Madrid

Madrileños tend to make not one plan for the evening but three or four. While the busiest nights are Friday and Saturday, the locals go out every night and miraculously manage to work or study during the day. Perhaps the secret lies in the tradition of consuming tapas – snacks of olives, anchovies, chorizo (sausages), gambas (deep-fried shrimp) and local specialties like orejas (pig’s ears), callos (tripe), mollejas (sweetbreads), snails in hot sauce and bull’s testicles. After a long night on the town, it is customary to breakfast on thick hot chocolate and sweet fried churros (dough).

Nightlife centres on three major districts – Chueca (Madrid’s gay village, which specialises in trendy restaurants), Calle Huertas (traditional Spanish music, jazz clubs and bars) and Malasaña (mainly bars and clubs frequented by a young crowd). All bars and clubs are licensed but hours are flexible. It can be hard to tell bars and clubs apart, since bars often have a dancefloor and not all clubs charge for entry. Where they do, €5–10 is the standard admission fee, which usually includes consumición (first drink). The legal drinking age in Madrid is 18 and the price of tipple ranges from €1.50 for a small beer or glass of wine to €4.50 for spirits and cocktails.

Many venues close during the month of August. There are several listings magazines. The weekly Guía del Ocio (www.guiadelocio.com), published in Spanish only and available from kiosks for €1, has information on concerts, theatre, film and other entertainment options. It also provides restaurant listings. The monthly What’s On is published in English and Spanish and is less detailed but good on opening times and contact details. In Madrid is a monthly English-language newspaper, available from tourist offices, Irish bars or Barajas airport. It is hot on the latest club news, DJs, bars and other aspects of night-time entertainment, and it is free.

Bars

Madrid’s bars range from dark, wood-panelled taverns to the fabulous Viva Madrid, Calle Manuel Fernández y Gonzáles 7, with its painted tiles of Madrid scenes from the early 1900s. The Garamond, Calle de Claudio Coello 10, has a castle-like interior and suits a smart older crowd. Chicote, Grand Vía 12, is Madrid’s most famous cocktail bar and has preserved its 1930s interior – it is easy to imagine American novelist Ernest Hemingway relaxing here during the Civil War. A former brothel run by gypsies, with a tiled interior depicting Velázquez’s The Drunkards, Los Gabrieles, Calle Echegaray 17, is now a respectable bar for a young chic clientele. Tapas bars cluster around Plaza de Santa Ana near Sol, Plaza de Santa Bárbara in Calasaña and Cava Baja and Calle de Cuchilleros, behind Plaza Mayor. One of the best is Taberna los Austrias, Calle Nuncio 17, situated near metro La Latina. As dawn breaks, revelers head for Chocolatería San Ginés, Pasadizo de San Ginés 11, a Mecca for those in search of hot chocolate and churros.