Hotels

Let`s start the route step by step. On entering, there is a spectacular lobby presided over by a huge bar, lamps, carpets and plants in their huge windows, which tells us one important thing: the gastronomic spaces of this hotel are not reserved exclusively for the guests, they are open to all. In this first area we can have breakfast or take some tapas in a bar that never closes their kitchen service, no matter what time it is. Over this area is the Casa Suecia restaurant, a cozy, retro-looking place with the Michelin Star award of Carlos Tejedor in the stoves. In the menu we can find dishes such as the polar coca with aroma of garlic and herbs with beef jerky and arugula, the wood-style salmon with fennel salad and the onion soup with Idiazábal cheese bread, three proposals that triumph on their tables. Inside this restaurant there are more tributes to the writer, because it has an area separated from the rest by a bookcase full of literary works. We continue to climb to the top of the hotel. Its terrace has a 360o view of Madrid and it is one of the most spectacular in the city . Its bar is served by the renowned Adrian Sehov’s signature cocktail, which reinvents classics such as Old Fashions, here Old Fashions XO, and Mojito, here with Creole surname, among many others.

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The real surprise is downstairs when you go from the lobby to the bathroom. In those retro- looking toilets there are several doors alike but, at the end, one is different, it is sliding, not so old. When you open it you reach a clandestine private club anchored several decades ago: the Hemingway bar. A leopard carpet covers the whole place and the red velvet of the armchairs is the perfect companion for the main character: the bar. The bar is supported by a wood rich in decorations and history, from an 18th century church, and is escorted by a collection of distilled drinks. There the bartenders practice their alchemy with cocktails like the aforementioned Old Fashioned XO (with rum Zapaca XO, bitter chocolate, sugar and smoked with Habano) or the Papa Doble (based on Zapaca 23, grapefruit, maraschino and sugar), a cocktail in honor of Hemingway, who did not settle for a simple daiquiri and always asked for a double one.

This house has left us two things clear: the first is that hotels are no longer just to stay, they are to enjoy a gastronomic experience, that can be the same or better than in any other restaurant. And the second thing is that the return to the past, if it is done with taste and talent, is often more surprising than any avant-garde.