Now, I’m not for one second suggesting that you haven’t heard of Madrid: of course you have. It’s not some insignificant, backwater city that’s a cultural vacuum, it’s quite the opposite. But I only know a couple of people who have been there: and that was only because of football. Madrid gets around six million tourists every year, but it’s estimated that four and a half million of these are from Spain. Brits seem to prefer Ibiza, Barcelona or even Benidorm to Madrid. Which is fine if you want roast dinners, water parks and Carling to drink. Seeing as we personally don’t want any of that, Madrid was found to be much more up our street. I’ll be honest: I never really thought too much about going to Madrid, it wasn’t next on our list of places to visit. My soul was for years deeply scarred from my trip to Benidorm when I was 16, so I sort of put Spain on the back burner. I only went because my girlfriend’s job took her there and she asked me if I’d like to go with her that I actually went. And what can I say? Well, as it happens, quite a lot actually.

We arrived on a Saturday evening at about nine o’clock. We were staying in a lovely Air BnB in the Centro district and with it being too late to do much else, we did the honourable and correct thing of finding the nearest bar and having a few drinks before bed. That bar happened to be La Quinteria and the drinks happened to be Mahou. It was a beautiful thing, I can’t lie. I love that place and it became our starting/finishing hub. Lovely staff, lovely, fresh beer and a lovely atmosphere. After we’d had a few or several (however you count them) it was time to turn in an see what tomorrow would bring: it would bring a lot.

In the morning, we took ourselves to Mercado de San Miguel. As soon as we walked through the doors we wanted to order food from first the stall. Meat, empenadas (think a Spanish version of a Cornish Pasty but with a variety of fillings), more meat, seafood, the aromas came at us from all directions: it was too much to decide. You don’t just dive in in situations like this, it’s best to plan your moves and scope the place out. Why fill yourself up in the first few stalls and then regret it when you go to the other side and are too full to eat something you really like the look of! “Let’s get a drink”, Jen said…it was good advice. We spotted a beer tap and ordered a couple of beers, beneath the glass counter there were some tapas (maybe pintxos) and after we took the first outstanding bite, I said to Jen: “you know that this is what the next week of our lives will be like, don’t you!”. Madrid was rapidly turning me into a prophet it would seem.

Mercado de San Miguel is a tourist trap…but it’s the best tourist trap you’ll ever go to in your life. It’s not exactly the Disneyland of food markets, it’s just very popular with tourists. It’s also happens to be popular with locals and the food is just phenomenal. There were pintxos galore, roast meats, croquetas and most other things you could mention. For the first time in our lives, we had sea snails, percebes (barnacles), and that thing I’ve always wanted to taste: sea urchin.

They’re seasonal and I’ve never been away when they’ve been in season, but I was about to put that right after years of wanting: they did not disappoint. It was like tasting the spray off the top of a breaking wave. Delicious. If your away and if they’re in season (early in the year) then you have to try them. We stayed there all afternoon sampling the beautiful food from the many stores, chatting with locals and tourists alike, it was great. We were in a very happy place doing what we love doing: eating and drinking but that was all about to change.

Now as I often do when we travel, I buy tickets to the local team’s football match, which in this case was Getaria who were playing Sevilla. This had entirely gone from my head until whilst enjoying my sea urchins, Jen reminded me by saying “I don’t want to go to this game, you know” and it hit me HARD. For the first time ever: I felt the same. I didn’t want to drag my arse off to southern Madrid to watch a game. I wanted to stay here, gorging my day away and then rolling home. Instead, with a very heavy heart, we took ourselves back to our apartment to freshen up a bit and then off to the match. By the time we got there had a couple of pre-game drinks with the Getafe fans, we felt drunk and tired and with the game being so boringly bad, we left at half time: a thing to this day I do not regret.

The following morning, keen to make amends, we toddled off to Mercado de San Fernando for a bit more of the same as we’d experienced in Mercado de San Miguel only to find that it was closed, despite google maps’ best efforts to convince me otherwise. So, we decided to head back to base and go elsewhere. En-route, Jen spotted a bar and suggested we try there but at first, I was a bit hesitant. Something didn’t sit right with me. The issue was what looked like a big green clover on the sign outside, which instantly screams ‘Irish Bar’ which I avoid like the plague unless I’m in Ireland, where they’re just called ‘bars’ and are actually okay. Irish bars abroad are generally awful, themed places. I poked my head in to find the most charming little Spanish bar, which was quite empty of people, but full character, brown tiles and tapas. The bar is El Trebol de Manchego and if you’re in Madrid and you like your local bars, then this should be a must on your itinery.

So, tapas in Madrid, in bars like El Trebol de Manchego are free. Yes, that’s right: free. So, as long as you’re buying a beer, they just keep on coming. Buy one beer, get a tapa. Buy two beers, get two tapas buy three beers…well, I’m sure you get the idea. Now with them being free, you may think that they scrimp or they give you some token gesture of food just to play along. But as you can see from my photos, that’s just not the case. Olives, delicious bread, chicharrones, cabeza de jabali (a type of brawn) olives, cheese, jamon actually freshly sliced from the legand a whole load of other delicious things. Whilst enjoying these beautiful, free morsels I spotted a sign that with my limited (that is to say, non-existing at the time but I’m now learning) Spanish, even I could read. It said something along the lines of ’the speciality of the house is our Callos’. It’s the first time I’ve come across it, but I’m so glad that I did. I love tripe and I know a lot of you will probably find this unappealing, you should give it a go as it’s a lot better than you may think. Callos is a traditional Madrileño dish made from tripe, chorizo, morcilla (black pudding), chickpeas all simmered in a delicious broth and we ordered a potato salad to go with it. These aren’t free but they’re so cheap. The bit that will always stick in my head is when I went to the bar afterwards, full and not wanting any more tapas, just a couple of beers. “¡Dos más cervezas, por favor!” I grabbed my beers and went back to the table quickly hoping I’d be spared the onslaught of more food. Alas, the barman promptly shouted me back as he had two more delicious tapas waiting for us.

As much as I love Mercado de San Miguel, and I truly do, there’s something about Mercado de La Cebada that the aforementioned just doesn’t have. Long gone are the tourists (if they ever came in the first place) and to me at least, it just oozed Madrid. It wasn’t showy or expensive, the only people in there were local people just going about their daily lives. Something I just love to sit back and watch. Mercado de La Cebada is raw, or dare I say it, a bit scruffy if you like. But I’d urge you to go. Many of the stores are closed in this graffiti covered, brutalist concrete structure, buy what’s left is a thing of beauty. There’s so much fantastic, fresh produce on the other stalls that remain open. We were lucky enough to stumble across a little bar called Bar Toñi, and we were in for an absolute treat. At the time we visited I spoke no Spanish apart from being able to ask for the bill and ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and a couple of other pleasantries. The lovely owner of said bar was the same when it came to English and it made no difference. She had the most infectious laugh and she as so warm and welcoming. We ‘chatted’ with hand gestures and second guessing and she made us feel so welcome all afternoon. The food was fantastic, callos, chorizo and morcilla, little fried fish (she gave us those for free) and after watching the local store owners turn up for their beers (as they were working of course!) and chatting with some other locals who’d turned up to eat it was time to go. The bill: €21.00. I gave her €30.00 as it was easily worth it for what we had. She waved the money over her head shouting “dring, dring, dring, dring!” as she approached the till. What a lovely, warm and fun lady: I’ll never forget that moment.

Another market that needs a mention is Mercado San Antón. I won’t bore you with too many details but this would probably appeal to more people than Mercado de La Cebada in that it’s more stylish, is more eatery orientated and has a decent amount of vendors. The cheese vendor in there is my favourite as I love cheese, but it’s not a ‘food vendor’ in that sense. There are around 30 vendors in there selling a whole range of food from pintxos to dare I say it, pizza. There is also a tremendous tortilla to be found on the top floor. Go there, eat the tortilla and people watch.

Today was the day that my culinary outlook was to change forever. I do love a dive bar or some tripe or some tripe in a dive bar or some free tapas, but today we were going to push the boat out. After a couple of years of deliberation, we had finally decided to book a Michelin Star restaurant. The restaurant in question was Ramón Freixa, which holds two Michelin Stars. It was the greatest eating experience we’ve both had in our lives up until this point. It was so good, that I will do a blog just on the experience as it’s too much to go into here. Expensive? At around €700.00 for both of us, yes. Worth it: absolutely: If fine dining is something that interests you.

The Madrileños do like their churros, and the place that they seem to agree that is the best is San Ginés. Neither of us having had churros before, we thought that this would be a good place to start. Founded in 1894, it is clearly held in high regard by the locals as when you get closer to it, you start to see more and more of their paper bags full of these delights in the hands of eagerly anticipating locals. We certainly weren’t disappointed. We ordered a chocolate and about six churros each, found a bench nearby. Now, you can sit in or on their seats outside, but if you do want that, prepare for a long wait: we did the take away option. After excitedly opening the bag, getting that perfectly fried, slightly salty churro dipped into the most thick, unctuous and rich dark chocolate (which they make on site) we were in nirvana. I also realised quite quickly that one cup of chocolate and one load of churros would have been just fine. After a couple more churros and as delicious as it is: you can’t eat any more. I would advise that you learn from our very, very pleasant ‘mistake’.

I may have just waffled on about food and not much else, but that’s my deliberate intention. I know that there are hundreds of blogs and web pages covering the beauty of Madrid’s architecture and its history, but for me, the true insight into a culture of a city are its people and its food: they’re the very fabric of the city.

Putting it simply, Madrid is a great city. The food is fantastic. From free tapas to Michelin Star and everything in between. For a capital city it felt so relaxed and not showy, reserved and tasteful. It almost seems embarrassed at just how good it is. I could recommend so many more places, like going to Bar La Campana for a bocadillo de calamares (a Madrid staple) or going to La Fuentona if you happen to be in the business district of Cuarto Torres. Enjoy a jazz gig at the cosy, atmospheric and legendary Café Central. Order the sweetbreads and meatballs at La Nieta, a fantastic, homely restaurant serving food that you just don’t get in the UK and lots of other places or maybe a beer infused with myrrh at Bee Beer. The recommendations are endless. My one recommendation is just that you go to Madrid and experience it for yourself. I am pretty sure you’ll love it and love the warm and friendly locals.

Remember the deep scarring of my soul that I told you about? It’s starting to heal.