Madrid is the city that never eats early and never apologises for it. Lunch runs from two to four, dinner starts at ten, and the best rooftop bars are still full at midnight. The food culture here is built on permanence — tabernas that have been serving the same dishes for a hundred and fifty years, wine bars where the list hasn’t changed since the 1980s, market stalls where the third generation knows every regular by name.
The Mercado de San Miguel is for tourists; the Mercado de la Paz in Salamanca is where Madrileños actually shop. Lavapiés has the city’s most interesting new restaurants. The Malasaña and Chueca neighbourhoods are for natural wine bars and small plates. And for the canonical Madrid dishes — cocido, callos, huevos rotos — the tabernas of the Austrias neighbourhood are still the authority.