
The neighborhood of La Latina in Madrid is a reference to the nickname it received Beatriz Galindo one of the most interesting historical figures, the most influential humanist of the 15th century and tutor to Queen Isabella (and at least four other queens). Here he founded the Hospital de La Latina, next to the Plaza de la Cebada, which was demolished in 1904, and of which only the Gothic-Mudejar façade is preserved in one of the municipal warehouses of the Villa in Santa Engracia street.
This medieval neighborhood is still one of the most lively areas of the capital city, where some of the most important verbenas such as that of La Paloma.
Where to eat (and drink) in La latina
Wandering Tavern
Taberna Errante is one of those places to feel at home… but better. Here the cooking is done with great care. It’s noticeable in that potato omelet that is spread out in the right measure, and that is over so, so soon, that it’s hard to hunt it down. Or in its ensaladilla, the hallmark of the house. It is also noticeable in the ambience and in a menu that is fun, fresh, full of seasonal products and in which tomatoes taste like tomatoes and chickpeas like fresh fields.
From their menu we recommend everything! Let’s be serious: we recommend exploring the off-menu; that’s where the interesting stuff moves. Although, we repeat: everything is excellent in this small but thuggish restaurant managed by a team of women: the classic anchovies with vinegar, the mushrooms (whatever they have just picked) in tripe sauce or the corn cake with pork rinds from Cadiz.
💸 25 €
📍Carrerade San Francisco, 8
La Antoñita
An old soap factory converted into a restaurant. In La Latina is located this unique place that is La Antoñita, a space with a lot of history on which you can literally walk: under the glazed floor of the dining room you can see remains of the city wall. And annexed to the premises is the Posada del Dragón, which has been a guesthouse, an alhóndiga and the corrala in which the traders of the Rastro and suppliers of the Barley Market.
Today, we say, it is a restaurant where the traditional classics are modernized based on fresh market products. Some of the dishes that we cannot fail to recommend are the crispy oxtail with potato parmentiere or the cheeks with pumpkin puree. And, of course, the dessert in the form of a bar of soap “La Antoñita”: a white chocolate mousse accompanied by citrus foam and a touch of violet caramel.
💸 About €25 per person
📍 Cava Baja, 16
El Brote
Many of you may remember the mythical scene from the movie Forrest Gump in which Buba’s character lists the wide range of recipes that can be cooked with shrimp. Well, if we change the shrimp for mushrooms and land the idea in Madrid, the result is none other than El Brote.
This small and cozy restaurant specializes in these wild products that are served all year round and are even used in the preparation of desserts. Your letter, working with seasonal products changes according to the whims of nature”. If you would like to visit it, we recommend that you make a reservation in advance.
💸 About €35 per person
📍 Calle de la Ruda, 14
Almeria Tavern
Taberna de Almería is the answer to the question of where to eat cheap tapas in Madrid. A bar that would be the delight of students if it were in Moncloa and that being in La Latina is a meeting point for people of very different age ranges.
Normally you will not get in because it is always full, but if by chance you manage to get a spot at the bar or among the tables, you have two options: eat with the tapa you get with each drink or try each and every one of their tostas (four tostas cost about 15 €). A staple of La Latina.
💸 Around €10 per person
📍Calle de las Aguas, 9
Casa Lucio
A must in Madrid. Monarchs, presidents from all over the world, artists, athletes and even astronauts have passed through this restaurant. According to the tavern owner after whom the business is named, he has been offered a Michelin star on many occasions, but he has always turned them down because the real stars were already seated in his place. One of the typical tapas are the broken eggs: an obligation.
💸 Scrambled eggs €12,5
📍 Calle de la Cava Baja, 35
Marmitón bistro
Recover classic recipes, add the personal nuances that professionalism and knowledge give you and the rest is history. There are few formulas for success for anything in this life, but if anything resembles a script for success in gastronomy, it is the first sentence of this paragraph. And so, perhaps, the success of Marmitón bistró can be understood.
Marmitón Bistró is a restaurant with a well-crafted menu, a deeply homemade selection of dishes and a cozy atmosphere. The menu includes homemade tortellini with sweet potato and cabrales, cabrales and pasiego cheese sauce, caramelized walnuts and thyme (16,50€). A spectacle and a place that (if you haven’t been there yet) takes time to go to.
💸 Around €40 per person
📍 Calle de las Aguas, 6
What to see in La Latina
The San Isidro Museum. The Inception of Madrid
It is popularly known as La Casa de San Isidro (because it originally belonged to the Vargas family, masters of the saint, and where he lived and died) and is now a museum of the origins of the city. Although only for the Renaissance courtyard and the miracle well, where it is assumed that the patron saint of the city saved his son, it is worth the visit, it also has jewels such as the Berruguete painting of the Virgin of the milk or the cenotaphs of Beatriz Galindo, La Latina, and her husband Francisco Ramirez, El Artillero.
📍 Plaza de San Andrés, 2
Remains of the wall of Madrid
Yes, Madrid had a wall (it was built between the 11th and 12th centuries) and yes, some of the few remaining vestiges of it are in La Latina. Specifically, they are in mancebos Street and they show a great part of the history of the neighborhood. It is part of a building, but it can still be seen (although it is protected by fences, of course).
Mancebos Street
Las Vistillas
The best time to enjoy them is during the summer and in particular during the month of August, when the festivities of La Paloma are celebrated and there are free concerts, chotis contests and a very good atmosphere. You can also watch this video we made about viewpoints in Madrid. Las Vistillas (as its name says) is perfect to enjoy a special view of the capital.
Prince of Anglona Garden
A small door separates us from a Hispano-Arabic style garden in the heart of Latina. It is the Verde bend belonging to the Palace of the Prince of Anglona, in the Plaza de la Paja. A royal garden, born in the Hapsburg Madrid in 1750 from the imagination of the painter Javier de Winthuysen (who was also a “garden designer”).
Inside, brick paths, granite benches, the fanciful pergola… and a small locus amoenus of lime, almond and arbutus trees. Crazy.
📍Plazade la Paja, 6
Barley market
Although the Cebada market dates from 1958 and was renovated in 2013, the original building was from 1875 and met the aesthetic criteria of the time, with columns and iron decoration, which would have been an architectural jewel today if it had survived.
What it has not lost is commercial strength, it continues to be one of the largest food markets in Madrid, since the first stalls were installed in the square in the sixteenth century. It has two floors with an area of more than 6000 square meters. It also has the Cebada Space, 120 m2 fully equipped in which to hold all kinds of events and recordings.
📍 Plaza de la Cebada, S/N
Pontifical Basilica of St. Michael
This basilica is one of the great (and rare) examples of Italian Baroque in Madrid. It is adjacent to the Archbishop’s Palace, in the heart of Madrid de los Austrias, and is the Apostolic Nunciature, that is, it has the highest rank of the Holy See, which could be translated as an embassy of the Vatican.
In addition to a sinuous convex-shaped facade that deserves attention, inside it has frescoes on the dome and pendentives by Bartolomeo Rusca, which are popularly nicknamed “little Sistine Chapel”. It is also known because this is where the first precession of the Holy Week in Madrid takes place. The sculpture that walks through the streets of the capital is that of the Holy Christ of Faith and Forgiveness, from the eighteenth century, the work of sculptor Luis Salvador Carmona, who leaves in procession every Palm Sunday taken by the Brotherhood of Students.
📍 Calle de San Justo, 4
Drinking coffee in La Latina
Pastor
Pastora serves specialty coffee, delicious sweets… and there is also a small grocery store with sensational products where wines and beers are the law. These three potions (coffee, wine, beer) are the “Our Father” of this peculiar contemporary botillería.
But on their shelves you will find much more, all gourmet, small producer, with sustainability and proximity as a flag. From oils to chocolates to jams. A garden (a botillería) of delights.
📍Carrerade San Francisco, 12
Ruda Café
It is not a cliché: Café de la Ruda is one of the most important best specialty coffees that you are going to try in Madrid, the kind that will make your day. As it could not be otherwise, its quality is an open secret and it will be rare the day you go there and do not find it full of pilgrims in search of a good coffee.
Among the side dishes they offer you will find everything from sourdough toast to yogurt with granola to homemade pastries. An obligatory stop and an ideal plan to start any Rastro Sunday off right.
📍 Calle de la Ruda, 11
Mom Elba
At Mamá Elba they sell a horchata casa Diego produces in Madrid with tigernuts from Alboraya (Valencia), and its homemade ice creams are not far behind. In this ice cream parlor in La Latina is usual to find a queue when the weather is good, but, even if you have to wait, it is worth it because they have one of the best tiger nut milks in the city.
📍 Calle de la ruda, 15
What to do in La Latina
Molar Disks & Books
What a life has Molar Discos & Libros. A cultural activity that stirs up Calle de la Ruda and the entire Latina. On the second floor, where the horror vacui is real (a beautiful one to spend hours and hours and hours among vinyls, plates and books) records are discussed, books are signed, and people live among culture. Downstairs, there is a small gallery where the occasional concert, cultural event or book presentation is programmed.
📍Callede la Ruda, 19
Lorena Marco Flores
Lorena Marco Flores is already one of the reference florists in Madrid. It is impossible not to stop and admire its impressive plant showcase, which serves as a showcase of everything that can be found inside: natural flowers, preserved flowers, custom arrangements… Whatever you are looking for, you will find it in this great little floral temple in La Latina.
📍 Calle de la Ruda, 15
The official ceramics
Ceramics by weight is a growing business, but Toni Torrecillas and José Barro, with La Oficial, were among the first to set up a specific store. Craftsmanship from Portugal, Granada, Nijar, La Bisbal, Valencia, Cordoba and Seville come together in this store in the heart of La Latina, where the founders select all the ceramics they sell. In addition to this store in the Zone of El Rastro, they have a second store at Chueca.
📍 Santa Ana Street, 6
El Rastro
There are few flea markets that can boast of having sunk their roots in the 18th century and of still being in full operation today, to the point that there are even instagram accounts that pay tribute to him. El Rastro is that flea market.
Madrileños and visitors from all over the world pass by and stroll through its stalls every Sunday, which today host more than 1,000 vendors: antiques, clothing, accessories, handicrafts, kitchen items, records, cameras…. The repertoire is as wide as the perimeter it covers. And the fascination it awakens, which has inspired writers such as Ramón Gómez de la Serna also.
📍 S urroundings of the Curtidores riverbank
The squares of La Latina
As in almost all of Madrid, the best way to get to know this neighborhood is to wander the streets, get lost, and find yourself in its squares. The squares of La Latina are unique, more village than urban, very much for terracing and sitting and watching life go by. The most curious thing is that they are so close together that it is difficult to know where one ends and the next begins.
Humilladero Square
This corner of the square has little: it is, rather, a point where important streets of La Latina converge, which gives an air of epicenter of the neighborhood, the ideal coordinates to turn around and see what is happening in the bars and if there are any free tables on the terraces. It is so called because in ancient times Christians “humbled” themselves (lowering their heads or kneeling slightly) before the image of a virgin that today is in a school in the Zone.
Plaza de los Carros
In this medieval square, time passes at the pace of the village. There are children running around, people watching life go by, and friends sitting on the steps by the fountains talking, in no hurry to get up. The relaxed atmosphere is engaging, and from there you feel like watching for a long time the huge trompe l’oeil by Alberto Pirongelli that occupies the entire side façade of a building.
San Andres Square
At the foot of the San Isidro museum, which houses the archaeological heritage of Madrid’s origins, and a stone’s throw from the other squares, tables and chairs are crowded together at most popular terraces in the city. Everyone wants to have an aperitif on the stone paving, overlooking the church of St. Andrew and its beautiful dome.
Plaza de La Paja
A corner historical (its name comes from the straw that used to be sold there in the past). From its long past today remain the Vargas Palace, which today houses a school, and the Bishop’s Chapel. In the lower part hides a small secret garden, and somewhat higher up, a bronze neighbor who reads the newspaper day and night, always sitting on the same bench.
Plaza de Puerta Cerrada
At the ticket to the cava de San Miguel, that street that bears (literally) the weight of the Plaza Mayor, there is a cross that is too big for a square that is too small. The name indicates that here there was an access to the Christian wall that once surrounded Madrid. There are also murals on the buildings, being the most “mythical” the one that captures the motto of our city: I was built on water, my walls of fire are. The bustle here is nothing like the calm that reigns in the other squares of the Latina.
This article has been written by Alberto del Castillo, María F. Carballo, Isabel Nieto, Lucía Mos y Elena French.