A walk around the 19th Century
A stroll through Madrid's vintage restaurants serving legacy in the modern global culture.
The coffee arrived as leisurely as the waiter who was attending my table. Honestly, it didn't matter. The warm summer scenes of El Retiro outside the window and two-centuries-old history in the restaurant was enough to lose track of self and travel back in 1888. The vintage 19th century ambience smelled of well-aged history everywhere, from traditional aromatic recipes and freshly roasted coffees to matured wooden panels. Cafe de Gijon had the perfect setup for a nineteenth-century coffee house running in the twenty-first century.
One of the most spectacular things about Madrid is its preserved vintage culture that you keep stumbling upon while exploring some of the oldest barrios or neighbourhoods. Antique and out-of-time shops stand out from the modernisation, quite gracefully. From bars to book stores, Madrileños have diligently carried forward their legacies into the coming centuries.
Taberna La Bola on Calle de La Bola - 19th Century Madrid
While researching for an assignment during my master's course, I got an opportunity to explore these traditional places and photograph them. After an effortful shortlisting and mapping out the locations, I began my journey from 'Cafe Commercial' and ended it with Cafe de Gijon. When you pass by these 19th Century vintage locales, you realise how beautifully they all stand out from the rest of the modern construction and business running around them.
Polished wooden panelling on the walls and beams standing around supporting the structure, wall-mounted lamps mildly lighting up the interiors, spotless white cloth laid upon the tables, half-filled glasses of water, wine, and other beverages sitting on it, accompanied by pairing food as per the time of the day, and cups of freshly made coffee. If you take any cafe in the world, an experience that is most commonly had is the sound of chatter. It is definitely a global phenomenon, and every eatery is incomplete without its inevitable sweet sound.
Chocolateria de San Gines on Pasadizo de San Gines
These vintage locations are not unique solely because of their date of establishment but also because of the people who visited them. Renowned Politicians, revolutionaries, writers, artists, and many Spanish influential people from the 19th century who changed the course of history sat at the tables where today tourists and Gen Z crowd sit. Which means a generation of chatter and history and stories surrounding these walls.
When you visit one of these eateries, the duration of waiting for your order also feels pardonable in these cafes and restaurants. As you spend your time looking around the ambience and observe the parts of history, captured in photographs and souvenirs, so magnificently decorated across the cafe or restaurant. And in the interval, you look outside the window, over the street or a park, whatever the place looks out to, you are, in reality, being in the moment, experiencing life in its original form. The best analogy of waiting would be a gorgeously ageing wine, whose flavours do not develop until it's well-aged for years or even decades. In this case, as the tortilla de patatas, or hot fried churros land on your table to chaperone your Cafe con Leche.
Casa Labra on Calle de Tetuán
Beginning my journey from Cafe Commerical on Glorieta de Bilbao. On my journey of 3 hours I covered La Bola on Calle de la Bola, Sobrino de Botin on Calle de Cuchilleros, Casa Labra on Calle de Tetuán, Chocolateria de San Gines on Pasadizo de San Gines, Lhardy on Carrera de San Jerónimo, Museo Chicote on Calle Gran Via, and finally ended it with Cafe de Gijon on Paseo de Recoletos. Except for Sobrino de Botin and Museo Chicote, all the establishments are from the 1800s. Sobrino de Botin being the oldest of the lot was established in 1725 and Museo Chicote is the latest of them all, started in 1931.
While roaming the streets of Madrid, it reminded me of South Mumbai. Maybe that is why this city always felt like home. Like Madrid, Mumbai makes you fall in love with its generations of history and marvellous architectural buildings that you can't stop yourself from exploring and spend hours and hours admiring. Like Madrid, Mumbai has its own set of jewels that it dorns so most beautifully. Britannia and Co., Kyaanis, David Sassoon Library, Cafe Leopold, Gaylord, Cafe Madras are some of them. But to talk about these legends, it needs its own space to talk about the rich history. Soon!
