We want to move to Madrid. We spent three days there last year and are now ready to become Madrileños. Three days was all it took. Maybe we were primed for it, maybe we are easily charmed, but the city’s siren song is still ringing in my ear. It’s gorgeous, it’s walkable, it’s alive. There’s more to it, but I don’t need to sing the praises of the EU’s second largest city, do I? It’s populated with 4 million people for a reason. Almodóvar never left for a reason.
And, surprise, surprise, it’s a great city to eat offal in. The casquería is frequented by many. Callos a la Madrileña, the city’s very own tripe stew, is delicious and ubiquitous. I saw it on the menu at almost every restaurant we went to. I wanted to try each one but I only managed twice, the pursuit of other dishes ran me afield. Orejas a la plancha, grilled pig ears, were a big chewy, crunchy, and spicy favorite. And deep-fried entresijos and gallinejas curled up on our plates wherever we could find them, while braided zarajos left an imprint on my tongue I can still taste to this day. And the mollejas? They melted. The single ración we had contained the best sweetbreads I’ve ever eaten, and I’ve eaten my fair share.
But food, who gives a fuck? That’s not enough reason to move somewhere. The culture around it is a factor, but it’s not a reason. We want to live in Madrid because it offers a life we can’t find in Ljubljana. I’m sure many Madrileños can argue the point, there is still a housing crisis on, speculators are buying flats and not renting them, but things there seemed to function in a way plenty of other cities do not. Buses run late into the evening! There’s a metro! People live their lives outside! That probably sounds like the bare minimum, but at the time it felt like revelation.
Ljubljana, where we live now, often feels like a tourist’s day dream; the housing crisis here made all the more acute due to its relative size. What do you get when a city of 300,000 becomes a top destination for travellers across the world? A hollowed out city and sky-high rents. That’s what my local friends tell me. I’ve only seen the post-hype Ljubljana, not the before they wax so poetic about. The hype is what brought me here, and while it is a gorgeous, lovely place to live, it’s hard not to notice a city in flux. Wages haven’t kept up with acclaim. Tourists don’t flinch when the price of coffee and beer is double what it was before The New York Times “discovered” Slovenia. People spend more in their few days here than many locals earn in a month. That’s fine. That’s life. That’s the world.
It’s not that I hate tourists personally, I just hate the way the city bends to their will, how they amble so slowly through it, and how they pollute my girlfriends bar with their bullshit. So why not move freely around the European Economic Zone? It’s what these passports were intended for, right?
In Madrid they shoot tourists with water guns, don’t they? Andrea day-dreams about getting the chance. The Saturday we were in town, an anti-tourist protest marched through the city, pleading for some semblance of government regulation. We crossed their path on the Gran Via, sympathetic to their plea but feeling far beyond their reach of their ire. Us? They couldn’t be protesting against us. Yes, as a matter of fact we were staying in an AirBnB (sorry) but the only fanny-pack I’m wearing is designed by Rick Owens (sorry), hablo un poco de español (lo siento), and I’m just way cooler than the rest of those dumb motherfuckers (sorry). The hypocrisy slides off my back and onto the ground at Plaza Mayor, right next to a selection of bootleg Real Madrid jerseys.
If migration is a give-and-take then what exactly are we bringing to the Spanish table? Appreciation of their cuisine? Madrid’s not lacking in that. I’ve moved around the world plenty, not sure I’ve brought anything with me but emotional baggage, but we’ll do our best to speak with a lisp and pay our taxes. At least I know how to eat like a local. I know because I was told exactly where to go and shown by locals themselves. We had guides in the city.
Our experience in Madrid was colored by summer and lots and lots of animal entrails. And of course, Almodóvar. It’s impossible to walk through those streets and not think of his films. I had hoped we might see him, but even my local guides couldn’t tell me where he hangs out. What would I say? What could even be said?
“I-I-I r-ruh-eally luh—love y-yo-our wuh-w-work.”
I really do, but I’m sure he’s heard it all before. My favorite Almodóvar movie is the Penélope Cruz-starring Los Abrazos Rotos, a film that hit me like a truck during one of the most heartsick periods of my life. I fell in love with the movie the only way a melancholic college student can: obsessively. I latched on to the tragic romance between Penélope Cruz and Lluís Homar, think I watched it ten times in a month in between sleeping as much as possible. That was thirteen years ago, I haven’t seen it since, but I remember it fondly even through a lethargic haze.
It’s easy to be struck by Almodóvar’s camera and even easier to be infatuated with Penélope Cruz in this movie, her performance is stunning, the platinum blonde wig she wears is stunning. Easiest of all is to become enamored with a vibrant city on vacation. Los Abrazos Rotos isn’t explicitly about Madrid, but it is filmed there and belongs to Almodóvar’s Madrileño consciousness. It’s mostly interpersonal drama, conversation and lust shot inside rooms, with short jaunts through the city at either end. Human emotion punctuated by urban geography. Isn’t that life for most people?
For three days, ours was punctuated by Madrileños, callos, and expanse in the way only a new cityscape can facilitate. I hope it will be again soon. Until then, here are the places where we ate, drank, and fantasized about being regulars at.
Los Caracoles
C. de Toledo, 106, Centro, 28005 Madrid, Spain
Our very first stop. I actually went twice. Once on a Thursday morning, empty, delicious, gorgeous. Once on a Sunday afternoon, packed, bumping, loud, gorgeous still. Go for their namesake snails, stay for the callos.
El Mirador de San Isidro
C. de Toledo, 171, Arganzuela, 28005 Madrid, Spain
An unassuming corner bar that had everything I was looking for in a restaurant. The entresijos and gallinejas, small intestines and abdominal walls, are killer on their own or in a sandwich. If I did live in Madrid, this would be a regular hangout.
Casa Toni
C. de la Cruz, 14, Centro, 28012 Madrid, Spain
A reported classic for a reason. Packed with tourists and locals alike, we ate through the entire casqueria section of their menu. Best to sit downstairs at the bar. The pig ears here haven’t left my mind since we had them three months ago.
Casa Iván aka Tabarna Delfin
C. de Eugenio Caxes, 12, Usera, 28026 Madrid, Spain
Right on the edge of Chinatown, Casa Iván’s owner Ming Heng Chen inherited the place along with its customers and callos recipe. He doesn’t eat tripe himself, but a condition of buying the restaurant was keeping the dish on the menu for their local customers. It’s truly amazing but so is the fresh seafood they specialize in. A full write-up from Lydia Itoi (with gorgeous photos by her daughter Naomi) is coming up in our print issue.
Casa Enriqueta
Calle del Gral. Ricardos, 19, Carabanchel, 28019 Madrid, Spain
Lydia Itoi told me about this spot, but I went there with Andrea on a late Saturday evening. We had to wait because the place was so packed. We asked our server what to get and ordered botones and canutos without knowing entirely what they were. Some kind of button shaped piece of the intestine, grilled on the plancha, along with fried lamb tripe. Delicious. Fabulous. I need to go back immediately.
Kiosco Horchata Miguel y José Aguaducho
C. de Narváez, 8, Salamanca, 28009 Madrid, Spain
It’s the last real horchata stand in the city. It gets carted in every summer, and carted out every winter. Running since 1944, the family who opened it threaten to retire every year. I’m so glad we got to go, it could have been our only chance.
Bar Una Grande Libre “Casa Chen”
C. Matilde Gayo, 7, Usera, 28026 Madrid, Spain
This is a strange one. It’s not a recommendation, just a note that this place exists. It is surely something to see, but also something to avoid. The theme of Casa Chen is Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and his memorabilia is everywhere. How serious you take this is up to you. I do not support Franco or fascism in any way, but our curiosity got the best of us.
The New York Times wrote about the owner, Xianwei Chen, in 2019:
“Mr. Chen, as his name might suggest, is something of a surprise. The owner of a bar festooned with Spanish flags and frequented by xenophobes is, in fact, Chinese. And this is an irony not lost on his regulars.”
“We used to joke to him,” said Jesús López, a 51-year-old truck driver. “If Franco was still alive, he would kill you.”
I mean, well, uh, what the fuck? Chen even named his son after Franco, that’s how much he admires the man. Walking in there gives you more than a funny feeling. We had a drink and watched the owner haggle with a jamón dealer, weighing them out and arguing about price amidst all the Franco portraiture. It was surreal. I don’t think I’ll be back.
