Madrid’s heaving dining scene just got another boost with the opening of a restaurant whose Galician name telegraphs its homey gastronomic intentions, but not its unexpectedly contemporary interiors.
Meaning ‘authentic’ or ‘genuine’, the restaurant is a contrast to the Embajadores quarter, a sleepily old-fashioned neighbourhood near the Sunday street market, El Rastro. For this, applause please for the Madrid-based Studio Zooco that’s headed by Miguel Crespo Picot, Javier Guzmán Benito and Sixto Martín Martínez.
Several adjoining units have been cobbled together to form a spacious dining room, its size cropped through the clever insertion of sliding screens comprised of vertical and horizontal panels of braided string lattices. These literal walls of transparency allow the restaurant to be configured into zones for different sized groups, without fragmenting the space or sacrificing any sight-lines or light.
The building has been a Galician restaurant since 1979 and the architects have notated their design by incorporating a similar ribbon of timber that curls up and around the walls and flooring to create subliminal pathways that are bordered by concrete and hexagonal ceramic tiles.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, executive chef Domingo Urosa unfurls the complex flavours of Enxembre’s Galician specialties of seafood and rice, and creamy filloas, or sweet northern Spanish pancakes.
ADDRESS
Paseo de las Acacias, 12
-
Welcome to io: OpenAI acquires Jony Ive’s secret startup to shape the form of future AIJony Ive’s LoveFrom has spent two years assembling io, a crack team of specialists to visualise the physical form of Artificial Intelligence. Newly acquired by Sam Altman at ChatGPT, this tech supergroup hopes to re-shape the landscape of Silicon Valley and our relationship with tech
-
Chelsea Flower Show unfurled: a year of pause, thought and promiseThis week’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show – now in its 112th year – has begun to reveal its defining spirit. This year is one of tentative readjustment: a reassuring exploration of the ‘future garden’, and the ways in which landscape design might tackle climate and conservation challenges
-
Milan exhibition celebrates 20 years of Armani Privé: ‘Haute couture is fashion when it becomes art’Hosted at the Tadao Ando-designed Armani/Silos, ‘Giorgio Armani Privé 2005-2025, Twenty Years of Haute Couture’ displays an expansive collection of the Italian designer’s showstopping haute couture creations
-
Sun-soaked European destinations to visit in springDreaming of Florentine palazzos and Greek islands now that the weather is starting to turn? Check into one of these beautiful European hotels and holiday homes
-
Esperit Roca is a restaurant of delicious brutalism and six-course dessertsIn Girona, the Roca brothers dish up daring, sensory cuisine amid a 19th-century fortress reimagined by Andreu Carulla Studio
-
Must-visit cinemas with award-worthy designThere’s more magic to the movies at these design-led cinemas, from Busan Cinema Centre’s ‘flying’ roof to The Gem Cinema Jaipur’s art deco allure
-
‘I explored Benidorm with an open mind’: the famous Spanish seaside town is captured in a new photo bookFrom neon lights to pink sunburns, photographer Rob Ball turns his lens on Benidorm to see what remains of a ‘pan-European holiday utopia’
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Brach Madrid: a hotel of love and passionBrach Madrid, part of Evok Collection, is a charming city-centre bolthole designed by Philippe Starck
-
2025 getaways: where Wallpaper* editors will be travelling to this yearFrom the Japanese art islands of Naoshima and Teshima to the Malaysian tropical paradise of Langkawi, here’s where Wallpaper* editors plan to travel to in 2025
-
The most whimsical hotel Christmas trees around the worldWe round up the best hotel Christmas tree collaborations of the year, from an abstract take in Madrid to a heritage-rooted installation in Amsterdam
-
The world’s best new hotels that we’re loving without reservationExplore the best new openings in the world, from glamping at The River Electric in Sonoma County to beachside bliss at Hôtel Villa Miraé in Cap d’Antibes
