“If someone is in a hurry, they better go somewhere else”: Gaudí, the small pub from the seventies that remains in tourist Madrid

Pilar and Ismael, the couple who have run the Gaudí pub since 1985. Pablo Zamora In the hyperactive Madrid of 2026, there are few bars that function as oases in an increasingly ugly, noisy and homogeneous city. El Gaudí, a pub with a pro-English aesthetic that has been cheerfully contemplating Almagro Street – one of the noble arteries of the city – for more than four decades, is one of them. For its quiet beauty and also for celebrating times and forms that are almost extinct. Since 1985, Ismael Simón has captained this tiny boat – just over 40 meters – that still anchors very close to Alonso Martínez. Accustomed to the excessive, and also to the bland, the Gaudí, with its interior lined with wood and green fabric, represents a time in which bars were made without an excel under their arm and, above all, without gray synthetic flooring. “The owner who opened it was a businessman linked to the world of livestock, hence it was called Bullring when I took it,” recalls its current owner, who acquired this small treasure when he was only 29 years old. “The place was the same as now: wood on the walls, tufted bar, warm lighting and low tables.” The Episcopal Palace of Astorga, a work by Gaudí completed in 1915, presides over the bar.Pablo ZamoraGaudí’s bar. Pablo ZamoraMarble and gold taps in the bathroom. Pablo ZamoraThe name change came from a photograph, that of the episcopal palace of Astorga, in the neo-Gothic style and started by Antoni Gaudí at the end of the 19th century. That image, which can be seen in the bar today, is one of its most visible and characteristic symbols. “I’m from there,” Ismael clarifies. Warm, classic and discreet, the Gaudí preserves an intimate atmosphere that is a direct heir to the Madrid tradition of bars inspired by English gentlemen’s clubs: an elegant and serene style that today seems timeless, but that refers to the Spain of the seventies and that, in this case, has survived the voracious increase in rents. The premises, however, do not belong to Simón: “It is for rent, although the price allows us to continue with our activity.” — Do you plan to retire? — For now, we’re still here. I don’t have a decision made. If a good offer came along, I could consider retirement, but right now I don’t know.Ismael Simón at the door of the Gaudí Pub. Pablo ZamoraThe bar counter with a capitoné front.Pablo ZamoraA corner of the bar, with a window to Almagro Street.Pablo ZamoraIn Madrid, the genesis of the Anglophile bar aesthetic dates back to Cock, the legendary cocktail bar opened in 1924. Its owner, Emilio Saracho, decided to break with the dominant French model and adopt that of English clubs. He traveled to London to study furniture, lighting, distribution and the use of dark wood and thus introduced a sparse but soft interior design to the capital, radically different from that common at the time. The Balmoral later belonged to this lineage (in its place is today the Zara de Serrano), described by Alfonso Ussía as “the last perfect bar in Madrid” and where Ángel Sanfeliu, its legendary bartender, made – according to his fans – the best cocktails in the city. For years, the city was full of places of this line: La Ruleta, Mozo, Roma, El Corrillo, Aguilucho or Gitanillos. Almost all of them missing. The only ones that survive, although they have suffered different fates, are El Yate, Richelieu, Hevia, José Luis, Milford, Castellana 113 or the delicious and authentic Wellington bar. Meanwhile, chains that claim a soulless neo-chasticism proliferate and that often occupy the place occupied by historic traditional bars. That’s why Gaudi matters. Ismael defends close treatment without fuss. «Here things are done the way they are done. If someone is in a hurry, they better go somewhere else,» he summarizes. He prefers not to have a large audience, “but a more or less select clientele”: quiet people, who come to talk or have a drink without disturbance. However, the neighborhood, unlike its main bar, has changed: a mix of expensive restaurants and spaces with open kitchens, a varied menu of pizza and sushi, and youthful after-work crowds have been replacing most of the bars and eateries.Wood, mirror and low tables with velvet armchairs. Pablo ZamoraThe walls are covered in green.Pablo ZamoraDetail of the Gaudí pub. Pablo Zamora Chatting with Ismael about the evolution of tastes is like consulting an informal archive of the uses and customs of the capital’s leisure. In the eighties, drinks revolved around brandy and whiskey. There are still some classics on Gaudí’s bookshelf: «We don’t have any of the average ones. The lowest ones are Magno and Carlos III,» says the boss. It also continues to serve cocktails that belong to another era: sol y sombra (half anise, half cognac), named vermouth (with a splash of gin) or that mixture that was ordered as “a Spain” (cognac with Coca-Cola). “It hasn’t been heard in many years, but it used to be asked that way,” says Simón. Today, gin and tonic has conquered the night, although from time to time requests appear that seem taken from another century: peppermint, anise in a shot glass, Frangelico: “Maybe you’ll add two glasses and then go half a year without adding another.” Gaudi’s coffee machine, with stoneware cups. Pablo ZamoraA corner of the room. Pablo Zamora Filming has been carried out at the Gaudí, such as the time when a scene from The Man of a Thousand Faces was filmed, the film by Alberto Rodríguez that narrates the adventures of the spy Francisco Paesa. It has always been a place more for coffee and drinks than for cooking, but Pilar, Ismael’s wife, comes in first thing in the morning and sets up the breakfasts: coffee, pastries, fleas. Towards mid-morning the tortilla skewers appear. They make it—with potato, chorizo ​​and pepper—on the premises. Six tortillas a day, more or less. “It has to be juicy, but without spilling,” he explains, while describing a dynamic in which they are the only workers at the bar and where they take turns every week, either morning or afternoon. The bar counter, with golden brass accents, has the air of an English club.Pablo ZamoraThe handrail, also golden.Pablo ZamoraAt aperitif time, the proposal grows a little: Iberian sausages, cured meat, chorizos from León, salted anchovies. It is a short menu, enough to accompany the drink and maintain the habit of “snacking” without turning the pub into a restaurant. In the bar coexist classics from the neighborhood, some tourists, workers from the surrounding offices and a colorful community of patrons from the cultural industries who range from their twenties to their late fifties. Some have been there for 30 years. “You already talk to them as if they were family,” Ismael acknowledges, although the usual treatment, from the outset, is yours. Most are grateful that the site remains the same: “Many people tell us to never change it, to always keep it that way,” says Ismael. And so it should be.