The Best Restaurants in Madrid

The cheesecake recipe hasn't changed since 1981, and the kitchen sees no reason to start now. La Maruca is a lively, informal restaurant in Velázquez that plants its flag firmly in Cantabria, bringing Santander's fried squid and anchovies to a Madrid dining room dressed up with a few designer touches. The menu is straightforwardly traditional, built on good sourcing rather than clever technique, with hake coming straight from the fish auction.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The aesthetic leans hard into the Strait of Gibraltar, which is an unexpected decorating choice for a bistro on the Castellana, but the food makes the argument. This is a casual, sharing-plates spot where the kitchen blends Cádiz coastal cooking with Japanese and Latin American influences, the kind of menu where dogfish ends up in a saam and tuna gets a roasted chili and tomato chutney. Informal, unhurried, and selected by the Michelin Guide.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A tucked-away Spanish restaurant just off the Gran Vía where the kitchen follows the market rather than any particular trend. The menu leans into seasonal, recognizable ingredients without making a fuss about it, and the steak tartare has developed something of a reputation on the Madrid dining circuit. Fits the classic tasca template in feel, but the cooking has clearly been thought about. The kind of place locals keep quiet about, then mention anyway.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Named for their grandmother, this bistro on Fernando el Santo blends Mediterranean cooking with Argentine and Caribbean inflections in a combination that takes some nerve to pull off. One brother runs the kitchen, the other works the room, and the whole thing has the warmth of a family project that actually knows what it's doing. The vibe is cozy and unfussy, the kind of place that quietly fills up with locals who are in on it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Bamboo plants in the window, dragon heads and red lanterns inside, and a dining room that stays busy enough that you probably shouldn't show up without a plan. This Shanghainese spot near Plaza de España builds its menu around xiaolongbao, shengjian bao, wonton, and hand-pulled lamian noodles, the kind of focused cooking that makes a short menu feel like a complete argument. The crowd skews young and loud, which suits the room.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A casual Peruvian restaurant modeled on the Brooklyn original, which itself named itself after the Andean animal, so there's a lineage worth knowing. The menu leans into sharing plates, with ceviche and yakimeshi sitting alongside a sautéed beef and duck jerky rice dish the kitchen calls the "fiesta final." A "Trust The Chef" tasting menu runs the whole table through the same ride. The vibe is relaxed enough that nobody's overdressed.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A short walk from Retiro park, this contemporary dining room is where a chef trained under the legendary Juan Mari Arzak runs an international menu with a Basque undercurrent. The format is generous: most dishes come available as half-plates, good for grazing across the card. The chef tends to wander the room mid-service to check in, which feels less like a gimmick and more like someone who genuinely can't help himself.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The dining rooms lean into a retro Italian pop aesthetic from the 1970s, all considered and a little theatrical. This contemporary Italian restaurant in Recoletos is run by a chef from Puglia who steers well clear of the pasta-and-pizza comfort zone, cooking his way through Italy's regions with some seriousness. The set menu called "From South to North" does roughly what it says. A room that knows what it is, which is rarer than it sounds.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

You enter through a corridor lined with cookbooks, which sets the tone for a restaurant that takes its references seriously. Alberto Chicote's contemporary dining room sits in a converted workshop, with an open kitchen planted in the centre of the room. The cooking runs Spanish at the core with a Far Eastern lean, served across a choice of tasting menus. The whole staff wears a bracelet modelled on one a Masai tribe gave Chicote, which is either very moving or very on-brand, depending on your table.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The bar here is the main event, where glass chambers display fish mid-maturation, aging toward the nigiris they'll eventually become. This Japanese restaurant in Chamberí imports much of its seafood and builds an extensive à la carte around jukusei, the Japanese practice of carefully aging fish to deepen flavor. A wood-lined dining room sits behind it all, but most serious eaters want the counter. Tasting menus are available for the full commitment crowd.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Industrial-chic dining room in Barrio de Salamanca with a social conscience baked in, not bolted on. Ovillo is part of a foundation that brings vulnerable young people into professional kitchens, which gives the contemporary tasting menu format a slightly different weight than usual. The cooking runs from snappy mini-appetisers through to longer tasting menus, and the tripe with haricot beans has its own small legend among offal enthusiasts.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Authentic Sicilian pottery lines the shelves, which sets the tone before a single plate arrives. This small, contemporary Italian restaurant is a Madrid offshoot of an original in Palermo, and the kitchen leans into that southern Italian lineage, reworking traditional recipes with a modern eye. Both the à la carte and tasting menus come with optional wine pairings, so you can commit to the full Sicilian afternoon whether or not you planned to.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A bistro in the informal, rustic-chic register where the menu refuses to pick a lane between Spain, Peru, and Mexico, which turns out to be the whole point. The team behind this sharing-plates spot layers those three kitchens into dishes sized so you can graze widely rather than commit. Half-portions are available, which is a rare act of mercy. The executive menu runs Tuesday through Thursday for anyone who prefers a set path through the chaos.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Eight seats, one seating, everyone starts together: Playing Solo runs like a small theater where the kitchen is the stage. Chef Luis Caballero cooks Japanese-inflected fusion with detours through France and Scandinavia, all built on local ingredients, at a counter inspired by the izakaya format. The seasonal tasting menu is the only real option, and the room fills and empties as one, which somehow makes strangers feel less strange.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A tapas bar and restaurant hybrid steps from the Retiro's Puerta del Niño Jesús, with Andalucian roots running through a contemporary small-plates menu. The tasting menus are called "Lo Que Diga Willy," or What Willy Says, which tells you something about the chef's self-confidence. The gilda, that classic olive-anchovy-pepper tapa, gets its own quiet reinvention here and tends to be the thing people mention on the way out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The lobster section alone takes up half a page, offered grilled, stewed, with chickpeas, or folded into rice, and it requires at least two of you to order it. This Valencian Mediterranean restaurant near El Retiro leans hard into seafood starters, fideuá, and serious grilled dishes, with French notes threading through quietly. The kind of place that makes a long lunch feel like the obvious choice.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Peppa Pig hangs on the wall and the bathroom is called the Pocilga, which sets the tone for this small bistro near Plaza de las Salesas. The kitchen opens straight into the narrow dining room, with a chef's bar up front so you can watch things come together. The menu rotates with the seasons and pulls from cuisines across the world, mixing techniques and flavors without committing to any single tradition.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A dedicated ham carver works a corner of this two-floor traditional Spanish restaurant on Velázquez, which sets the tone nicely. The room leans into bourgeois comfort, all dark wood and vintage details, with a proper wine cellar and a bar for classic cocktails. The kitchen draws on Catalan family recipes, cooked with enough confidence that the menu feels rooted rather than dusty. The rum baba with whipped cream is the move at dessert.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The ox chop from El Capricho, a farm in León with a cult following among serious meat people, is the main reason to sit down at this traditional grill in the Salamanca district. A terrace, a wood-fired focus, and a menu that also makes room for grilled fish, seasonal vegetables, and rice dishes keep it from being a one-trick pony. Occasional full-day events built around a single ingredient, oxtail lately, give regulars a reason to come back.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The wood-heavy dining room, dressed like a South American hacienda that took the brief seriously, sets the tone for what follows: a grill-focused restaurant where the fire does most of the talking. Angus and Wagyu cuts arrive in Brazilian, Argentine, and European configurations, and the terrace, shaded by actual trees, is the kind of outdoor room that makes Madrid's long evenings feel well-spent.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The name nods to the Japanese art of binding, which sets the tone for a place built around robata cooking, where the grill does most of the talking. It's a casual, informal Japanese restaurant on the Manzanares side of Madrid, small enough that the omakase menu makes more sense than the à la carte. The chef's tasting path moves through smoke, char, and a few combinations that sound strange on paper and work completely on the plate.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A short walk from the Museo Sorolla, this contemporary Chinese fusion restaurant pulls together flavors from across Asia and Spain in ways that feel neither forced nor predictable. The chef, known as Julio, runs two tasting menus alongside an à la carte, and the dim sum has quietly become the stuff of neighborhood legend. The room is modern and calm, the kind of place where the food does the talking.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The open grill does the heavy lifting at this modern asador in Las Letras, housed in a greenhouse-style winter garden that makes the whole thing feel like eating outdoors without the weather. The Triciclo group bills it as a "temple of fire," which is a lot, but the fish pulled straight from the auction and the Galician T-bone make a reasonable case. Grilled Tudela vegetables hold their own against the meat, which is saying something.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A narrow street beside the Rosewood Villa Magna hides this Japanese restaurant, where the counter seats put you close enough to watch the chef work through everything from delicate sashimi to charcoal-grilled dishes. Two tasting menus, a Kaiseki and an Omakase, require a day's notice to book, which is either charming or a test of how organised you are.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A sushi bar anchors the ground floor, with two dining rooms stacked above it and a private room tucked away for groups, all done in a clean contemporary style that feels very Salamanca. This is a polished Japanese restaurant, part of a small group with outposts on the Costa del Sol, and the à la carte runs long. The nigiri, hot and cold, arrive outside the set menu, which is either a bonus or a mild puzzle depending on how you like to order.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A counter above the bar tracks how many Tortilla de Betanzos have left the kitchen since 2014, which tells you most of what you need to know about this traditional taberna near the national library. The cocido arrives in three stages, the grill handles serious fish and meat, and the daily stew changes but always has heft. It's the kind of old-school Madrid dining room where the cooking has no interest in keeping up with trends, and the room is fine with that.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The name nods to the rest houses built along the Inca Trail, which sets the tone for a room dressed in slate, wood, and wicker that feels considered rather than themed. This is a Peruvian restaurant serving classic dishes alongside fusion riffs calibrated for a Spanish crowd, with portions generous enough that no one leaves calculating whether they ordered enough. The ceviche variations are where the kitchen seems happiest.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Corn tortillas pressed fresh each morning on a traditional comal set the rhythm at this contemporary Mexican restaurant near the Prado. The menu leans into sharing, moving between cold dishes and things off the griddle, with the cooking rooted in Mexican tradition but not shy about modern moves. The sister restaurant to Puntarena, it draws a crowd that arrived hungry and ordered more than planned.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Exposed brick and heavy wooden beams give this Chamberí restaurant its industrial bones, though the kitchen has more wanderlust than the decor suggests. The chef came up through London and Mexico City, and the menu reflects that restlessness, local and seasonal produce handled with a contemporary looseness that stops short of showing off. The room bills itself as a "playful space with a little interventionist mentality," which is either a manifesto or a warning, depending on your mood.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Tora means tiger in Japanese, and the motif shows up on the crockery and the staff uniforms, which is a commitment. This contemporary Japanese restaurant in Salamanca runs two sushi bars across two floors, with the upstairs one kept private. The chef works from Spanish ingredients through a Japanese lens, offering à la carte or an omakase menu at lunch. Serious enough to dress slightly up, relaxed enough that you won't regret it if you don't.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Yakitori is the whole point here, not a footnote to a sushi menu. The chef, Hiroshi Kobayashi, built this compact Japanese restaurant around grilled chicken skewers, and the menu follows that logic faithfully. Chicken wings and scallops fill out the card, and the Avila beef tongue shows up and quietly surprises everyone. Go à la carte or surrender to the omakase, which comes in short or long form depending on your appetite for ceding control.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The room used to be one of the concert venues of Movida Madrileña, and the bones of that history are still visible in the bioconstruction fit-out. Tramo is a contemporary Spanish restaurant with a social mission baked into the model, employing people who face real barriers to the jobs market. The menu runs on ingredients from small Spanish farmers and local producers, which gives the cooking a grounded, unfussy quality that suits the space.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A creative restaurant in the Las Letras district where you can order dishes in halves or thirds, which sounds minor until you realize it changes how an entire meal works. The team behind it built the place around a simple question: where would we actually want to eat? The answer is a casual, minimalist room focused on seasonal ingredients, drawing on Peruvian and Japanese influences alongside straightforwardly Spanish ones. Artisanal cheeses round things out.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A glass-fronted wine cellar anchors the dining room at Zalacaín, a classic-international restaurant that has been part of Madrid's furniture long enough to have hosted what sounds like half the 20th century's who's who. The room still carries its old elegance without feeling pickled in it, and the menu keeps the legendary dishes alongside newer additions, which is a polite way of saying you can order the mushroom and foie gras lasagne and nobody will judge you.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A family-run bar and restaurant in Barrio de Salamanca that turns out more than 200 tortillas de patatas a day, each one with a set exterior and a molten, barely-cooked centre. Madrid takes its tortilla seriously, and this place has become the reference for locals who know the difference. Arrive around eleven before the lunchtime crowd makes finding a seat a project, and consider the callos a la Madrileña if you're in the mood to go full old-school Madrid.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

A small restaurant in Chueca that becomes a pilgrimage site when wild mushrooms come into season in fall. El Cisne Azul has been cooking every variety that grows around Spain long enough that the staff knows the regulars by name and the menu by heart. The preparations stay simple, which is how you know they're confident. Outside of mushroom season, it reads like a neighborhood tapa bar that never needed to reinvent itself.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

Gildas, those briny olive-anchovy-pepper skewers named after the Rita Hayworth film, are the whole thesis here. La Gildería is a vermouth and aperitivo bar in La Latina, near the Rastro market, devoted to the kind of standing-around eating that Madrid does quietly well but rarely formalizes. Canned mussels, razor clams, a potato salad from Murcia, an octopus sandwich with Basque chile mayo. Vermouth pours from Galicia to Cataluña, served on the rocks or with a splash of gin.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

No reservations, ever, which means you'll be waiting alongside the construction workers and shop owners who fill this old-school Madrid comedor every lunch. La Sanabresa is a neighborhood dining room doing straightforward Spanish home cooking, the kind that rarely leaves the house, at prices that feel almost accidental. The ensaladilla rusa and stewed oxtail are the things to know.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

Consommé served from a silver samovar is either the most theatrical thing in Madrid or the most sensible, depending on your mood. Lhardy is an old-school institution steps from Puerta del Sol, serving traditional Spanish cooking with French undertones in a room that time seems to have negotiated around. The cocido madrileño and oxtail bring regulars back; younger ones come knowing it from a C. Tangana video and stay for the croquettes.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

Behind an electric-blue façade on a quiet Chamartín street, this old-school bistro has been drawing Madrid's chefs on their nights off for decades, which tells you most of what you need to know. The dining room runs to black-and-white prints, white tablecloths, and wooden chairs kept simple on purpose. Classic French-ish fare anchors the menu: onion soup, sole meunière, pig's ear, and a steak tartare that regulars treat as non-negotiable.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

David Muñoz of three-Michelin-starred DiverXO runs this loud, open-kitchen street food spot tucked inside the El Corte Inglés on Serrano. The menu swings between Asia and Latin America, the chefs cook everything in plain view, and the club sandwich turns out to be a steamed pork bun crowned with a fried quail egg. Lines stretch an hour or more, so arriving early is less a tip than a survival strategy.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The nickname El Comunista tells you most of what you need to know before you even sit down. This old-school casa de comidas in Chueca has been around forever, and the menu reads like a time capsule: stews, squid in its ink, migas with grapes. The kind of dishes that disappeared from most Madrid kitchens a generation ago still show up here at lunch, shared by the bohemian regulars who fill the place like they own it.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

Noodles with kimchi mayo and raw red tuna put this small La Latina restaurant on the map, and the dish hasn't left the menu since because nobody will let it. Toga is a compact, casual spot where the cooking moves between Nikkei, Japanese, and Latin American without making a fuss about the itinerary. The room fills fast enough that the team opened a second location to handle the overflow, which tells you something about the regulars.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain

A small open kitchen and a communal table inside Mercado de Vallehermoso, where a chef mixes Spanish, Asian, and Latin flavors into shared plates that don't really ask for your approval before arriving. The format is market stall, but the cooking has a tasting-menu sensibility, and you can go either route. Bold combinations, tight space, and strangers eating next to you who are probably also confused in a good way.

1. Eater The 34 Best Restaurants in Madrid, Spain