Included in Zoya’s guide to Madrid was this line:
Sala Despiece – this place is a MUST. get there early (like 20 mins before it opens) cause the place gets packed. Easily the most interesting take on Spanish tapas. The carpaccio will take you to heaven and back
After hours and hours in museums, we were ready for a long and indulgent dinner. As per Zoya’s instructions, we arrived a full 30 minutes early, and were fortunately the first in line. Waiting in line before a place opens is really not our style, and we were feeling pretty uncool, but it was worth getting there early. Within 10 minutes, there were 20 people in line behind us. When the doors finally opened, we scored a prime seat at the bar, and were able to watch the chefs in action all evening.
The thing about tapas is that you’re supposed to eat many dishes of small amounts of food. Apparently ‘tapas crawls’ are the hip thing, where you go from restaurant to restaurant eating small amounts. Again, not our style. Instead, we settled in at Sala de Despiece and ordered almost every item on the menu.
As promised, the food was excellent. The view we had was also great, though it gave perhaps a bit too much insight into the restaurant operations. At open, the entire staff and flow of the team were on fire, but by hour one, things started to slow down and taper off, and you could tell operations would become sloppier throughout the evening. So perhaps there’s some logic to tapas crawls.
Everything we ordered is showcased in the photos below. The food definitely lived up to the hype, especially the beef carpaccio. We were surprised when again we were served a dish that required us to squeeze out the head of a shrimp. This time we caught it on video:
After dinner, we attempted to explore the neighbourhood for a ‘tapas crawl’, but were truly too stuffed. We hopped into a cab and went to Macera Workshop Bar, a gin bar that Zoya had recommended. These guys infuse their own homemade gins, and when they first opened you could only order gin & tonics
As regular gin drinkers, we’re fairly attached to our classic options. It was interesting to try to these artisanal gin options, but we quickly switched to cocktails. After several ‘pink panthers’, we were having a raging good time. We had a great spot at the bar, and watched place fill up with a typically European mix of people from all ages. If we’d realized how low the bill would be, we may have stayed even longer.
As it was, we left the bar and headed to another Zoya recommendation, Bar Cock. This place looks like a stereotypical old timey bankers hangout. All wood decor, and basically in a back alley. We ordered a bottle of sparkling and ended our night right.
And when we got home, I found out I’d been accepted to the MBA program at York University’s Schulich School of Business. It was the perfect way to end a long day and a great night.
the stories that I'm telling. 