The card mixes homemade dishes with modern and traditional cooking. The house describes the whole thing as three ingredients cooked together: quality restaurant service, spaces for events, and a cocktail list it treats as its own liquid menu.

The restaurant carta on the house website leans on rice: dry rices such as paella valenciana with free-range chicken, artichokes and green beans, and black rice with squid and prawns; brothy rices with lobster or seafood; and creamy risotto-style rices with boletus, or prawn and courgette, all for a minimum of two. To share there's grilled octopus on revolcona with chipotle, Burgos morcilla in crisp filo with cane honey, fried aubergine sticks, fried artichoke hearts, carabinero and Ibérico ham croquetas, tortilla made to order, rabas and Cádiz-style cazón en adobo. The meat section runs from a 1.2kg aged Betanzos chuletón and Galician beef entrecôte to Ibérico abanico and several burgers, including a vegan one, while fish covers red tuna tartare, Basque-style turbot, cod provençal and grilled squid. There are also fresh pastas, country-bread tostas and a long list of desserts.

The building works across the whole day: coffee in the morning, a beer at midday, cocktails at night, with a separate, shorter carta for the open mirador terrace, which is where people gather for sunset over the Palacio Real, the Almudena and San Francisco el Grande. Inside, the rooms get plenty of natural light, and the house runs private and corporate events in its different spaces. Café del Río belongs to Grupo Casa Remigio, which runs venues around Madrid Río, the Retiro, Casa de Campo and Dehesa de la Villa, and on the Cádiz coast.