🍤 The Tapa Weekend: October 18
A tapa route, more art exhibits and street markets galore!
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | October 18, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #71
🎉 Welcome to a new issue of The Tapa: Weekend Edition! An English-language newsletter about what to do this weekend in Madrid (plus memes!)
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
Happy Friday, everyone!
And hooray! The rain is finally gone, bringing happiness and joy to extroverted people and gloom and misery to introverts who were hoping to use it as an excuse to stay home this weekend.
It’s still warm out there (at least when you’re sitting in the sun) so better make the best of this weekend and head over to the street markets and tapa routes before the real cold is finally back.
Without any further ado, here are five great options for you this weekend.
Enjoy!
1.🍣 Tapapies: A Tapas & Music Festival in Lavapiés
This is the kind of weekend we like: food, drinks and music.
The Tapapies Festival returns for ten days so you and your friends can enjoy traditional dishes as well as exotic options, all for just a few Euros (and yes, that includes a beer).
Explore the flavors from a wide variety of countries and cultures without leaving downtown Madrid. From a classic bocata de calamares or ensaladilla to a broccoli skewer or marinated oyster, this festival has it all.
Some 100 bars located around the Argumosa, Embajadores, Mesón de Paredes, and Doctor Fouquetstreets will be participating. And yes, before you ask, there are plenty of vegan and gluten-free options, and once again, the public will have the chance to vote for their favorite tapas on the festival’s website.
There will be, of course, outdoor musical performances and many other surprises so stay tuned. Sometimes happiness does only cost €3.5.
Tapapies Food Festival 2024. Multiple locations around Lavapiés. Check Instagram account for additional information. October 17 to 27.
2.🍸 Madrid Cocktail Week 2024
Maybe tapas are not your thing (if so, why are you even in Spain?). Perhaps you are rather captivated by the irresistible charm of a flawlessly crafted signature cocktail in one of those new speakeasies that have been popping up all over town.
If that’s the case, then get ready to celebrate the seventh edition of the Madrid Cocktail Week.
This awesome endeavor features a program of multiple activities related to the world of cocktails and gastronomy, featuring masterclasses, workshops, tasting routes, and tours.
Over 90 venues, luxury hotels (obvi), and Michelin-starred restaurants are participating this year, bringing “a revolution of ideas and new influences around the cocktail scene, resulting in a dynamic and exhilarating week showcasing the latest trends that will inspire brands, hospitality professionals, and consumers”.
What’s more, if you head over to the Palacio de Santa Bárbara you can be a part of the Madrid Cocktail Week The House, an experiential space that will host the best Spanish and international mixologists. You will be able to try vermouth, spritz or espresso martinis.
And yes, there will also be workshops featuring bartenders from The World’s 50 Best Bars, among them Inés de los Santos, from CoChinChinBar in Argentina, featured in The World’s Best Bars 2023.
Some of the participating bar this year are Amalavida, Areia Club, Restaurante Ástor, Ástor “Puerta Cerrada” by Restaurante Ástor, Bad Company 1920, Restaurante Benares, Baton Rouge Madrid, BLESS Hotel Madrid, Café Barbieri, and Shift Public House, among others. Get ready to drink!
Madrid Cocktail Week 2024: Multiple locations around Madrid. October 18 to 27. Check website for participating venues.
3.🎨 Sorolla, a hundred years of modernity
Ah, art. The only option on this week’s edition to make you feel cultured.
Remember how you’re always saying you want to go to the Royal Collections Gallery and you never make it? Well, now you have the perfect excuse, courtesy of a new major temporary exhibit there that marks the conclusion of the centenary celebrations of the death of Valencian painter Joaquín Sorolla.
This exhibit brings together, for the first time, 77 works by the artist, ranging from his most famous pieces to lesser-known works, some of which have never before been seen in Spain.
The pieces come from institutions housing the finest collections of the painter’s work, such as the Sorolla Museum and the Sorolla Museum Foundation, the Hispanic Society of America, the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts of Asturias, and the Pedro Masaveu Collection, among others.
This exhibit “reviews the enduring relevance of Joaquín Sorolla’s work and the modernity of his painting, which, even a hundred years later, still retains its freshness and vibrancy”.
Sorolla, a hundred years of modernity. Royal Collections Gallery, Calle Bailén s/n, Madrid. October 17 to February 16. Check website for opening hours. Tickets: €14
4.🚂 Mercado de Motores: Fun Times at the Train Station
The Mercado de Motores is back. The second weekend of every month, the Mercado de Motores market takes over the Madrid Railway Museum (which used to be a train station) to bring you live music (see video above), food trucks, vintage clothing, used vinyl and more.
Over 200 designers and entrepreneurs showcase their products—kind of like a flea market but a whole lot better.
Mercado de Motores has been gathering hundreds of artisans, designers, creators, book vendors, artists, gourmet food producers, and vintage/second-hand specialists for over 10 years.
This market/fair has become a benchmark for sustainable and local trade, providing visibility to entrepreneurs who, for the most part, do not have physical stores. Let’s show them our support, shall we?
Mercado de Motores. Museo del Ferrocarril. Paseo de las Delicias 61, Madrid. October 19 & 20, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free admission.
5.🛍️ A Street Market: Mercado de las Ranas
We’ve covered this one before and we continue to include it because it’s the one that everyone loves. The Mercado de las Ranas is back this Saturday so if you’re wondering where to spend your hard-earned euros, this is the place.
This street market is similar to the Portobello Road or Camden Town markets in London. This Saturday, stores participating in this mercado near Plaza Santa Ana, in the Las Letras district, bring their goods outside into the street so visitors can buy their favorite book, t-shirt or grab a slice of pizza on the go.
If there’s one thing we love about Madrid (and there are actually many), it’s the street market scene, and this one doesn’t disappoint.
After a bit of retail therapy, grab a table at the plaza and sip a cool caña - or a pumpkin-spiced latte.
You’re welcome.
Mercado de las Ranas. All along Calle de las Huertas in Las Letras, Madrid. Saturday, October 19, Noon to 7 p.m.
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Located on Calle de Moratín 7 — a few blocks away from the Prado Museum — and with over 20,000 new and used books, Secret Kingdoms has something for everyone.
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