Taberna Maceiras All Ages / All Types / Ambient / Casual / Celtic / Chill / Conversational / Crowded / Dinner / Down-to-earth / Expats / Food Specials / Foodies / Friendly / Good for Groups / Hip / Lively / Locals / Moderate / No Reservations / Sangria / Seafood / Seafood Restaurant / Spanish Food / Spanish Restaurant / Tapas / Tapas Bar / Tourists / Wine

Maceiras is known for food from Northern Spain, Asturias. In my opinion, that region has the most flavourful, homemade tasting, and fresh foods, so this is definitely one of my favorite restaurants in Madrid…not only for the food, but also for the ambiance. The north is famous for Pulpo a la gallega (Galician style octopus), which is marinated with Paprika, salt, and pepper. It is also known for calamares (calamari), bonito (a type of fish filet), and pimientos de pardon (which are little green peppers with sea salt). Each dish roughly costs about 8-10 euros, which is reasonably priced because the portions are fairly big. They also have ciders from the north, which have a distinct floral taste. When the server serves this to you they have a specific technique of pouring it into your cup from above which is very specific to the north of Spain. The cups they serve there drinks in are like little bowls giving it a very village tavern vibe. Like I said before, the vibe is as if you were in a rustic village tavern up north. There’s celtic type music playing in the background, small wooden tables, and wooden chairs and random decorations all over that look like were brought in from some fisherman town from up north. Later on in the evening around 10:30pm they turned off all the lights and the server started preparing a typical Galician liquor in a huge bowl. The alcohol in the bowl was on fire and the server kept mixing and mixing and lifting the ladle and the flames kept rising to the sounds of harmonic celtic type music. It was a really different experience. You can order that drink if you want after the show is over. The crowd is all ages, all types, and a mix between locals, expats and tourists. The vibe is casual, exotic, down to earth and conversational. So you really don’t need to worry about what to wear when you go here. Make sure you get there at around 8:30 or 9pm, because the place fills up really fast on any given night and it doesn’t take any reservations. So go around then if you want to get a seat! A great place to go spend the night having a good conversation and a nice meal! But keep in mind that this is just a dinner place, so people do tend to just eat here, have a few drinks to start off, and then spend the rest of their night elsewhere!