There’s a trick to eating Spain’s decadent percebes, aka gooseneck barnacles. The operation with these rare delicacies is to twist off the tip while pinching the long, leathery peduncle. A firm upward tug reveals the crustacean’s edible core, to be devoured, juices and all, in one satisfying slurp. Brackish, subtle, earthy, and sweet, percebes are the edible embodiment of the wild Atlantic coast.
These are the sorts of lessons you learn at Madrid’s marisquerías, casual seafood joints where Albariño flows like water and heaped platters are plunked down on paper tablecloths. Fried hake, salt-encrusted sea bass, white shrimp from Huelva sputtering in hot, garlicky oil—this is coastal cooking at its fines, paradoxically, many miles from the sea.
But traditional marisquerías are the mere crest of the wave when it comes to the capital’s seafood experiences, which range from toothpick-only dinners at hole-in-the-wall conservas bars to fish-focused tasting menus at world-class gastro-temples. Here, nine essential stops for any seafood lover.
O’Grelo
For nearly four decades, O’Grelo has kept the Retiro district sated with pristine Galician shellfish—percebes, clams, mussels, oysters, spider crabs, velvet crabs, variegated scallops—all scooped from the vast saltwater estuaries called rías that stretch along the northwestern coast. A handful of more elaborate plates round out the minimalist marisquería offerings; don’t miss the monkfish carpaccio, delicate and diaphanous, or the Spanish tortilla, a recipe handed down by the owner’s great-grandmother. Calle Menorca, 39
