arts buildings were linked by ASAH studio into something coherent but layered, ornate moldings giving way to Italian rationalism as you move through. Rooms come with Gustave Doré's Don Quixote prints above the beds, marble bathrooms, and mustard armchairs.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A century-old elevator and the original wooden staircase survived the conversion, which says something about the priorities here. This 50-room hotel sits in Madrid's Literary Quarter, close enough to the Prado, Reina Sofía, and Thyssen-Bornemisza that you could do all three in a day, though you probably shouldn't. After dark, the tourists thin out and the bookshops and tapas bars belong to whoever stayed.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A 19th-century building just off the Plaza de la Independencia hides forty-one rooms designed on the principle that comfort matters more than ornament. The Hospes group's formula runs to spare, contemporary interiors, beds you could get genuinely lost in, and well-lit bathrooms that earn their keep. The Bodyna spa and a polished restaurant round things out, and the location puts most of central Madrid within walking distance.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Marble pillars, wrought-iron staircases, and a Javier Mariscal on the wall: the bones here are an old embassy in Chamberí, and the NH Collection hasn't let you forget it. A four-star hotel with 183 rooms, it runs the full business-hotel checklist upstairs, parquet floors and molded ceilings aside. Terrace suites look out over the city, the breakfast spread invites lingering, and the cocktail bar comes with Chesterfield sofas, which is exactly right for a former embassy.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Reception on the eighth floor means the Gran Vía's traffic is already a distant memory by the time you check in. This NH Collection hotel occupies a restored heritage building right on Madrid's main drag, with rooms done in quiet whites and greys, rain showers, and espresso machines. The rooftop terrace serves tapas and drinks with a view that explains why everyone wanted a room up here in the first place.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The building was designed by Juan de Villanueva, the same architect behind the Prado, which sets a certain tone before you've even checked in. This hotel in the Barrio de las Letras marries that palatial bones with clean contemporary interiors, landing somewhere between antique elegance and modernist chic. A wellness area is on site, with a full spa and gym just across the street at preferential rates for guests.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A hotel a block off the Gran Vía that the Swedish royal family originally opened in the 1950s, which tells you something about Madrid's range. The renovation swept out most of the period atmosphere and replaced it with hardwood floors, rain showers, and sculptural lighting. Higher rooms come with private terraces over the city's ornate rooflines, the kind where a coffee and a pastry can quietly derail your morning itinerary.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Klein blue accents and curvaceous modern furniture push back against the embassy-and-art-gallery decorum of the Almagro neighborhood, which is exactly the point of this boutique hotel. Hardwood floors and Art Deco bones give the rooms some gravity, while even the smallest singles come with rainfall showers and decent beds. Public spaces are still settling in, but staff field neighborhood restaurant questions with genuine enthusiasm.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Clean-lined rooms with wood floors, white walls, and bursts of vivid color put this boutique hotel a short walk from the Prado at a price that doesn't require a loan. It's a home base, not a hideaway, with no restaurant and no bellhop, but the team will build you a contemporary-art itinerary, which is exactly the right trade-off for this corner of Madrid. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A boutique hotel tucked into two merged heritage buildings right on the Plaza Mayor, with some rooms opening onto little balconies above the square. Exposed brickwork keeps the old bones visible while marble bathrooms and design nods to Goya and Velázquez give the whole thing some cultural weight. No spa, but there are indoor and outdoor pools, and the neighborhood does most of the heavy lifting for entertainment anyway.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Cristiano Ronaldo spent nine seasons at Real Madrid, and this hotel on the Gran Vía is essentially the monument to that run, with tributes to the sporting life woven into the graphics, art, and motivational mottos on every floor. It's a modern design hotel inside a century-old building, with a gym elaborate enough to be called a Fitness Box, a rooftop bar with a 360-degree view of the city, and a pizzeria from one of the founders of Roberta's in Brooklyn, if you needed a reason to stay in.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A grand neoclassical corner building in Salamanca, Madrid's most quietly moneyed neighborhood, sets the stage for this boutique hotel. The ground floor runs dark and moody, all wood paneling, leather, and crushed velvet, while rooms upstairs go bright and airy with parquet floors and black marble bathrooms. The cocktail bar pulls in enough locals to feel like a real room rather than a hotel amenity. Walkable to everything, and pleasant to come back to.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A hotel built into a landmark that has been, in sequence, a Royal Printing House, a Post Office, and a theatre, which means some rooms have inherited genuinely unusual bones. Universal Music Group runs the music angle without making it a theme park: a 900-seat theatre hosts live concerts and Broadway productions, and singers cycle through the restaurant regularly. The rooftop, with its views to the Sierra Oeste mountains, is the most convincing argument for staying rather than just visiting.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A glowing alabaster column pours down through the atrium like frozen lava, and the reception desk is carved from the same luminescent stone. This design hotel in the heart of Habsburg Madrid was built around its owner's archaeological obsessions: ancient Egyptian works fill a basement gallery, and antique Hindu and Chinese pieces furnish the rooms, each with museum-style notes. Dark mahogany floors, black leather, and a rooftop pool six stories above the street round things out.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Roman mosaics from the hotel owner's personal collection line the walls of this boutique-style hotel on the Plaza de Las Cortes, giving it a mood that sits somewhere between a Madrid townhouse and a small archaeology museum. Rooms run spacious and soundproofed, many split across two levels. The Prado, Thyssen, and Reina Sofia are all within a short walk, which does a lot of the hotel's marketing for it.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Five linked historic buildings in Las Letras, Madrid's old literary quarter, were stitched together into this contemporary hotel without losing the bones of what was already there. Rooms run spacious by Madrid standards, and the bar spills onto a terrace worth knowing about. The Michelin Guide selects it among its recommended hotels, which in a neighborhood this walkable to everything puts it in useful company.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The Neo-Baroque facade on Gran Vía has been turning heads since the street was the place to be seen, and the hotel inside keeps pace with rooms that look straight out over the boulevard's sweep. A rooftop pool and bar push the views further across the skyline. Downstairs there's a restaurant doing Madrileño classics, a café for lighter moments, and a spa with steam room, sauna, pools, and an ice cabin for the committed.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Rank 43. Momus Cocktail Bar
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar in Madrid's Centro that bills itself as liquid theatre, invoking the Greek god of sarcasm and mockery, which turns out to be a surprisingly honest mission statement. The drinks lean avant-garde, and the room keeps things spare and minimal so nothing distracts from what's in the glass. Honey from a beekeeping collective in the Sierra Norte mountains finds its way into the drinks, which is either poetic or ironic, probably both.
The awards
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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A glass tower in Madrid's northern financial district, close enough to the Bernabéu that you can feel the city tense on match days. This is a business hotel through and through, with service so professional it borders on theatrical, but the public spaces are genuinely arresting, full of design pieces and contemporary art that feel like they belong somewhere smaller and moodier. Rooms lean minimalist; suites read like showrooms. David Muñoz's three-Michelin-star DiverXO is on-site.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Rank 43. Savas
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 43. Viva Madrid
Cocktail Bar
The azulejos tiles and carved wooden facade have been pulling people off the street in Las Letras since forever. Up front it reads like a classic Madrid taverna, wine and fino and all the rest; out back, Diego Cabrera of Salmón Gurú runs a cocktail bar that gives the old bones something to talk about. The crowd arrives for tapas and stays longer than planned, which is more or less the idea.
The awards
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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A liquid-metal sculpture fills the atrium of this sleek high-rise hotel on Plaza de España, setting the tone for rooms that run to rain showers and glossy finishes throughout. It's a design-forward property, and the higher you go the better it gets: the rooftop pool and the top-floor Gingko bar are where the real Madrid views live. The kind of hotel where the lobby alone gives other places something to think about.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A giant piano anchors the lobby, and the elevators each play a different genre, so the ride to your floor doubles as a genre quiz. This music-themed hotel in the Chamartín district goes all the way: certain rooms are built around figures like Elvis or Freddie Mercury, and you can request an in-room instrument or record player. The rooftop pool and Sky Lounge run brunch and live sets through summer.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Each of the fourteen floors was handed to a different architect, so checking in here feels less like booking a hotel room and more like choosing a collaborator. Zaha Hadid's rooms are molded plastic in black, white, or orange, flowing like ice caves; Norman Foster, Ron Arad, and John Pawson each took a floor of their own. A rooftop bar sits on top of it all, a Metro ride from central Madrid but a world away from anything that looks like a normal hotel.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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Rank 52. Dantte
Contemporary Italian
The kitchen calls it "Bastard Italian Cuisine," which at least tells you upfront this won't be a Nonna's-recipe situation. The chef, who once cooked at the Argentine presidential residence, runs a tight à la carte that pulls Italian cooking toward something more personal and Argentine-inflected, keeping the flavour while ditching the trattoria formula. The rice-base pizza alone is worth the detour to Chamberí.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Restaurant
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Floor-to-ceiling windows on the 30th floor of a northern Madrid skyscraper will recalibrate your sense of the city fast. This large business-district hotel runs nearly 500 rooms across a tower that leans hard into its own altitude, right down to the framed photography of famous skyscrapers hung in every room. A full spa, health club, and serious conference facilities come with the scale, and the Bernabéu is close enough to hear the roar on match day.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A rooftop pool and bar with Madrid skyline views sit at the top of this business hotel in the quieter, residential stretch of Pinar de Chamartín, north of the downtown crush. Rooms look out over either garden or city, a charcoal oven drives the in-house restaurant, and the spa menu runs from massages to physiotherapy for when the conference schedule catches up with you.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Hotels
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A mini luggage rack runs under the bar, a nod to the old design bones this cocktail bar chose to keep when it refurbished. Shingo Gokan's fingerprints are all over it: Japanese precision meets New York swagger, with the Sixty Forty on the menu, a drink that opens as a Martini and quietly becomes a Manhattan by the end. The room has enough hotel polish to feel intentional without losing the neighbourhood ease that keeps regulars coming back.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 5 stars · Difford's Guide
- The 50 The 50: The 50 Discovery
- Spirited Awards Spirited Awards: 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Europe
- Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide
- The 50 The 50 Discovery
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Cocktail Bar – Europe
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The awards
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Rank 57. Bad Company 1920
Cocktail Bar
The queue snaking down Calle de Tudescos is how you find this cocktail bar, since there's no other obvious sign. The owner has gone on record saying you probably won't remember the drinks a year from now, which is either a refreshing admission or very good marketing, depending on your mood. What people do remember is the night itself. Check Instagram for the password before you go, or just join the line and hope for the best.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
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Rank 57. Pictura at Mandarin Oriental Ritz
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
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Rank 57. Planta Baja
Cocktail Bar
The bar counter here was custom-built to one level so every bartender works the same station, which tells you something about how seriously Kevo Jacoby runs the room. This snug cocktail bar in the Salamanca neighborhood is built around classics, with signatures that riff and twist rather than reinvent. The owner is usually your bartender, which, after stints pouring drinks across several countries, makes him someone worth talking to.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
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The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Bestial Bar
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Caracortada
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Club Financiero Génova
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Fat Cats Cocktail House
Cocktail Bar
A discreet door off the street opens into a dim, velvet-and-shadow cocktail bar styled after the private haunts of 1970s New York's moneyed class. The concept is unabashedly theatrical, and the drinks lean into it: the team uses fine-dining technique to render things like tiramisu and cinnamon rolls as cocktails, which sounds gimmicky until you're two in and reconsidering your life choices. Difford's Guide has taken notice.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Ficus Bar
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Funambulista
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar on Calle de las Huertas where the espresso martini comes with a sustainability footnote, made with vanilla beans recycled from other productions and cold brew steeped for a full day. The philosophy, as the team puts it, is product, service, and experience in harmony, which sounds lofty until the drink arrives and the argument makes itself. Difford's Guide has taken note.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Inclán Brutal Bar
Cocktail Bar
The cocktail menu runs to eight drinks, and the team seems to regard that as plenty. Inclán Brutal Bar is a cocktail bar in Centro where the glassware is as considered as what's in it, trompe l'oeil details and all. The short list swings between originals and classics treated with unusual fidelity, which is a rarer combination than it sounds. A good room to visit when you want someone to have thought very hard about your drink.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. La Peligrosa
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar in Retiro that names itself after danger and more or less means it. The house Espresso Martini runs on Ketel One infused with vanilla, Pedro Ximénez, homemade banana syrup, cold brew, and cacao bitters, finished with a cacao crumble and dehydrated plantain chips. The coffee comes from a neighborhood shop that works with small local farmers, which is a surprisingly earnest detail for a bar with this much attitude.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Lobby Bar at The Madrid Edition
Cocktail Bar
The Lobby Bar at The Madrid Edition is the kind of hotel cocktail bar where the room does most of the talking, all marble and low light and the quiet confidence of people who have somewhere to be later. The signature espresso martini uses Café Baque coffee, a Madrid roaster with roots in local farming communities, which gives the bar's small-batch conscience something to actually point to.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Maldita Gioconda
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Mauz
Cocktail Bar
Mirrored walls and warm wood paneling line this cocktail bar on Echegaray, Madrid's reliable street for a late night out. The signature Espresso Martini swaps the usual formula for cold brew, house coffee liqueur, and local heather honey sourced from a neighborhood beekeeper working on native bee recovery, which is a more interesting origin story than most bars bother with. The room gets festive well before midnight.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Picalagartos Sky Bar and Restaurant at Hotel NH Collection
Spanish Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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The signature Espresso Martini swaps refined sugar for raw honey sourced from a small Guadalajara beekeeper, which is either a genuinely thoughtful choice or the most Spanish possible way to make a cocktail sound like a nature documentary. Either way, the drink is built around Ketel One macerated in rosemary and house coffee liqueur. This is a hotel cocktail bar inside the JW Marriott, polished and well-positioned, with Difford's Guide taking note.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Santamaría Coctelería
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Santos y Desamparados
Cocktail Bar
The Espresso Martini here comes with a coffee foam, an egg yolk, and a cookie wafer sourced from a local convent whose proceeds go to people in need, which gives ordering a cocktail a quietly unusual moral weight. Santos y Desamparados is a bar in Madrid's Centro, the kind where a drink can arrive with a small story attached. The room pulls in locals who know where they are, geographically and otherwise.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Tarde.O at Rosewood Villa Magna
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Torcuato
Cocktail Bar
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide
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Rank 61. Zingara
Cocktail Bar
The Espresso Martini here gets the fat-washing treatment, with Ketel One infused with dark chocolate and a coffee liqueur steeped in orange peel, finished under a coconut and white chocolate foam. Zingara is a cocktail bar near Plaza de Salesas whose menu drifts between cultures by design, the name nodding to Romani nomadism. Difford's Guide lists it among bars worth knowing in Madrid.
The awards
- Difford's Guide Difford's Guide: Difford's Guide