Madrid drinks vermouth out of a tap before lunch and argues about dates afterwards. Five rooms between Malasaña and the Plaza Mayor, two of them holding famous claims that do not survive being looked up, and one that pours five wines and refuses everything else.
Casa Alberto, stop three, is shut from 2 to 24 August 2026 inclusive and reopens on Tuesday 25 August. That is on its own site, and it also closes the first week of January every year. It is shut on Mondays the rest of the time. If you are here in the closure take the road as four stops. Madrid empties in August generally, and La Venencia has no website, no social account and therefore no channel on which it could announce a holiday, so ring it.
- 1 · The Cold Open
Bodega de La Ardosa
Rafael Fernández Bagena owned vineyards in Toledo and in 1892 he named a chain of taverns after his estate at La Ardosa, near Consuegra. It grew to some thirty six of them and this is the oldest one left standing, recorded as such on both the city and the regional registers. Gregorio Monje, a butcher, bought it in 1970 and his son has it now. Vermut de grifo out of the barrel, Guinness and Pilsner Urquell on the taps, barrels for tables, and Concha Marfil's tortilla, which is the actual argument for coming.
est. 1892, the last of thirty six · daily from 9am, till 2am, 2.30am Fri and Sat · verified Aug 2026
- 2 · The Detour
La Venencia
Sherry and nothing else: manzanilla, fino, amontillado, oloroso and palo cortado, all from the barrel. No beer, no soft drinks, no spirits, no tips, no bookings and no photographs. Your order is chalked on the wooden bar in front of you and added up there at the end. Four different founding years circulate and not one has a document behind it. The Civil War explanation for the camera ban comes from the press, not the bar, which says only that it does not like photos. Their own barman calls the Hemingway story a myth.
somewhere in the twenties or thirties, and nobody can prove which · daily 12.30pm till 3.30pm and 7.30pm till midnight · verified Aug 2026
- 3 · The Anchor
Casa Alberto
The 1827 comes from a plaque set in the floor, and that plaque carries the date the business itself supplied to the city, so hold it lightly. What is certainly here is a zinc counter, a five spout tap, a Seltz saturator and vermut made on the premises, which they will sell you in a bottle with a tap on it to carry away. Cervantes did live on this street and printed the address himself in 1614. That it was this number is a scholar's reconstruction, and the chapters he supposedly wrote here are nobody's evidence.
the house says 1827, on a plaque it supplied the date for · Tue-Sun, closed Mon, and shut 2 to 24 Aug 2026 · verified Aug 2026
- 4 · The Wildcard
Botín
Guinness lists it as the oldest restaurant in the world and its own wording is that it is regarded to be, which is the sound of a record declining to vouch for itself. The only physical artefact anyone cites is a stone at the entrance, and by the house's own account that stone marks the reform of 1725, a building job rather than an opening. The Goya story is worse: they say he washed dishes here as an adolescent in 1765, when he was nineteen. Come for the cochinillo out of a wood oven that has never gone out, not for the record.
the register says 1725, the stone dates a refurbishment · daily 1pm till 4pm and 8pm till midnight · verified Aug 2026
- 5 · The Last Call
Museo Chicote
Perico Chicote learned the trade behind the bar at the Ritz from 1915, wrote a book about American bars in 1927 and opened this in 1931, when Gran Vía was still called the Avenida Conde de Peñalver. Gutiérrez Soto designed the room and the city catalogues it at its highest protection level, integral, which is the only genuine listing on this road. Hemingway did more than drink here: he set an entire short story inside it in 1938 and had his narrator call it the best bar in Spain. Order a dry martini. The bottle museum was sold in 1979 and auctioned off after that.
est. 1931, catalogued at the city's top protection level · from 4pm, 1pm at weekends, till 3am · verified Aug 2026