Best Breakfast in Madrid

Bar H Emblemático sits on Calle Castelló in Salamanca's Castellana area, and it runs a dedicated Breakfast Menu each morning, open from 08:00 Monday to Wednesday, with longer hours later in the week. Brothers Ismael and Fernando Hevia, the third generation of the family behind Hevia on Serrano (1964), opened it at the start of 2023. The board splits into pastries (croissant, grilled croissant, pain au chocolat, homemade sponge cake), fruit and yogurt, churros and porras, and a savoury side running from tomato bread and a toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich to a mollete with bacon and cheese, avocado toast with pumpkin seeds, and scrambled eggs on toast with ham. Later in the day the same room turns into a bar menu of molletes, pinchos, croquetas and raciones, with an à la carte list that runs to broken eggs with jamón ibérico.

“El pincho de tortilla tiene devotos, pero el verdadero secreto es el mixto con huevo”— Turium

Baba runs a fusion of Jordanian and Galician cooking around a courtyard off Calle del Conde de Romanones in central Madrid, and its Breakfast Menu runs until 13:00, Wednesday to Sunday (the kitchen is closed Monday and Tuesday). Toasts include a za'atar toast with grated tomato, a mutabal toast with roasted aubergine cream and pomegranate, and a scrambled egg toast with labneh and chives. The dishes section runs to a Jordanian Breakfast of scrambled eggs with ghee, labneh, hummus and pita, a hummus plate with two poached eggs, and a Turkish eggs plate with herbed yogurt and chili oil. Sandwiches include a za'atar sandwich with San Simón Galician tetilla cheese, and sweets run to French toast with seasonal fruit. No phone number is published, so the website or Instagram are the ways to reach it.

Palm Court is the all-day dining room of the Mandarin Oriental Ritz, set on Plaza de la Lealtad under a crystal canopy ceiling, open at 08:00 every day. The kitchen, guided by chef Quique Dacosta, serves everything from à la carte breakfast through to lunch and dinner, reworking classic Ritz dishes for a contemporary register, with vegan options included. It's listed in the Michelin Guide (a listing, not a star). Expect to pay in the 40 to 100 euro per person range for the all-day room.

Casa Dani is a tortilla de patata specialist inside the Mercado de la Paz, on Calle de Ayala in Salamanca, holding a Solete in the Guía Repsol. Daniel García and Dolores 'Lola' Cuerda from Albacete opened it in 1991, and their children Daniel and Noelia run it now. It opens at 07:00 Monday to Saturday, closed Sunday, and its Breakfasts, Sandwiches and Montaditos section lists a traditional breakfast of coffee with pastry, toast, churros or porras, fresh orange juice, and a coffee-with-tortilla-pincho combination available until 11am. The counter's own site states it won the II Campeonato Nacional de Tortillas in Tenerife in March 2019, and the Academia Madrileña de Gastronomía gave it the Premio al Bar 2019. Beyond tortilla, the montaditos list runs to pork belly, chistorra, black pudding, calamari and Manchego cheese, and the menú del día of seasonal home cooking is served 13:30 to 15:30.

El Escudo is an old-school neighbourhood bar on Calle Ponzano, in the Ríos Rosas barrio of Chamberí, open from 06:30 to midnight, closed Sunday. It has no website of its own, so the menu is read from chalkboards by the front door. The Breakfast section lists two options: a Breakfast at 3.20 euros, coffee with milk, a glass of milk, Cola Cao or herbal tea, plus porras, churros, a pastry or a barrita, and a Special breakfast at 5.50 euros, which adds fresh orange juice to the same choice of drink and pastry. Later, the boards move on to raciones, bocadillos, burgers, sartenazos and platos combinados, with a bar for tapas and dining rooms for sitting down. It's a workaday Madrid bar rather than a destination kitchen, at around 10 to 20 euros a head.

Jíbaro is an all-day Cuban and Spanish spot on Plaza de Cascorro in Embajadores, and its menu opens with a Breakfasts section: toast, croissant or pain au chocolat with coffee at €3.50, churros or porras with coffee at €3.50, a tortilla pincho with coffee at €4, and a Jíbaro Breakfast at €10. The toasts run from little ham and tomato to Cádiz-style tuna, guacamole and egg, and salmon, and later in the day the kitchen moves to a cubano sandwich, huevos habaneros and Cuban cocktails. It opens at 09:30 Monday to Friday, 10:00 on Saturday and 09:00 on Sunday, and it's dog-friendly and family-friendly. The band is around €26 to €50 per person.

Chocolatería de San Ginés serves chocolate con churros in the Pasadizo de San Ginés, off Sol, and it's open 24 hours every day, so breakfast is whenever you turn up. Its own price list has traditional hot chocolate at €3.70, a ración of six churros at €2.50 and two porras at €2.50, with special chocolates with cream or coffee at €4.50. It's on the Ayuntamiento de Madrid's Comercios Centenarios register and holds the Comunidad de Madrid's Establecimiento Centenario designation. There's a terrace in the passage and a downstairs room, and no reservations, so it's walk-in only. Expect a queue at peak times, especially weekends and around Christmas, though service is quick once you're seated.

Sessions is the restaurant of the Hard Rock Hotel Madrid, on Ronda de Atocha in Arganzuela, serving new American cooking and open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It runs a daily breakfast buffet, with the morning block starting at 07:00 Monday to Friday and 07:30 at weekends. On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays there's also a brunch, The American Way of Brunch. The rest of the day is Southern comfort food and grilled meats, with vegetarian options and cocktails. It's good for groups and families, and menus and hours can change for private events, so check ahead.

Café de la Plaza is the restaurant-café of the Pestana Plaza Mayor hotel on Calle Imperial, in the Sol area, and it's open to non-guests. Breakfast runs 07:00 to 10:30 on weekdays and 08:00 to 11:00 at weekends, after which it reopens from 12:30 to 23:30 every day. The cooking is Spanish with a contemporary touch, and the menu runs to torrija, croquetas, jamón, a bocadillo de calamares and brioche. There are separate café and terrace menus, and the terrace is a calmer option than the ones on Plaza Mayor itself. The band is around €10 to €50 per person.

La Andaluza is a churrería on Calle de Hernani in Cuatro Caminos, in Madrid's Tetuán district, and it holds a Solete in the Guía Repsol. The counter sells hand-mixed churros, porras and buñuelos fried fresh through the morning, with chocolate the shop makes itself. Its price list runs by the piece: churros at €0.45, porras at €0.55 and buñuelos at €0.65, with a cup of chocolate at €2.50. The Repullo Hernández family founded it shortly before the Spanish Civil War, and the churrero Javier Mata Serna has owned it since 2005. It opens at 06:30 and closes at 12:00 Monday to Thursday and 13:00 on Friday and Saturday. It's closed on Sundays.

Cosecha Bread & Coffee is a bakery and specialty coffee shop on Calle de Furelos in Las Tablas, in Madrid's far north, baking its own sourdough on site and building the menu around it. Breakfast is toasts, ten of them on the list, among them tomato, avocado, salmon, Ibérico ham, peanut butter and jam, caprese, a breakfast toast and a bikini toast, plus sandwiches such as the bikini and Milano, cakes, specialty coffee and matcha. It opens at 08:30 on weekdays and 09:00 at weekends, closing at 19:00 on weekdays and 15:00 at weekends. There's a terrace, dogs are welcome, and it's wheelchair-accessible with free parking.

Café Barbieri is one of Lavapiés's historic cafés, on Calle del Ave María, on the Ayuntamiento's Comercios Centenarios register with a founding year of 1902. It keeps its early-1900s interior of mirrors and marble tables, with jazz and blues playing. It now runs as 'a contemporary classic': breakfasts and meriendas with medias noches, bartolillos and coffee, then gildas, vermut and a carta researched from historic Madrid cookbooks, with cocktails, live music on some evenings and cultural workshops. It opens at 08:30 Tuesday to Friday and 09:30 at weekends, closing at 20:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday and at 00:30 from Thursday to Sunday. It's closed on Monday. It runs around €26 to €50 per person.