Verdejo Restaurante y Tabanco — Restaurant in Madrid

Lovely new bar-restaurant close to Puerta de Alcalá, with a friendly decoration and a (very) friendly service, starring two women that are helpful, well informed (about all dishes) and nice at the same time.

Atmosphere is eclectic, including youngs and not so youngs. Today the acoustic space is dominated by a quite large group sitting in a table close to ours, composed as it seems by old friends meeting after quite a long time, and trying to compensate that by telling stories to each other with a noisy enthusiasm. I would include them in the not so young segment (or even in the definitely not so youngs) so it is maybe no surprise that conversation includes references on how the husband of a couple here avoided paying a tax by distracting a clerk's attention with the wife's bossom (generous or not, I cannot say because I do not have the strength to look).

As for food here this winter, the menu (shown on a blackboard close to us) is based on Spanish comfort food at its best, including delicacies that my football friends would probably love, such as mollejas de lechal con ajetes tiernos, or callo, morro y pata en guiso picantito.

As our visit today is a family visit, including two little croqueta lovers among us, we order croquetas de Doña Margarita, which are big pieces made out of cocido and are called that way because they're like the ones the waitress' (& owner's) grannie (called Margarita) used to cook with rests of cocido from the day before. We also have verduras de invierno salteadas con aceite de ajo, cooked al dente and really fantastic (for me probably the best of the meal today).

For main dishes, we have pollito de corral for children (and the waitress/owner gently admits to bring pepitoria sauce at the side) and salmonetes fritos (day special today) and a wonderful (and powerful) bacalao ajo arriero with a fried egg on top that is the final guarantee that we will not leave the place with an empty stomach feeling.

Dessert is "algo de chocolate", which is a safe bet (no matter what "algo" means here) as our two little croqueta lovers are also quite fond of chocolate. It actually is a coulant with vanilla ice cream (so even the father needs to check it out...)

So, it has been a very nice lunch at Taberna Verdejo. Bill is around 30 / head, and I don't find it expensive at all, given the level of food and service. If there needs to be a negative, it could be that it is a very small place. But then again that may be part of...

If you're visiting Madrid and only look for good restaurants in the Michelin guide, you will miss a great dining experience at Verdejo. Listed in the Spanish foodies list produced by Repsol and awarded with a Sun award (1 Sol), Verdejo is really worth the accolade. A fresh menu, with a wide range of Spanish modern food from pickled fish and meat, to delicious fungi, vegetables and traditional legumes (pulses) will keep you thinking what to choose! We had the delicious Mar y Montaña smoked fish and meat, which was a true delicacy. Followed by the "meatballs" (albóndigas) that are actually "fishballs" of cazón and sepia (school shark and squid), which were very tender and savoury. Then we had fungi (setas) with eggs, which were earthy and light, and finished with a traditional Spanish peasant dish of minced bread (migas; which I've seen translated as just simply "breadcrumbs" but does really not convey what this dish truly is!). As we shared the dishes and some were half portions, we still had some space left for dessert, and tried the "canutillos" (small pastry corns filled with a delicious pistachio cream over a decaf coffee cream with some "dulce de leche" notes) and the three-milks cake, a spongy subtle homemade cake. I cannot overstate how much we've enjoyed this dinner. It's just simply glorious food in a nicely decorated restaurant, served by helpful and kind people who make the dining experience truly enjoyable. We'll...

Every once in a while you come a place so special that you wonder if you should ever tell anyone about it for fear of it getting so noticed that it gets a bit too popular and loses its special essence.

This is one of those places.

Tucked away in a less busy part of Madrid, the restaurant specialises in local dishes with locally sourced ingredients. I tried several dishes but the green bean salad, escabeche, beef cheeks were absolute winners. The escabeche (pork) had a tangy limy sauce that forced me to mop every last drop with bread.

Great food notwithstanding, it was the service that absolutely won me over. Google - 6 stars possible? Although Carmen (I think the lady boss?!?) had reasonably good English, she still took great efforts in describing everything to us. She was so accommodative on every front from offering to translate everythibg to designing a menu specially for us based on our preferences. The wines she recommended for each course also... Just. Simply. Worked.

All that for 35EUR a head and we could barely walk out of the place.

I recommend this place as THE place to visit if you want to avoid...