ROASTED mushrooms slick with garlicky oil, piled on toasts. Smoked fish draped over rounds of goat cheese. Plump piquillo peppers bursting with salt cod. Hard-boiled eggs topped with aioli and shrimp. When I turned 21 in Madrid, I skipped the roaring discoteca and chose instead to celebrate, bite by bite, at a pintxo bar.
I’d been living in the city a few months, and a handful of bars and restaurants near my apartment on Calle de las Huertas had already become “my spots.” I knew the bartenders’ names (even if they didn’t...