Beyond the truffle pizza, look for a Parmigiano ice cream sandwich that nods to Ferran Adrià's original version, an oxtail Wellington with mushrooms, a beef tartare and smoked caviar tartlet, a truffle aero tart, Dover sole in brown butter, and red tuna belly. The menus are built as a portrait of Madrid, playing the city's traditional flavours against the ideas of a changing capital.

The restaurant began in 1990 as La Terraza del Casino, on the top floor of the Real Casino de Madrid. Paco Roncero, on the Casino's kitchen staff since 1991, took over the kitchen in autumn 2000, with early guidance from Ferran Adrià, whose team had run the Casino's food since 1998. He rebuilt the kitchen from top to bottom, winning a first Michelin star in 2002 and the second in the 2010 guide, and has run the house ever since, first as chef and later as gastronomic director; in 2019 it took his name. He calls it his refuge, his workshop and his playground.

It holds two Michelin stars and three Repsol Soles, is part of the 50 Best Discovery selection of The World's 50 Best Restaurants and scored 95 points on La Liste 2025. Its maître Sara Fort won Spain's Premio Nacional de Gastronomía for best front-of-house in 2023.

The dining room sits at the top of one of Madrid's grandest private buildings. The Real Casino de Madrid was founded in 1836 by a group of intellectuals, and its home at Calle de Alcalá 15 was built between 1905 and 1910 by the architects José López Sallaberry and Luis Esteve; it has been protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural since 1993.

Inside that shell, the restaurant is modern and cosmopolitan: the interior is the work of the designer Jaime Hayon, and the outdoor terrace, looking out over the rooftops of central Madrid, was designed by Julio Guixeres.

Roncero describes his cooking as a portrait of Madrid, traditional and cosmopolitan, lively and dual, and says his menu comes from experimenting with everything the city has put into him. There are three: Gran Madrid, 25 dishes at €310; Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, 23 courses at €240; and Esencia, 15 courses, at €190 for Thursday and Friday lunch or €280 in the evenings and on Saturdays.

The sommelier's wine pairings run from €125 for Spanish wines to €185 for old- and new-world wines and €295 for special wines, drawn from a cellar of more than 800 references.

Reservations open 30 days ahead on the restaurant's own site. Dinner is served Tuesday to Saturday, with arrivals between 20:00 and 21:00, and lunch Thursday to Saturday, with arrivals between 13:30 and 14:30. The restaurant is closed all day on Sunday and Monday, and at lunchtime on Tuesday and Wednesday. The nearest metro stations are Sevilla, Sol and Gran Vía.

Searches for Paco Roncero in Ibiza lead to a different project: Sublimotion, the show-restaurant he opened in 2014 at the Hard Rock Hotel Ibiza in Sant Josep de sa Talaia. It combines haute cuisine with immersive staging around a single table for 12, with screens and projections all around, and it is regularly cited among the most expensive restaurants in the world: the 2026 season opened on 1 June, with the price per person reported at €1,650 or more. Sublimotion has also run editions in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. The Madrid restaurant at the Real Casino is his flagship.