Restaurants: Madrid has attracted generations of courtiers, diplomats, and tradesmen, all of whom have brought culinary tastes and styles from other parts of the world. The city's best restaurants specialize in Basque cooking, Spain's haute cuisine. Numerous seafood houses take full advantage of the abundant fish trucked in nightly from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts.

Madrid's own cuisine is based on the roasts and thick soups and stews of Castile, Spain's high central meseta (plain). Roast suckling pig and lamb are standard Madrid feasts, as are baby goat and chunks of beef from Ávila. Cocido madrileño (garbanzo-bean stew) and callos a la madrileña (stewed tripe) are fundamental local specialties. Cocido is a delicious and hearty winter meal consisting of garbanzo beans, vegetables, potatoes, sausages, and pork. The best cocidos are slowly simmered in earthenware crocks over open fires and served as a complete meal in several courses. You can order cocido in the most elegant restaurants as well as the humblest holes-in-the-wall, and it's usually offered as a midday selection on Monday or Wednesday.

Callos are a much simpler concoction of veal tripe stewed with tomatoes, onions, hot paprika, and garlic. Jamón serrano (cured ham)---a specialty from the livestock lands of Teruel, Extremadura, and Andalusia---has become a staple in Madrid; wanderers are likely to come across a museo del jamón (literally, ham museum), where endless legs of the dried delicacy dangle in store windows or in bars.

Madrileños tend to eat meals even later than other Spaniards, and that's saying something. Restaurants generally open for lunch at 1:30 and fill up by 3. Dinnertime begins at 9, but reservations for 11 are common, and a meal can be a wonderfully lengthy (up to three hours) affair. If you're not a night owl, make the most of the early-evening tapas hour. But try to defy your body clock at least once: a late dinner here is the only kind.

Restaurants Contemporary

1. El Cenador del Prado
   C. del Prado 4, Madrid, 91 - 4291561
2. La Broche
   Miguel Angel 29, Madrid, 91 - 3993778
3. La Terraza---Casino de Madrid
   Alcalá 15, Madrid, 91 - 5218700
4. Viridiana
   Juan de Mena 14, Madrid, 91 - 5315222
5. Zalacaín
   Alvarez de Baena 4, Madrid, 91 - 5614840

1. La Gamella
   Alfonso XII 4, Madrid, 91 - 5324509

1. El Borbollón
   Recoletos 7, Madrid, 91 - 4314134

1. Ciao
   Argensola 7, Madrid, 91 – 3082519
2. Nabucco
   Hortaleza 108, Madrid, 91 - 3100611

1. Ginza Sushi Bar
   Plaza de las Cortes 3, Madrid, 91 - 4297619

1. El Pescador
   José Ortega y Gasset 75, Madrid, 91 - 4021290
2. La Trainera
   Lagasca 60, Madrid, 91 - 5768035

1. Asador Frontón
   Tirso de Molina 7 (upstairs at back), Madrid, 91 - 3691617
2. Botín
   Cuchilleros 17, off Plaza Mayor, Madrid, 91 – 3664217
3. Casa Benigno
   Benigno Soto 9, Madrid, 91 - 4169357
4. Casa Ciriaco
   Calle Mayor 84, Madrid, 91 – 5595066
5. Casa Lastra
   Olivar 3, Madrid, 91 – 3690837
6. Casa Mingo
   Paseo de la Florida 2, Madrid, 91 - 5477918
7. Casa Paco
   Puerta Cerrada 11, Madrid, 91 – 3663166
8. Casa Vallejo
   San Lorenzo 9, Madrid, 91 - 3086158
9. Champagnería Gala
   Moratín 22, Madrid, 91 - 4292562
10. Horcher
    Alfonso XII 6, Madrid, 91 - 5220731
11. Iroco
    Velázquez 18, Madrid, 91 – 4317381
12. Julián de Tolosa
    Cava Baja 18, Madrid, 91 - 3658210
13. La Bola
    C. de la Bola 5, Madrid, 91 – 5476930
14. La Cacharrería
    Moreria 9, Madrid, 91 – 3653930
15. La Cava Real
    Espronceda 34, Madrid, 91 - 4425432
16. La Trucha
    Manuel Fernandez y Gonzalez 3, Madrid, 91 - 4295833
17. Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas
    Cuchilleros 1, Madrid, 91 - 3665428
18. Lhardy
    Carrera de San Jerónimo 8, Madrid, 91 – 5222207
19. Pedro Larumbe
    Paseo de la Castellana 34/C. Serrano 61, Madrid, 91 - 5751112
20. Taberna Carmencita
    Libertad 16, Madrid, 91 - 5316612

1. La Biotika
   Amor de Dios 3, Madrid, 91 - 4290780