La Terraza del Casino

Description:

• The city's most imaginative chef, Ferran Adrià, isn't in Madrid. He's still tending those pots and pans in the little town of Roses near Girona in Catalonia. But the innovative master of cuisine created all the dishes on the menu here and flies in regularly to see that his cooks are following his orders. His luxe restaurant in Madrid lies on the top floor of the Casino in Madrid, a historical building and a former gentlemen's club with a history going back to 1910. Even the grand dons of those days surely didn't dine as well as you can today.

  Adrià's dishes are exquisite, and food critics (and I concur) are always writing about taste "explosions" in your mouth. His Catalan restaurant is El Bulli, meaning "innovative" in Spanish. The same name could apply to this Madrid dining hot spot that provides a panoramic view of the heart of Madrid and can be reached by an elevator or up a sweeping 19th-century staircase designed to impress. The decor is classically restrained with high ceilings and crystal chandeliers. The exquisite food uses fresh seasonal ingredients and reinterprets Spanish dishes. An example is raya (skate) in oil and saffron with parsley purée and nuts on a bed of finely diced fries. More traditional dishes include the succulent merluza a la gallega (Galician hake), crema de la fabada asturiana (creamed Asturian bean soup), and the steeply priced jamón Jabugo (cured ham from acorn-fed pigs) served with a menestra (mixed vegetables) al dente. Only French champagne and Spanish wines are listed, and one of the best is the rounded woody red, the Ribera del Duero from the province of Valladolid.

• © Frommer's 2012

Awards:

ABC

•  Restaurante Favorito 2008

Frommer's

•  Very Highly Recommended 2010