Madrid’s Café de Oriente – Sumptuous Eating in a Belle Époque Environment

In Madrid’s Plaza de Oriente, across the street from the Royal Palace (Palacio Real) and very near to Madrid’s Royal Theater and Opera House, is a restaurant called Café de Oriente with a long history of excellent food that respects Spain’s culinary tradition, catering to a distinguished clientele. Sometimes, the King of Spain has been seen dining with his guests in one of the private rooms.

For a long time, it has been the dining venue for the upper classes and Madrid’s intelligentia. Especially in the winter, everyone who’s anyone in Madrid will be found at this restaurant’s bar, eating and drinking at some time or other. Its proximity to the Royal Theater and the Opera and the food’s quality ensure a steady stream of patrons.

The eating areas are on 2 levels: the cellar – in what was, I presume, the eatery’s wine storage space in the distant past; and the street level that has the bar and numerous tables in an opulent Belle Époque setting plus private rooms for event dining or to accommodate patrons when the main dining spaces are full.

Outside, on the plaza, there is an outdoor covered space used mostly in the summer for al fresco eating with tables near the restaurant’s entrance. In the winter, that space is heated.

They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and at the bar, you can have drinks and tapas any time of the day till very late at night. There are prix fixe menus for lunch and dinner that are very good. I prefer ordering lunch from the a-la-carte menu to pair with the wine I’m drinking. And most of the time in the early evening before dinner, I have tapas at the bar with an Amontillado or Fino that I drink when I’m in Madrid.  

The food is definitely classic Spanish but with a number of newer dishes showing Mediterranean influences like the chipirones (baby squid) cooked in its own ink. The service is mostly wonderful in the inside areas, but in a few cases (especially in the summer when the outdoor space is very crowded), the service can be harried, slow, and rude. They definitely need more waiters outside when the weather is warm. 

One of the tasty appetizers I love at the Café is a duck liver terrine with smoked eel and caramelized banana, and another is fresh artichokes stuffed with veal cheeks stewed in Armagnac, accompanied by morel mushrooms.

Main meat courses that I enjoyed very much have been roasted piglet with a beautifully crispy skin, venison loin with chestnut puree and raspberry sauce, as well as lamb shank (similar to an Osso Buco) stewed in red wine, served with marrow, pumpkin puree, and pickled red cabbage. There are also spectacularly cooked fish courses, crispy mullet, and sautéed squid in a garlic and txakoli wine sauce, and cuttlefish in its own ink served with rice and mussels in escabeche.

And the desserts are not too shabby either. I loved the tiramisu and the dark chocolate soufflé with tangerine sorbet.

Of course, all dishes are seasonal and change very often, but the ones above have been memorable during visits in the recent past. And the tapas at the bar are unrivaled.

The wine list is extensive with wines from some of the best Spanish viticulture areas including Priorat, Ribera de Ruedo, Rias Baixas, Penedés, Valdeorras, Rioja and numerous others, mostly long verticals. There are also champagnes and sparkling wines from France; Cava (they carry Juvé & Camps Reserva de la Familia and Segura Viudas cavas that I’m partial to) and dry and sweet sherries, Tokajis, Rieslings from Germany, and many other international libations, though the Spanish wines dominate the list.

It is a great place to have tapas at the bar in the evening that are tasty and, all things considered, not that expensive.