The menu runs to rossejat with skate and sobrasada, swordfish belly, and a rabbit and snail stew, each built around the same stock-first technique. A Peruvian thread runs alongside it, in dishes like sudado de corvina and a hot chupe of bonito, from the team's Latin roots.

Tres por Cuatro was born at the end of 2017 as a tiny casa de comidas in the Mercado de Torrijos, with the idea of cooking homely food where the best seasonal product was the star. In 2021 Marugán moved it to its restaurant on Calle Montesa, in Goya, a bright room of white and sand tones, exposed brick and big windows that seats 42, and the Michelin Guide has given it a Bib Gourmand since the 2024 edition. The name, three by four, refers to the months in each season, a nod to the kitchen's strict seasonality.

Owner and chef Álex Marugán studied cooking in Madrid, left to work in Mexico, then cooked in Saint-Tropez and in Madrid's nikkei scene before opening Tres por Cuatro. He cooks alongside André, born and trained in Peru, who worked with Omar Malpartida at Tiradito and Barra M, where he met Marugán and Santi, and later at Huerta de Carabaña. His Peruvian roots show in dishes like the sudado de corvina and a hot bonito chupe, and in the Latin music that always plays in the background. The third cook, Santi, also came from Peru, and worked his way up from the bottom to head chef at Machete before reuniting with Marugán and André. The carta is split between 'Lo de siempre', the dishes that never leave, and 'Lo de hoy', what the market brought that day, with the grill as a third string, and the Latin accent is as much Mexican as Peruvian, a legacy of Marugán's years in Mexico.

The market is the pantry: fish from Cádiz and vegetables from Navarra, sent weekly by small families the restaurant works with across Spain. The cooking is traditional and slow-simmered, 'mucho chup chup', with a Latin and French twist. A few fixtures never leave: house torreznos and Joselito ham croquettes (€3.50 each), rossejat, the taco and callos. The rest changes with the season, from pickled rabbit, an ode to the tomato and Ganxet beans with pig's ear to corvina in a noodle casserole, veal sweetbreads, baby chicken in Lima-style adobo, suckling-pig cheek with manchamanteles and charcoal-grilled sea bass. Many dishes come in half portions, and desserts include a camembert and manchego cheesecake.

Tres por Cuatro is open Monday to Friday for lunch (13:30 to 15:30) and dinner (20:30 to 22:30), and is closed at weekends. Book through the reservations page on its site, call 915 654 557, or email info@tresporcuatromadrid.com.