This article is part of a guide to Madrid from FT Globetrotter
The streets of Lavapiés, a historic neighbourhood in the heart of Madrid, are awash with rainwater. A long-forecast inundation is putting a damper on the launch of the 13th edition of the Tapapiés festival, an annual culinary event that highlights tapas from all over the globe.
However, my spirits are high: with the rain thinning out the crowds, I’ll get to sample a vast array of innovative delicacies without needing to queue, and with a tapa and small bottle of beer available for just €3 in 103 participating establishments, it’s well worth braving the deluge.
The festival runs for 10 days from October 19 to 29 and is generally so well attended that some venues employ door staff to control the crowds. Since it was launched back in 2011 by the neighbourhood’s traders’ association, the number of participating bars has grown so much that it has more than quadrupled in size. Now, on its weekend nights, outdoor performances transform the narrow sloping streets leading up to the city centre into a massive block party attended by visiting gourmands and locals alike.
My first port of call is África Fusión, a cosy Senegalese joint just a short dash through the driving rain from Lavapiés metro on fashionable Calle de Argumosa. Before sitting down to a warming vegetarian mafe peanut stew, I chat with owner and chef Yerim Mbagnick Mbodji. Originally from Senegal, he’s been in the barrio for 10 years and despite it becoming increasingly trendy, he tells me there’s been one constant. “It’s always been a multicultural district. There are Moroccans, Arabs, Italians and even English people,” he says. “We’ve got it all. It’s really easy to live here because everybody feels right at home.”
Crushed during the Spanish Civil War, the working-class district became rundown, with many empty buildings falling into disrepair. But in the aftermath of the dictatorship, immigrants moved in, giving the area a new lease of life. Many, like Mbodji, opened restaurants offering Madrileños a chance to sample a new array of flavours.
Though still early, África Fusión is filling up, signalling the restaurant is a strong contender for the coveted prize of best tapa. Each year, the public votes for the award online, and in 2019, Mbodji came second. He puts this success down to the fact that all his dishes are made from scratch with fresh ingredients. With well-rounded flavours and just the right level of spice, this year’s offering gets my vote.
Part of the fun of Tapapiés is working out which dishes to sample, so it pays to study the offerings online beforehand. However, appearances can be deceptive, as unappetising photos of greyish-looking slop can often win out against more well-curated offerings. My friends and I all agree that a paper cup filled with spicy buttery corn from Cutzamala Mex Food and a mini arepa slathered in garlic sauce from Resident Bar are way more flavourful than their elegantly plated competitors.
Our next stop is Tostas & Bacalao, a fashionable bar that attracts the area’s arty crowd and which won the prize for best tapa the past two years in a row. Its owner, Antonio José Pereira, is going for a hat trick. He tells me the secret to a great tapa is that it’s “served hot and made with quality ingredients without rushing things”.
Bacalao (salted cod) is always Pereira’s centrepiece, and this year it’s resting on a bed of fluffy sliced potatoes, creamy sauce and onions browned just before the point of caramelisation. It’s a winning combo that makes you wonder how they pull it off for such low prices, especially seeing as rents in the once working-class neighbourhood are skyrocketing. A decade ago, the tapa and beer deal was even cheaper at just €2, but if you factor in rent rises of 9.1 per cent in the past year alone (and up to 30 per cent between 2016 and 2021), it’s hard to quibble over that extra euro.
When we discuss the cost of living, Pereira drops his upbeat persona. Originally hailing from Lisbon, he knows a thing or two about gentrification. “It’s sad, it shouldn’t go up so fast, because we feel that life is passing us by too fast,” he says. “Of course, for those of us who earn €800 [a month], life is now expensive.”
In other ways, gentrification has been good for the area, as empty stalls in once dusty municipal markets have been taken over by tiny innovative eateries. For instance, Mercado Antón Martín, an old market that has been rejuvenated in recent years, is now a vibrant place for barhopping, and I meet up with friends later in the evening to do just that.
As we guzzle beers and toss down tapas, we compare strategies for taking in the festival with a group of young Spanish professionals. They have a mastermind in their team who has carefully studied the huge variety on offer, and while eager to explore food from outside of Spain, the group point out that Tapapiés is a great opportunity to sample the Iberian peninsula’s regional food. “The tapas here express this regionalism,” they say. “You can try a taco, but a Galician taco or beans from Rioja.”
With that in mind, we bring it home for our very last stop at El Jamón, a Spanish bar located just above Lavapiés Square, the place where local lore has it that a medieval synagogue was once located. The name Lavapiés means “washing of feet”, and romantic writers in the 19th century falsely believed this referred to a Jewish custom performed before entering the synagogue. In truth, the area only has links to the Jewish community through the beleaguered population of Jewish conversos (forced converts to Christianity) who settled here in the 16th century.
The converts lived under constant suspicion of heresy, and it’s thought they would prominently display a jamón at home to prove their willingness to eat pork. Here, in El Jamón, Spain’s favourite delicacy is given pride of place hanging on hooks behind the counter. It’s just one of many elements that make this a classic Spanish bar: TV permanently blasting sports, flashing fruit machine, used napkins littering the floor and a surly waiter in a flat cap to boot.
An evocative slice of old Madrid, such places are gradually disappearing from the urban landscape as rents rise. This is a pity, because El Jamón’s tapa of juicy pork tenderloin slathered in Roquefort sauce was one of the best of the evening. After wolfing it down, we step into the torrent that runs down the street and are treated to an impromptu footbath. Shrugging our shoulders and smacking our lips, we decided it was well worth the soaking.
enlavapies.com
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