Mercado San Antón

A fantastic option for family lunch in Chueca. This is on top of Mercado San Antón, has a lovely de-structured terraza with the kind of furniture that would have been given for charity not so long ago, and with Spanish cuisine that seems to be focused on cerdo ibérico. So, you can have plenty of ham and presa ibérica here, in a way that might remind one of the 5Jotas chain.

Of course, at Mercado San Antòn, atmosphere here is much less casposa, even if on weekends you might find some full family packs, including slowly-walking grandparents of the kind that usually broke my nerves in hangover mornings years ago.

Apart from the open air terraza, which is not so large after all, there's an in-door dining room and a covered terraza (where we have booked -through internet- today). Decoration seems to be a highlight here, quite on the wave you would expect in the area.

We are assigned a round table that is quite comfortable and from which we can easily review the place. Definitely, weekend public is more on the zafio side than this place deserves, maybe a collateral damage from being at the Mercado...

For starters we have croquetas de la abuela (even if they're not bad at all, I expected the abuela to do somewhat better), ensalada de judias verdes y espinacas (which is very nice and crispy) and a small empanadilla criolla that is not bad but also not that special (chimichurri on the side is really wonderful though).

Mains include beautiful chicken fingers for the children, tacos de merluza rebozada for my partner and hamburguesa de presa ibérica for me. All's good, with some potential improvements (e.g. the fried spinach that comes with the hake is a bit too tasty, maybe a bit too dry, and the zucchini slices that come with the croquetas are cold and unnecessary).

We skip dessert because we are visiting Mistura (a new ice cream shop in Augusto Figueroa) afterwards.

All this comes at about €28 / head (not free at all, but not bad). Including three dobles of lovely Mahou Clásica, that is

Deserves more visits. Maybe nights or working days have a more distinguished crowd. Furniture is lovely and food is good