36 Hours in Madrid -

36 Hours in Madrid -
This goes for the stylish interior, with its preserved 1950s-era bar
and floor tiles, as well as the menu, featuring reworked classics like grilled organic Cantabrian veal ribs with chimichurri (10 euros) or the chuletón de tomate, a luscious layering of avocado, mango, papaya, olive oil and fresh herbs on a half heirloom tomato (10 euros).
Entry is free on Saturdays from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Prado Museum, with its extensive collection of works by El Greco, Velázquez, Rubens,
and above all, Goya (do not miss the astonishing subterranean gallery devoted to his haunting, late Black Paintings), and from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Reina Sofía Museum, home to Picasso’s “Guernica,” among many other masterpieces.
Check out the elegant, century-old pastry shop La Duquesita Pastelería, which got a smart makeover at the end of 2015, as well as the tiny, three-year-old boutique Jápines (think “Happiness”
with a Spanish accent), which the local designer María Beltrán Joyas filled with a tastefully eclectic assortment of accessories, candles, perfume and jewelry, much of it of her own design.
Tipping and taking photos are still strictly forbidden — remnants of the bar’s time as a Republican haunt during the Spanish Civil War —
and the only drink on offer is sherry: exquisite, honey-hued and poured from hulking oakwood casks, same as it ever was.
Young culture makers and party people continue to flock to established night life
and shopping hubs like Malasaña, even as they invigorate upwardly trending barrios like fashionably chill Conde Duque and multicultural Lavapiés.