Bienmesabe Pozas — Restaurant in Madrid

Are you the type of traveler who likes to wander the streets looking for local color? For restaurants that are the hidden gem of a neighborhood? The food can be fantastic yet the prices kept reasonable for the local market it serves--this is the kind of find I treasure on a journey and that I found at Bienmesabe while traveling to Madrid on business.

Every plate we had was local in character and high in quality. I didn't recognize a single bottle on the wine list but wound up with a Pinot that paired beautifully with the succulent Iberian pork dish. I had a multicourse meal with wine for a price at least half what I would have paid at home.

The whole time the restaurant was crawling with locals enjoying a midweek dinner. Meanwhile down the street every other...

The most shocking passive smoke experience I had since 1987, when smoking was still allowed in some funkystan regional airlines... Bienmesabe is 70% "fake terrace" (i.e. a veranda with hard walls), and the only way the smoke-triple-charged air can circulate is through the 30% "non-smoking" area. Needless to say, you come out of there having lost 10% of your life expectancy.

Now to the food, it's utterly tasteless (the smoke doesn't help), I had the driest Paella in 15 years living in Spain, and the ONLY exception to this culinary disaster was the delicious apple crumble which really is outstanding.

Summary: 480 EUR wasted on a terrible experience and the 4 locals + 10 foreign guests all coincided in 2 words:...

Highly Recommendable !!! Food very good quality and tasty. We ordered two different marisco dishes & the solomillo wok which were delicious. Sat around the chimney which we adore. Decoration and ambience wonderful. And the waiters very friendly and attentive. All in all an excellent experience. We will definitely be back. Just to add it’s an Andaluz restaurant and on the website if you go to each dish you will find the background about it. Fantastic and thank you so much for taking good care of us, customer service is so important to us and it means if we have a good experience and food lives up to our standards we...