The restaurant's own tagline, 'the sea meets craftsmanship,' points at the two halves of the menu: the well-known ensaladilla and lobster salpicón on one side, a set of historic stews on the other that don't get the same attention but have been on the card just as long.

In 1958 the first generation of the Andrés family opened a small bodega on Calle de Narváez, stocked with the great classic wines of the day, which grew into one of Madrid's reference marisquerías. More than six decades on, the second generation, cousins Rafa and Miguel Ángel De Andrés, runs the house with the same essence: vocational floor service, product chosen daily at Spain's leading fish markets, and a firm commitment to quality. It has been a meeting point for figures from politics, business and the arts, and holds one Repsol Sol, which it has carried every year from 2018 to 2025.

Rafael Andrés, the eldest of seven, left his village of Aguilar de Anguita, in Guadalajara, at just 14 to find work in Madrid because there wasn't enough to eat at home. He and his younger brother Rodrigo started out in hospitality as waiters, in white jacket and black tie, and later opened their own place on Calle de Narváez, a small bodega selling wine with raciones to go with it. It stood next to the offices of the newspaper Pueblo, and the paper's staff, coming in for breakfast and an aperitivo, were its first loyal customers; the paper is long gone, but journalists still eat here. It grew room by room into the restaurant it is today, and the regulars, many of them intellectuals and tertulia types, pushed the brothers to cook more ambitiously.

The move into seafood started with a setback. One Christmas the brothers bought shellfish, but not knowing the trade yet, the product wasn't fresh and they couldn't sell it. Instead of giving up, they set out to source the best seafood from Spain's coasts, and the house has done so ever since. The original entrance door, the green marble floor and the wooden bar are still there. In October 2024 the De Andrés family received the Academia Madrileña de Gastronomía's lifetime achievement award. Rafa De Andrés says that all the fish and shellfish they buy is Spanish.

The ensaladilla rusa is the house ambassador, and one of the longest-running in Madrid: potatoes, egg, carrot and peas bound with a light house mayonnaise, with the option of adding bonito belly in oil from a small artisan producer in the north. In 2018 the kitchen was making around 10 kilos a day, 15 at weekends.

The other signature is the Cantabrian lobster salpicón. The lobsters are cooked every day, cleaned and cut, then left to rest in a vinaigrette of spring onion and red and green peppers, dressed with apple vinegar and olive oil; there's also a langoustine and carabinero salpicón. From the meat side, the 'paleto' sirloin dice, sautéed with sliced garlic and finished with wine vinegar and white wine, had been on the carta for close to forty years by 2018, and the Manchego cheesecake is made like a flan, with caramel, in a bain-marie.

The house calls itself a mere intermediary for the best specimens of the sea: rigorous selection and care at the stove are the only way to respect their origin. It respects closed seasons at sea and buys from the land in season, so shellfish depends on what is at its best: Santa Pola white prawns, langoustines, spider crab, Garrucha red prawns, oysters, fine clams and camarones.

Starters include Joselito ham, Cantabrian lobster salpicón, the ensaladilla rusa with bonito belly, clams al ajillo, spicy monkfish and asparagus rolls in tempura and an open tortilla of carabineros. Fish runs from wild grilled turbot and sole Madrid-style to baked hake with panadera potatoes, salt cod pil-pil and hake kokotxas in green sauce; and the meat side keeps the old stews, veal trotters and snout Madrid-style, veal meatballs stewed the old way and boned stuffed lamb trotters, alongside milk-fed lamb chops and sirloin.

Casa Rafa is open Tuesday to Saturday, 13:30 to 16:00 and 20:30 to 22:30, and for Sunday lunch; it is closed on Monday unless it is a public holiday. With just twenty tables, from the warmth of the bar to the intimacy of the private rooms, booking ahead is recommended: call 915 731 087 or email contacto@restauranterafa.es. There is valet parking and a terrace. The restaurant spreads over two floors with private rooms, and there's both a bar carta for picking and the restaurant carta, with half portions available.