San Miguel Market
A 1916 iron market hall turned tapas counter.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 30 min
Best time
Before 1pm, or after 10pm
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The hall was built in 1916, with an iron frame and glass walls — the last original iron market hall still standing in Madrid. It closed as a neighbourhood market and reopened in 2009 on a different model.
It is no longer a market: you do not shop here, you eat standing at the counters, by the piece and by the portion. It is good, it is expensive and it is packed — better treated as an opening course than as a meal.
Getting there
At the north-west corner of the Plaza Mayor, two minutes on foot. Metro at Sol or Ópera.
What to bring
- Dry bag
Rules on site
Prices are those of a thoroughfare: the bars of La Latina, five minutes away, serve better for less. At peak hours you can barely move between the counters and there is nowhere to set a plate down.
Other places in Madrid
Prado MuseumVelázquez, Goya and Bosch in one building, including Las Meninas and The Garden of Earthly Delights.Retiro ParkA hundred and twenty hectares of former royal gardens, a rowing lake and a crystal palace.
Plaza Mayor and Puerta del SolThe arcaded seventeenth-century square, and the zero kilometre of Spain's roads two steps away.
Royal PalaceThree thousand four hundred rooms, the largest working royal palace in Western Europe.