La Tasquita de Enfrente — Restaurant in Madrid

My Spanish wife & I came to La Tabaquista del Enfrente — a stone’s throw from the Telefónica Building — to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. We spend two to three months a year in Spain. Our lunch was the best meal I’ve had in this lovely country. Not knowing what to order, we put ourselves in the hands of Chef Juanjo. He & his bilingual staff served up smoked anguilas on thinly sliced pears to start. The Spaniards & Japanese will pay a thousand dollars a pound for the offspring of these ocean serpents. The parents were to die for.

Next we ate langostines in a vinaigrette embellished by a sauce from a reduction from the crustaceans’ heads. Delightful.

Next cardo rojo. A cardoon (type of thistle) with fried artichoke on top. I had never eaten a cardoon in my life. Fantastic.

Then we had some exotic mushrooms. Followed by a hake with side portions of its cheek. Wonderful.

For desert, we shared a falsa torrija. House specialty.

Each of these dishes was out of the ordinary.

We washed it down with a bottle and a half of a 2019 Verdejo from Frontaura y Victoria followed by a desert wine. The Frontaura was the best Verdejo I ever drank. Subtle & refreshing.

The main dining room has six tables. The walls are covered with art work of known Spanish artists. The total...

Avoid - Super Sketchy Restaurant. I found the restaurant through a food blog that I use to find new restaurants while traveling. For the quality of restaurant there were more bad reviews than expected in Tripadvisor, yelp and google and I definitely recommend you read them and avoid the restaurant for their sketchy business practices.

My girlfriend had stage 4 cancer and was not feeling well the day of our reservation so I cancelled in advance through the el tenedor reservation system with no mention of an 80 E cancellation fee. We go out all the time and had we known there was an 80E fee she would have had me go to dinner by myself. Lo and behold I get hit with an 80E fee on my card early the next morning.

Please note other reviews where they’ll tell you there’s no a la carte menu and if you order indivdual dishes the employees will make up an outrageous price that basically approximates the tasting menu. I can’t opine on the food itself but the business practices are sketchy. There are so many good restaurants in Madrid, you’ll do better to avoid this one. When cancelling through opentable or resy they’ll notify if you there’s a fee or not which is the usual course...

After reading the negative reviews about the "sketchy business practices" (charging more than menu price, not showing prices, forcing the tasting menu), I was a bit worried about our dinner here. I don't doubt that people had those experiences, but our experience was fine

Maybe the restaurant has improved it's practices, but we were given a menu with prices, the maître d' explained each item in english and although he suggested the tasting menu, there was no pressure to do so. He was even upfront about the small portions and suggested we order an additional appetizer.We ended up ordering two appetizers and two main dishes which was enough for the two of us. The total came to 105 euros.

We aren't food critics by any means, but we agreed that the food was about average compared to the two other restaurants we dinned at while in Madrid (Taberna El Sur and Botin). We ordered Callos here and at Botin. They tasted different but neither one was better than the other.

Service: 4 Stars Food: 4...