Bar Cazorla, Madrid

Fried seafood platter at Cazorla in Madrid. Gold you can eat, I tell you!

Fritura: Fried crayfish, red mullet, baby squid, squid rings, and anchovies.

Those who arrive to Cazorla close to four p.m. on a Saturday will be greeted with the surest sign of a neighborhood gem: metal shutters pulled about a quarter of the way down over the entrance, and the clamor of the crowd within.  Duck inside to join the inner circle beyond the closing jaws of another tapas hour winding down. Or show up at 2 p.m. and dive headfirst into the melée.

Sunny climes resound from the gleam of this bar's white and blue tile and polished wood, even on a dreary day in January. By the way, if you consider around 50ºF and partly cloudy skies dreary, then welcome to Madrid in January. Cazorla has four locations in Madrid with three just in and around upscale Barrio Salamanca, but several factors keep this ode to Andalucía from being a victim of its own success. 

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For one thing, the food is reasonably priced and fresh, quality product.  The menu is Andalusian-inspired, which means that although you won't get your fried chocos wrapped in newspaper like you would in Sevilla, there is plenty of fried everything, and it's the good stuff -- heart-meltingly crispy and salty, not greasy. The langostinos behind the bar flaunt glossy little black eyes, as opposed to brownish or wilted ones: making stripping them and sucking their heads all the more pleasurable.

                                                        Go on, suck that crayfish head!

Clean and bright, this bar transmits the best of true middle-class, small-business Spanish bar service: hospitality and personality. One of my favorite symbols of Spanish simplicity and rusticity in the hospitality industry, a collection of Catholic prayer cards, loom nostalgically from behind the cash register (ubiquitous in down home Spanish bars; view here: http://bit.ly/Catholic-prayer-cards;). These homespun holy trading cards ward off fears that you've walked into a lifeless corporate chain.

The thrumming multitude of a great tapas joint quickens the pulse of passersby, pulling them in like drones to a hive. As for the crowd at Cazorla, it's a multi-limbed, effusive, and well mannered beast. This is Barrio Salamanca, so expect families with children dressed alike playing beneath the bar, nicely coiffed older ladies quaffing sherry, and young men whose collared shirts peep out from brightly colored sweaters downing beer. Shoulders will bump. Squeeze up to the bar and cling to it for dear life.

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Barmen here are gruff and fast with a glass of beer (una caña) or a small glass of wine (un vinito). A guiri (slang for tourist) with an appetite is rewarded with attentiveness and curiosity in the form of sidelong glances. While they're watching out of the corner of their eye, I'm usually oohing and ahhing over the food, which any pro behind the bar will take as a form of flattery. As a reward, Alvaro and I scored chupitos of something very like Bailey's Irish Creme and some chocolates. Okay, they weren't free beers, and who likes Bailey's? But in Spain, hospitality can be summed up with a simple phrase: el detalle importa. And I agree; the little things do indeed count.

A little something extra.

Cazorla on Calle Montesa in Barrio Salamanca