Some cities rely on their history; Madrid is not one of them. Builders are famous for destroying the period features. Tourists can leave without learning the name of a single Spanish monarch.
The whole brand of Madrid is to live in the present. Come for mornings in the gallery, in the afternoon in Plaza, evenings in stadiums and bars. Previous centuries have many complications: The Museum of City History suddenly ends in 1930, just before the civil war can make anyone uncomfortable.
Which makes the world not good. This restaurant, a few steps by the Madrid leader of Plaza, is known by the Guinness Record Book as the oldest in the world. This year she celebrates her 300th anniversary. Its facade is painted with sufficient Guinness certificates that you can mistake it for a strange Irish pub.
Accolade is clearly good for business: The website told me the next table available was in three weeks. But I wondered if the title of the “oldest restaurant in the world” can be like the title of “the oldest person in the world” – Harbinger of bad news. Can any restaurant carry such a weight of tradition without being consumed by it?
Botín, history goes, rose like an inn in 1725 by the nephew of a French chef Jean Botín (his full name is Nephew – the nephew of the world). This was a time when Madritis lacked sewage deposition or street lights; The Prado Museum was not built, the boulevard where it now stands was merely a gorge; They were a monastery, not a world beat railway station. In the old maps, you can see the house of Botín, Calle de Cuchilleros, curing as it does today: To be very essential to be bulld.
Restaurants go due to wars and pandemics, due to private equality and public abuse, because their food does not fit or their owner does not stick. If they avoid these traps, their rents expire or their ambitions grow: they move. But Botín has operated in the same site in Madrid even when Napoleon, Franco and Covid-19 arrived and went. Goya allegedly made a season by cleaning the dishes around 1765, thankfully long before his dark period.
For the first century of the world, Spanish law dictated the guesthouse could only cook food that the visitors themselves brought. Stone oven – big enough to fit 14 breast pigs – allegedly never extinguished. During the pandemic, a chef would come to place firewood there every day: the owners fear that, if cool, it would be separated.
The restaurant is placed on four floors, including the wine basement dating from 1590. My friend and I sat down to the first, along with blue and white tiles, thin wooden beams-and many tourists. Spanish dinners come to the world, but we have not seen anyone. It is a tourist’s dilemma: with our encouragement to find authentic Spain, we end up in places with very little current Spanish. Botín lacks the spontaneity that locals can bring; Dinners are almost playing a role.
Spring/Summer Menu of the day It is Gazpacho followed by pork and ice cream, served with a drink for 59 €. There are children’s eels for 180 €, but otherwise the menu is a Spanish classic: roasted lamb, roasted chicken, fried squid. There is also Sangría, tourist nectar. This is Spain in uppercase letters.
Later, when I spoke with the genius head of the stalled cuisine, Rubén Manzaneque, he admitted that the botín was not a place for innovation: “It was a challenge when I started. I had to replace my creative instinct.” In his busy decade, “I think we’ve changed two plates and a garnish!” But he insisted, the processes were modernized, just as they had health and safety.
Moreover, the ingredients were good, and the coal stove – of a kind was no longer allowed to be installed – gave the meat a fumigation. Botín was not here to win awards, he said, though I later noticed a grass -adapted certificate: a 1991 award from the Madrid Public Relations Association.
Let us not be cynical. Breast pig has moved people. When Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt was held hostage in the 2000s, a prisoner arranged him with Tales of Botín; Once they were free, they had a cheerful evening here.
We found that the service had the brusque emergency of a battlefield. An occasional tradition in Spanish restaurants is to give dinners what they need to have, not what they are looking for. A Ri-White Blazer waiter, Black Bowtie-offered wine: When we said yes, he did not ask further questions, but simply brought a viña viña sausa Rioa. After Brexit, some Europeans know better than give an Englishman a choice.
All world waiters, by the way, are men. Female chefs are allowed, but the latter left recently. She enjoyed the job, but found pulling large pots physically required, Manzaneque told me. Tradition cuts both ways.
My Gazpacho, the color of soft sun burning, was ignorant. But the garlic and egg soup was better, my companion provided me, and the sweets-a change in the Basque cheeses-it was well done. In general, the box was marked.
The ruling family of the world since 1930, González, once opened branches in Miami, Mexico and Puerto Rico; Everyone failed, and you can understand why. Without history and decor, the bot would lose its charm.
The restaurant may not hold his title forever. Located on the northern outskirts of Madrid, on the old road to France, Casa Pedro claims to be older than botín – founded in 1702 by the same family that runs it today. Sadly every census was burned in the civil war. She has hired a historian. For now, its location means it attracts little tourists. “We have to fight every day,” her current manager Irene Guiñales told me.
Upon returning to the world, I went to the sidewalk and heard a tour guide explaining that Ernest Hemingway himself had visited the restaurant. “OK, he went everywhere,” the guide added, laughing. In front of us was a store that sold Real Madrid official shirts – each more expensive than our two meal. In the market for hype and authenticity, the world did not seem an unreasonable opportunity. If she produces many Madrid visitors to consider the past, she deserves at least some of her fame.
Nipi Booty is on Cuzzler Street 17; botin.es
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