Past the headline dish, the kitchen leans on older preservation methods too: escabeches, salt-curing, pickling, the kind of technique that used to be about necessity and now reads as craft.

Casa Mortero calls itself a casa de comidas for the 21st century, run by Pedro Gallego Gallego from both the office and the stoves. The idea is to forget the rules in the kitchen and the formality at the table: dishes, pots and sauceboats arrive for everyone to mix and try until they find their perfect bite, and dipping bread is encouraged. It is recommended in both the Michelin Guide and the Guía Repsol.

Casa Mortero opened in September 2020, and the design work started a year and a half before that, a year ahead of the building works: the place, the service, the brand and how guests should feel walking in were all planned by Pereda hand in hand with Gallego. The team has grown from six people at opening to nineteen.

For its fifth anniversary in September 2025 the restaurant was refurbished. The high tables went, adding covers and comfort, the kitchen and work areas were renewed, and a small informal bar now sits at the entrance and works without reservations, in the spirit of a village bar in the middle of Madrid. A glass-fronted wine store was added in the main dining room, with more storage at the back, and the cellar doubled to around 200 Spanish and international labels. The printed cartas, crockery, cutlery, lighting and wall finishes were all renewed too.

The kitchen works from recipes with history, using the techniques of always: slow fire and the grill, and old-fashioned preservation, escabeches, salt-curing and pickling. As the house puts it, it doesn't make your grandmother's cocido, but one day it will make its own. The carta runs from Gildas, creamy croquettes, semi-cured Ibérico presa, torreznos and escabeches of red tuna, oysters and mussels to callos a la madrileña, lentils with wild boar, potatoes with cuttlefish, duck rice and stewed oxtail. From the grill come pinchos morunos of 100% Ibérico pork, old-cow sirloin and ribeye, veal sweetbreads, tuna belly, baby squid, turbot and monkfish for two. Many dishes come in half portions, and the wines of the day are poured by the glass. The dishes that have become house classics include the torrezno, the callos a la madrileña, mussels in escabeche, beef meatballs and a duck rice with wild asparagus and Torta del Casar, and among the desserts, a toasted-milk flan with extra virgin olive oil and a creamy cheesecake with toffee ice cream.

Beyond the bottle list, a rotating list of wines of the day is poured by the glass, most at €4.50. It recently took in whites such as Lagar de Brais from Ribeiro, Castiñeira Albariño from Rías Baixas and a Dr. Loosen Riesling from the Mosel; reds such as Cantos de Valpiedra from Rioja, 4 Monos' GR-10 Garnacha from Madrid, Raúl Pérez's Castro Valtuille Mencía from Bierzo and an Altanza Reserva 2019; a Sumarroca cava; and a run of sherries by the glass, from Lustau's Fino del Puerto and Pastora manzanilla pasada to Miraflores Baja.

The space is simple and welcoming, built from natural materials with designers and artisans who often work by hand. As the restaurant says, it is a place made to go with a proper meal, nothing more, and it doesn't want to be.

Casa Mortero opens Tuesday to Saturday, serving lunch from 13:15 to 16:00 and dinner from 20:15 to 23:30, and is closed on Sunday and Monday; the small bar at the entrance takes no reservations. Book through the reservations page on its site; for nine or more, call 910 595 570 or 650 641 917, or email info@casamortero.com. It sits right behind the Congreso de los Diputados, a minute's walk from the Cortes car park and three minutes from Sevilla metro.