Paula Casado spent more than a decade working in fashion in New York before she changed direction entirely, training at the Le Cordon Bleu school in Madrid from 2022 and rebuilding a career around food. She now works as a private chef, teaches cooking classes, hosts pop up dinners, and has even put her name on a clothing line called Sobremesa, made with Novel Mart, which tells you how much of her identity is now built around the table rather than the runway. Her list of where she actually eats in Madrid runs across the city and across budgets, and it holds up as a guide on its own.
For something classic she goes to El Boqueron, built on the quality of its alino tomato, its anchovies and its grilled squid, and easier to get a table at once August thins the city out. For something more informal there is Krudo, inside the Mercado de Vallehermoso, where fresh, citrus forward plates suit the market setting and the summer heat better than a full sit down meal would. When she wants Mexican food she goes to Chiribita Tacos, which she says surprised her with how authentic it actually is.
Farah, in La Latina, gets picked for its shaded terrace and a menu broad enough to carry a night that starts with dinner and drifts into cocktails without anyone needing to move. StreetXO, one of her genuine favorites in the city, is another restaurant that becomes easier to book once August thins out Madrid's usual traffic. Her newest recommendation is Lava, also in La Latina, a recently opened restaurant she calls a small hidden gem, where a chef named Alice, who previously worked at the Paris restaurants Ton Ton and Septime, runs a short menu that changes daily alongside a natural wine list, built around a steak tartare served with tonnata sauce.
For value she names Sichuan Kitchen, an Asian restaurant she describes as generous for its price, with a long menu that includes a topokki made with prawns and a dried beef dish among its standouts. Her last pick, El Campero Madrid, is built entirely around the quality of its tuna, and she says it brings back the summers she has spent in Cadiz, where the same fish is treated with the same seriousness.
Eight restaurants, no single cuisine, and barely any overlap in price or setting between them. What holds the list together is not a theme so much as a former fashion buyer's eye for the specific thing a place does well, whether that is a tomato, a tartare, or a menu that changes every single day.