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Madrid's city centre heaves with bars and restaurants serving everything from burgers and tapas to ambitious five-course meals. As is often the case in a busy tourist zone such as the Plaza de Santa Ana, much of what's on offer fails to hit the spot either gastronomically or economically. So a place like Cluny is extra welcome.
Chef Juan Carlos Ramos worked in the Café de Oriente and in the restaurant of the Senado (the Spanish Parliament) before setting up on his own with Cluny. The name comes from a tapestry representing the five senses that Ramos once saw in the Musée de Cluny in Paris.
It is a small dining room with a floor slightly above street level and plate-glass windows looking out over the Calle del Prado. Predominant colours are warm ochre and dark blue. Although the design (courtesy of architect Pedro Ocón) is agreeable enough, it hardly prepares us for the quality of what we are about to receive.
The menu fashionably combines Mediterranean and Basque traditions with exotic and fanciful elements drawn from Japan and China - such as the mix of 15 spices used to add zing to a dish
of stuffed oxtail. (Ramos buys them from a nearby Oriental supermarket, and says they are supposed to be medicinal.) If on paper some of the dishes sound prissy or contrived, in practice they are substantial and satisfying - take the salad of flowers and mushrooms with a vanilla dressing, which is quite delicious. This is not deconstruction, culinary post-modernism or anything like it. Kokotxas (hake cheeks) with tripe is richly flavoured, gooey and filling. Artichoke hearts stuffed with spider crab, a special, is, as the Spanish say when something is particularly succulent and tasty, para chuparse los dedos (finger-lickin'good).
CONTACT
Cluny, Calle del Prado 15 (00 34 91 429 2838). Open 1.30pm-4pm, 9pm-11.30pm. Closed Mon,
Sun evening. Lunch menu €12 per person; à la carte about €60 for two without wine
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