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Cuisine of Madrid

Madrid has attracted generations of courtiers, diplomats, and tradesmen, all of whom have brought tastes and styles from other parts of the Iberian peninsula and the world. The city's best restaurants have traditionally specialized in Basque cooking, though contemporary Mediterranean interpretations from Catalonia (namely by Ferran Adrià's disciples) and even Asian fusion restaurants have begun to rock the city's culinary canons. Madrid's many seafood specialists capitalize on the abundant fresh produce trucked in nightly from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts.

Madrid's own cuisine is based on the roasts and thick soups and stews of Castile, Spain's high central meseta (plain). Roast suckling pig and lamb are standard Madrid feasts, as are baby goat and chunks of beef from Ávila and the Sierra de Guadarrama. Cocido madrileño and callos a la madrileña are local specialties. The white and green asparagus, formerly grown by the kings in Aranjuez and now coming from other regions, are also people's favorites. Cocido is a hearty winter meal of broth, garbanzo beans, vegetables, potatoes, sausages, pork, and hen. The best cocidos are simmered in earthenware crocks over coals and served in three courses: broth, beans, and meat. Cocido anchors the midday winter menu in the most elegant restaurants as well as the humblest holes-in-the-wall.

Callos are a simpler concoction of veal tripe stewed with tomatoes, onions, hot paprika, and garlic. Jamón serrano (cured ham) -- a specialty from the livestock lands of Teruel, Extremadura, and Andalusia -- hasbecome a Madrid staple; wanderers are likely to come across a museo del jamón (literally, ham museum), where legs of the dried delicacy dangle in store windows or in bars. For top-quality free-range, acorn-fed, native Iberian ham ask for jamón ibérico de bellota. For faster dining, try pincho de tortilla (a portion of potato omelet served with some bread on the side) or a cazuelita (small earthenware bowl) of anything from wild mushrooms to riñones al jerez (lamb or veal kidneys stewed in sherry).

The house wine in basic Madrid restaurants is often a sturdy, uncomplicated Valdepeñas from La Mancha. Serious dining is normally accompanied by a Rioja or a more powerful, complex Ribera de Duero, the latter from northern Castile. Ask your waiter's advice; a smooth Rioja, for example, may not be up to the task of accompanying a cocido or a roast suckling pig. After dinner, try the anise-flavor liqueur (anís) produced outside the nearby village of Chinchón.