Tag Archives: afternoon tea

30th June 2024: Engines, illusions, history and tea (Madrid, Spain)

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Since finding about my tea time outings, my sibling had been wanting to tag along to one. I was asked to organise something for the weekend that involved either Chinese hotpot or afternoon tea in Madrid. The hotpot place was booked out both days, but I found an afternoon tea opening on Sunday the 30th. I am too lazy to move out just for tea, so I organised a bit of a day out.

After an uneventful train ride, our first stop was at noon: Nave de Motores de Pacífico, the former energy centre that fed electricity to the original underground lines. Today, it is not in use and it has become part of the network of museums Museos Metro de Madrid. The warehouse was built by Antonio Palacios between 1922 and 1923 to home the diesel engines, transformers and fuel that single-handedly powered the underground system before the Spanish Civil War. The system was actually in place until 1972.

Warehouse containing the old underground engines

The building was erected in red brick, with white tiles inside, decorated with Palacio’s typical metallic green. The floors are ceramic tiles, and the engines are three monstrous vessel-powering pieces of engineering. These diesel engines created electricity, which then entered the transformers, and was sent to the power lines to feed the trains. At night, the excess was sold to the local street-light network.

Since we were going for afternoon tea to El Jardín de Orfila, where I have been before, I knew lunch was out of the question. However, we needed a snack. I planned that at Yatai Market, an… Asian food court of sorts. A number of stands come together to offer different cuisines and snacks, even full-sized meals. We tried a Chinese bao each and a couple of dim sums. I ordered a hoisin duck bao which was extremely yummy. I will definitely come back to try other stuff.

HotBao Yatai Market Cortezo

Afterwards, we headed off to the so-called Museum of Illusions. This museum is a compendium of optical illusion and installations designed to fool the brain into believing things that are either wrong or just not there: a distorted room so you look big in one corner but small in the other (Ames room), a vortex where you seem unable to walk straight, a rotated room, a room full of mirrors – there were a lot of illusions with mirrors actually – stereograms with hidden images, turntables, holograms…

We had a reservation for 14:00, and I was surprised at how chaotic entry was. I mean, they’ve been running the thing for a while now, someone should have figured out how to do crowd management, but no. Then, there were kids running and screeching all around, but it calmed down after a while. I had really hoped that the museum would be calm and half-empty at lunch time, but it was not so, not by a long shot. It was interesting though, and pretty fun.

Museum of Illusions Madrid

However, the experience was shorter than I had calculated, so I had to improvise an extra stop. Thus, we entered the local history museum Museo de Historia de Madrid, which tells the city’s history since Madrid became the capital of Spain. There are paintings, models, typical costumes, plans, maps, and Playmobil sets depicting of the uprising against the French in 1808. The museum is hosted in a former palace-like building which was actually built as a hospice. To the side stands the original Baroque chapel. It also has a lovely garden with a monumental fountain, which was relocated from its original place for conservation.

Museo de Madrid exhibits

Museo de Madrid - chapel and fountain

We spent some time there and then headed off to the building that now holds the office of the Copyright Owners’ association, a manor known as Palacio de Longoria. It was designed by José Grases Riera and built between 1902 and 1904. It is one of the few actual Art Nouveau buildings in Madrid, possibly the most important one. The façades were made in artificial stone, with sculptures and shapes resembling vegetation. I’ve wanted to visit it for a long time, but it is only open when there is an exhibition, and the stars had never aligned – until this time. There was an exhibition about urban music, and I was not going to let go of the chance to see the monumental staircase and the skylight.

Longoria Palace

We finally set off for afternoon tea at El Jardín de Orfila. Out of the several places I’ve tried afternoon tea in Madrid, this has been my favourite to date. The outside garden is lovely, but mostly, their scones are the best around.

We ordered green tea, and the snacks were finger sandwiches – smoked salmon and cheese cream, classic cucumber and cheese, pastrami – pastries – carrot cake, macarons, lemon curd – and the scones. This time round, I decided to eat the scones after the sandwiches in order not to be full when it was their time. The afternoon was pleasant, but we shared the terrace with another table, and later a loud lady who wanted a smoke. That broke the magic a little, but the tea was fantastic and the scones were great.

El Jardínde Orfila: tea serving for two

Afterwards, we just headed for the train station to get back to our places. Of course we missed the correct one since they run whenever they like. What else is new? But the fun part was being able to pull a fun day out from my sleeve, and it was not stupidly expensive either, so good fun, all in all!

14th May 2024: Three Museums and Tea, Madrid (Spain)

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On a whim, I put together a plan for Tuesday, as it is currently my free day. I was too lazy to drive, so I decided to catch a train to Madrid. There was a temporary exhibition I wanted to check out, and it was close to several museums and eateries.

My first idea – breakfast at a French crêperie – went bust, because the place was still closed when I arrived in town – I swear, this is like the fourth time I try to have something there, and it just won’t work. Instead, I ended up at a Starbucks for breakfast, before heading out to my first destination – the exhibition The Art of Manga, held in the Architecture Bar Association building Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, COAM. The Art of Manga is a small exhibit that runs through the history of manga – Japanese comics – with a few snippets of what it was and what it has become, especially in Spain.

The entrance was a sort of tunnel with manga sheets hanging from the ceiling. It ended at a traditional scroll with animals acting like people – Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga 鳥獣人物戯画, which translates to “Animal-person Caricatures”. Some people consider that this is the origin of manga (note the “ga” at the end), though if there is one thing that the exhibition makes clear, it’s that nobody knows when manga actually started. Thus, it just runs through all the possible theories and important names. From the Edo Period, there were a few wood prints (ukiyo-e) – which are claimed to be original – among them two by Katsushika Hokusai [葛飾 北斎], The Great Wave off Kanagawa [神奈川沖浪裏, Kanagawa oki nami-ura] and Fine Wind, Clear Morning [凱風快晴, Gaifū kaisei]. Hokusai is another of the supposed starts (“the father”) of manga. There were also a few toba-e [鳥羽絵], similar to the first scrolls – for the first time in the evolution of drawings, there was text alongside the art. Then came the books, where texts dominated – though there were still drawings – and they became extremely popular during the period.

With the end of the isolation of Japan, Western influences – mainly comics – influenced local artists, and “speech bubbles” appeared. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kitazawa Rakuten [北澤 楽天]’s works were published in newspapers. He is (also) considered the father of modern manga, and several of his works are displayed. There are also early 20th-century scrolls, painted in a style similar to toba-e depicting the Tokaido Road, which separated Edo (old Tokyo) and Kyoto, and its checkpoints. There were also kamishibai [紙芝居] cards – kamishibai is a traditional form of theatre involving telling a story using a narrator and different “postcards” with images drawn on it.

In the middle, the exhibit had a rock garden, and a torii gate with a lot of lanterns gave way to the second part – modern manga. Here there were pieces and mementos from famous artists and works – Osamu Tezuka [手塚 治虫], known as “The god of manga”, and one of the driving forces of anime. According to the exhibition, they were showing all of his works. There was a bit about Shigeru Mizuki [水木 しげる], and big international hits like Sailor Moon, Naruto, Dragon Ball and One Piece. After a screen showing a video about a cosplayer – which I did not care much about – there was a section on manga magazines, some of the early manga published in Spain, and a stand where you could get some stamps.

Snaps from The Art of Manga Madrid

Finally, there was a bit on merchandising and figurines. The shop did not even have a catalogue, which I would have bought. All in all, it was all right, smaller than I had expected.

Then, I went to the nearby museum of the Romantic period, where I got a national museums card – I’ve been wanting one for a while, but unfortunately you still have to queue to use it. I had hoped you could just walk into museums with it, but I guess crowd control is a thing since Covid. Anyway. The Romanticism museum, Museo del Romanticismo is a small palatial residence which tries to recreate the ambience and atmosphere of the dwellings of the bourgeois families at the time. It had a lot of nice furniture, similar to the one in Riofrío, but I found it lacked on the landscape paintings I like. The museum is currently exhibiting an early painting by painter Francisco de Goya, a Pietà.

Museo del Romanticismo Madrid

Afterwards, I headed out to line for the Sorolla Museum Museo Sorolla. I had to queue for nearly 40 minutes, but I was finally admitted in. Joaquín Sorolla (1863 – 1923) was a generally-impresionist painter (impressionist, post-impressionist and luminist) from Valencia. The museum was built in the artist’s own house, completed with some of his iconic artworks, including Paseo a orillas del mar, Walk on the Beach, and El baño del caballo, The Horse’s Bath. Sorolla excelled in portraits and landscapes, especially the sea side, and social criticism. He was a master depicting light, water, and the combination of both. He became one of the most important Spanish artists of his time – and probably the most famous. He participated in the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900, and was invited to exhibit his art in New York City.

Furthermore, there was a current exhibition called Sorolla in 100 objetos – Sorolla in one hundred objects – which had just opened to the public. It included personal items the artist collected, – some a bit bizarre–, photographies, his passport, the last painting he worked on, the medal he received from the US president, a photograph of his studio in Italy…

Snaps from Museo Sorolla

I then went off towards the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Nacional. I used to love this museum – when they remodelled it and they made it all modern and aseptic, it lost most of its allure. Of course, I still enjoy it, as the important items are the exhibits, and the museum has a lot of important items from the Celtiberian cultures – Celts and Iberians inhabited Spain before the Roman conquest, which started in the 2nd century BCE. Iberians were prevalent in the east and south of Spain before their arrival. The north and west were populated by the Celts, and there was a vague area in-between whose people have been called Celtiberian. the Talaiotic culture flourished in the Balearic Islands, and it has recently been declared World Heritage. These cultures were eventually assimilate by Romans, but Celts lived on elsewhere. Iberian and Talaiotic cultures, however, diffused with time. Today, there is little known about it, and most is just interpretation from archaeologists, even less about the more ancient tribes that lived in the areas during the Bronze Age.

Among the objects from pre-Roman Spain, there are mysterious steles from the late Prehistory. However, it is the Iberian funerary art which stands out the most – such as the bust called the Lady of Elche, La Dama de Elche, found in the town of the same name, and the full sculpture named the Lady of Baza La Dama de Baza. Both are fantastic, to the point that it was thought they were Hellenic for some time. Other items include bulls – both metal cattle heads with wide eyes, and vaguely-shaped stone sculptures, verracos. I remember going to the museum when I was little, and the importance of these bulls, called “Bulls from Guisando” Toros de Guisando was drilled into my head, to the point that I thought that the ones exhibited there were the only ones – it also made me sad that they were in the museum and not in the field where they had been found. I was petrified when I learnt, years later, that there are a bunch more…

The museum also hosts a nice collection of Moorish art, and what apparently is a special Egyptian exhibit, as Spain worked with Egypt during the 20th century, and got a lot of objects from that excavation from the Egyptians “in the split of the new discoveries”. I am not sure whether that’s accurate, or the story has a lot of make-up on. I had to leave around 16:15, but as this museum is also covered by the national museums card, I can come back any time within the year for free. I skipped most of the Medieval period.

Museo Arqueologico Nacional Madrid

I had a reservation for afternoon tea a few minutes away from the museum, at 16:30 – I might be doing a bit of a rally around all the places in Madrid which have it. This time around, I went to El Jardín de Orfila – and good thing I had decided to only have breakfast and skip lunch and go straight from breakfast to tea. I was seated in a lovely outward area and I chose a delicious green tea with cherry. The food was plenty – finger sandwiches: pastrami, salmon and cucumber and cheese cream; macarons, carrot cake, meringue, and scones, along with clotted cream and berries jam. It has probably been the best afternoon tea I’ve had in Madrid up to date. The scones were a bit under-baked though.

Afternoon tea at El Jardín de Orfila

I was alone in the outer area for most of the experience, the waiter checked on me once after bringing my tea. It was actually so calm and quiet that I had a visitor – a little house sparrow (Passer domesticus) was very interested on the remains of my scone, so I shared with her. She was happy after two crumbs, and left – or maybe it was because another couple walked into the area.

Sparrow hopping towards a scone crumb

I left a bit before the two-hour timeslot was up so I could catch a timely train home – and because the couple came in, talking loudly, and kind of broke the spell.

11th February 2024: The Parade of the Wood Dragon (Madrid, Spain)

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Chinese New Year started on the 10th of February of the Gregorian (solar) calendar. Many East Asian countries follow a lunisolar calendar, in which the New Year falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice. In China, it is usually referred to as the Spring Festival, and outside it as Lunar New Year. For a while now, the Chinese diaspora in Madrid has been celebrating with a parade in the District of Usera, the so-called “Madrid Chinatown”, which will eventually have traditional gates and panda decorations in order to try to be developed as a tourist area. Since the parade was on a Sunday, I decided that I would attend.

The equivalent to 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon. The Chinese calendar uses a combination of twelve animals that conform the Zodiac (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig) and the five elements of Feng Shui (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) to name the years. The dragon represents prosperity, authority and good fortune. The Wood Dragon brings abundance and improvident, so it seems to be a promising year!

Announcement of the Chinese New Year festival in Madrid

After keeping an eye on the ever-changing weather and rain predictions, I decided to bite the bullet and go, whatever happened. The parade was due to start at noon, and rain was to come a couple of hours later. I packed an umbrella, a waterproof bag inside my backpack, and my all-you-can-travel train pass. I picked up my sibling on the way.

We reached the district of Usera a bit after 11:00, with plenty of time until the start of the parade at noon. We found a street barrier and set positions, ready to wait out the cold until the parade started. I had read that it would last about three hours, but I thought that meant in total – since the first person went out at the beginning of the parade until the last person reached the end. I had never been to Usera before so I had no idea how long the streets were. In the end, the parade took about an hour and forty-five minutes to pass in front of the point where we were. There are a lot of Chinese associations! I do not really know if they were all based in Madrid, or if the Chinese diaspora of all of Spain had congregated for the occasion. And not only Chinese people marched – a lot of Spanish and Latin Americans did to.

The event was called Great Parade of the Chinese New Year of the Dragon Gran Pasacalle “Año Nuevo Chino Del Dragón”. It opened with a locomotive which “pulled” everyone behind it. There were people dressed as lions, others moving huge dragon puppets, dancers, musicians, martial artists, people in traditional clothing, acrobats, walkers on stilts… women, children, men, everyone seemed to be invited to the party. Each group got their introduction with a red banner, and lots of people carried either Chinese or Spanish flags. Some people handed out “dragon masks” for kids, and quite literally ignoring all the adults wanting one (I might have rescued one from the floor at the end of the parade). People in the parade waved and cheered Xīn nián kuài lè and Feliz Año Nuevo, “happy new year” in Chinese and Spanish. There were some drummers too, but most of the music came from portable little devices. An older lady kept telling everyone to hurry up.

Chinese New Year Parade Usera 2024

About half an hour in, my memory card ran out of space. I had been aware of that being a risk for a while, so I was carrying an extra one, which unfortunately was not compatible – I have no idea why. Luckily, I could use the phone for more pictures. The worst thing about the event was the presence of the “media” – I can understand the ones who were working / recording / interviewing. However, there were also a bunch of accredited people who were just in the way, chatting on their phones or doing nothing in the way of the parade – and of pictures.

Parade of the Chinese New Year 2024

All in all, it was spectacular. I loved the lions and the dragons, and I had to wonder how many dragons come out on a non-dragon year parade. Furthermore, everyone seemed to have such a good time!

Chinese New Year Parade Usera 2024

At the end of the parade there were a few South American organisations who also participated, probably because even if Usera seems to have many Chinese businesses, there are a few Peruvian and Bolivian restaurants. They seemed more Carnival-like anyway.

Chinese New Year Parade Usera 2024

After the parade had finished walking in front of us, we went to try to check the food trucks and the market at the end point of the parade. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to have had the same idea, and it was packed.

Instead, we found our way back to the underground and went off towards the centre. There we had a snack at one of the big malls, where I also bought a new SD card. I asked the assistant if the card would be compatible with my camera, he had to get another assistant, who had a bit of a waiting list. This second assistant said that my camera would not take a 128 GB card. I showed her the 128 GB card I had been using. She then asked to see the card which was not compatible. I showed her that one too. She said that it was not compatible because of the adaptors, but I pointed out that the cards had the same shape. Then she said that it was not compatible because “TDKs are too slow”. The card is a Philips. Anyway, she offered to let me try the new card to check it was compatible before buying it, which guarantees it works. I bought two, just in case.

Afterwards, we headed off to the shopping gallery Galería Canalejas. This is the new luxury shopping hub in town. The complex occupies almost a whole block, having joined as many as seven historical buildings into the same project – a Four Seasons hotel (the first in Spain), a parking lot, some private residences and the shopping gallery.

The original central building was commissioned by an American insurance company and built in 1887 by the architect José Grases Riera, who designed it in. The construction homed the Insurer’s headquarters, private residences, the former casino, and small shops on the street front. It was called Palacio de la Equitativa, uniting the word “Palace” with an approximate translation of the name of the insurer. In the 20th century, the building was bought by a bank company – and Spanish banks merged, re-merged, disappeared, until finally the building was sold to a private investor in 2012. The Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque façade was carefully restored, along with the Art Decó stained-glass window on the ceiling. Also, under the direction of the architectural firm Estudio Lamela, some of the bank safes were recovered for decoration. The first shop in the gallery opened in 2020, and it seems that the Madrid tourism board started promoting the complex in 2023, following a strategy to drag “luxury vacation-makers” into town.

The gallery has three floors. The basement has been used for the food court. The ground and second floor hold a lot of security guards, since there are shops like Cartier, Louis Vuitton or Valentino… There is a café on the ground floor, amongst all the luxury shops. Behind it there is a staircase that connects all three floors (aside from the escalators on the sides).

The café Galería Canalejas Café offered afternoon tea, and I was even willing to try it despite the lack of scones. But it was cold and drizzling, and I had just discovered that they had afternoon tea the day before. We sat down and ordered.

Afternoon Tea at Galería Canalejas Café Madrid

The set included:

  • Café o té Coffee or tea. I chose a Japanese sencha, which was brought quite earlier than the snacks. It was really good, albeit a bit weak. I own up I had finished it almost completely by the time the food came out. I really think they should add some water to the mix.
  • Savoury snacks:
    • Mini sándwich chicken coronation. Coronation Chicken mini-sandwich in a salty waffer, made with a salty waffer.
    • Mini sándwich de mortadela trufada y queso Coloummier. Coloummier cheese and truffled sausage mini-sandwich, also in a salty waffer. I think they forgot the cheese in mine…
    • Quiché de espinacas y salmón. Salmon and spinach quiche with wasabi mayonnaise. This was the best, in my opinion.
    • Crep de hummus con vegetales. Hummus and vegetables crêpe. They actually forgot to bring this one out and did so later on.
  • Sweet snacks:
    • Bizcocho Valentía. A quite-heavy brioche with honey and lemon. It was nice, but I could have used a smaller size.
    • Mini churros con vainilla y chocolate. Tiny churros with vanilla and chocolate. The vanilla was actually whipped cream, but the powdered-sugar on the churros and the bitter chocolate made it a good combination.
  • Petit fours: We got three of these, but I have no idea which ones. According to the publicity, you chose them yourself, but they brought them on their own. They were tiny biscuits that felt really nice to finish off the tea.
    • Bombón Canalejas
    • Diamant Madagascar
    • Florentin aux amandes
    • Noisettine
    • Trufa de turrón

All in all, it felt a little wannabe pretentious, but the staff was extra nice, and allowed us to stay there for as long as we wanted. We left when I noticed that the turn over was slow and a queue had started forming. We snooped up and down the gallery for a while before we headed off. And of course, I totally missed my train connection – what else is new?

16th December 2023: A day out of ExpoGema (Madrid, Spain)

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Since the mineral expo ExpoMinerales back in February was all cool and fun, I decided to attend its shinier (and unbeknownst to me, way more unaffordable) sibling, the gem expo ExpoGema, and make a day out of it. Thus, I headed out for Madrid on the 9:00 train with temperatures below zero – I was not made for winter. It was not much better when I arrived, but for once the train ride was uneventful, I actually made my connection, and it seems that after a chaotic year, the underground train tunnels are finally open. Everything going smoothly gave me some unexpected 45 minutes to wander around as the square Puerta del Sol slowly became fuller and fuller with people.

I had booked a guided visit through the company Madrid en Ruta, who has the exclusive concession to show the business centre Casa Comercial Palazuelo. Located in downtown Madrid, it was designed by architect Antonio Palacios. The promoter, Demetrio Palazuelo, bought the lot left behind by a fire, and commissioned the building with the goal of renting it out to shops and professionals – it was thus the first office building in Spain conceived as such, and not repurposed from a manor or an apartment building. Palacios drew inspiration from the Chicago School commercial architecture and used iron to stabilise the building, which allowed him for bright interiors using lots of glass. The office building was erected between 1919 and 1921, and the offices are still rented out today, with the only caveat that the beautiful interior translucent-glass doors have been painted white – to either protect privacy or hide the fact that today the house seems to be almost empty – at least according to the building’s own directory.

The exterior façade could be considered eclectic – the main frame tends to neoclassicism with huge glass windows framed in black iron. The interior tends towards Art Deco and modernism. The offices are distributed around a central indoor patio, with curved balconies that overlook it and lots of lights mainly due to the skylight. There are two classical lifts which are the original ones, in peartree wood. When we went up, I took the stairs, which have white treads, and the riser is made out dark green ceramics. I have seen these in other works by Antonio Palacios.. The interior, with the iron balustrades and its curvy design, was really cool, but I think it is really a pity they painted over the glass.

Interior of Casa Palazuelo

The visit started at 11:00. We spent the first fifteen minutes outside getting context, roughly half an hour inside, and the last twenty minutes on the roof of the building, waiting for the clock of the Puerta del Sol to strike 12:00, then we were ushered out. I really wish we could have wandered the house a little bit, even if we could not go into the offices. The ten euro we paid surely did not feel like we were paying customers, but more like we were sneaking around like unwanted guests – which we probably were anyway.

Puerta del Sol from the roof of Casa Palazuelo

I grabbed a quick snack then and headed off towards the engineering school Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía (ETSIME) for the sixth edition of the gem fair ExpoGema. The fair itself was neat, but most everything was way above my budget range. I was there at the typical Spanish lunchtime, there were few people, and most were at the stands. Thus, I had the museum Museo Histórico-Minero Don Felipe de Borbón y Grecia almost completely to myself. I really like old-style museums, and this one has a huge amount of specimens, most of them are minerals, but there are also fossils and a collection of cave bear skulls and bones. I had decided not to book any guided visit or activity as none happened within the couple of hours of lunch downtime.

Geology Museum at Etsime

I bought an ammonite pendant, a small pyrite with almost perfect right angles, and another pendant made with a small meteorite from Campo del Cielo, along with a tiny extra piece. Campo del Cielo is an area in Argentina where four or five thousand years ago an iron meteorite fell. The meteorite shattered upon entering the atmosphere and, when it impacted the surface, the different created up to 26 craters. About 100 short tonnes of a fragmented iron meteorite have been recovered to date, and I now own around four grammes of it – yay me. I did not buy any precious stone though since the pretty shiny rocks were way out of my budget.

Expogema 2023

I left the ETSIME and I walked towards the square Plaza Pablo Ruiz Picasso, where there is a temporary art installation called El Regalo (The present) by Amigo&Amigo, a studio specialising in art installations. The artwork comprises a few arches that end in pads that can be stepped on – when they are, music sounds. The day was still bright, so the artwork was not shining, but a bunch of kids jumped on the pads to keep the music playing.

El Regalo artwork

Afterwards, I took a train and headed off towards central Madrid again. I had a reservation for an afternoon tea at NuBel, an “avant-garde gastronomy space” in the modern art museum Museo Reina Sofía. I had been drawn to the place due to the “freshly-baked scones” they advertised.

The experience was beyond disappointing. First, I had to wait to get seated, but then the person who checked me in forgot to notify that I was there – this is what I assume happened, I was literally told that “the kitchen had forgotten about me”. The set menu took 40 minutes to come out, and the scone was cold anyway, so not even freshly-made. I had got a decaf latte that was also cold when the food came.

The menu, 16€ as I don’t drink alcohol, consisted of: two mini-sandwiches – the two of them had been made from the same bread slice, so you can imagine the size, with some kind of mayonnaise filling which was not bad but rather unidentifiable; one shot-sized glass of (pre-made) gazpacho; one scone; a piece of red velvet cake; a piece of carrot cake; one chocolate brownie; a side of cheese cream, butter and jam; and in my case the already-stone cold decaf latte.

Nubel afternoon Tea

The scone was cold – so much for freshly-made, the only thing that had kept me waiting. Furthermore, the cheese cream, albeit nice, did not fit it like at all, so I had to use butter on it. I laughed to myself thinking about “the horror!” while I clutched my metaphorical pearls. The red velvet was probably the best, but in general the cakes were too sweet – good thing the menu included free tap water. Afterwards, I was comped another free decaf as an “apology for the delay”. However, when I tried to pay, more drama ensued. First the card-reading machine was not working, then they could not take cash because they were balancing the register, then they could bring the machine to the table. All in all, I spent almost hour and a half there – about five minutes waiting to be seated, forty minutes waiting for the tea set, and twenty minutes trying to pay. I’m sorry to say I did not tip, nor do I plan to ever come back.

I missed my train due to the paying delay, and I had to wait almost half an hour for another one. I hung out the Christmas market for a bit, and looked at the lights around Puerta de Atocha station. As it was cold, I walked in and went to check out the original train station, now turned botanical garden. I had never stopped to look at the iron ceiling, just at the plants – and the tortoises people used to dump there – but there had been an old photograph during the Casa Palazuelo visit that made me want to look at the building itself, and I recognised that old station in today’s building, with its wrung iron columns. Funny, how you can look at the same old things and recognise them.

31st May 2023: Birthday in Madrid (Spain)

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I was lucky enough to be able to combine my 2022 birthday with a holiday that happens around the end of May / beginning of June, so I took off to Tenerife. I could not do that this year, but the stars aligned for a half-day in Madrid – actually, what aligned was a lot of website-hopping, to be honest. It all started when we were booking tickets for the visit to the Royal Palace of La Granja. At that time, I discovered that the collection of Stradivarius instruments in the Madrid Royal Palace are brought out so they can be played every now and then. I had to work on the dates of all the upcoming 2023 concerts where they were used, but I managed to secure tickets for a side gig, which also gave access to a usually closed-off area of the Palace anyway.

Conversely, I have been obsessed with a London experience in which you get to have afternoon tea on a 60’s double-decker bus – but unfortunately, it does not take reservations for one. I was browsing the Internet , looking at similar experiences, and I stumbled upn the fact that the Mandarin Oriental Ritz runs afternoon tea in Madrid. They actually claim that their tea is the same as the London Hyde Park Ritz. I signed up for the Fan of M.O program – not that I’m ever going to be able to afford a stay there, but oh well – before making the reservation, and the system asked if there was a special occasion going on. I ticked “birthday”.

Plans thus built, we arrived in Madrid for the 16:00 booking of afternoon tea at the Palm Court restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid hotel.

The Mandarin Oriental Ritz Madrid opened in 1910, after King Alfonso XIII decided that Madrid needed a luxury hotel to host European nobility. The king himself became an investor, wanting the city to have lodgings comparable to Paris or London. The building was commissioned to French architect Charles Frédéric Mewes and the construction was directed by Luis de Landecho y Lorenzo Gallego. Surrounded by a metalwork wall, it has 153 rooms and suites, and a wide variety of dining options with different levels of formality.

Through the 20th century, the original Ritz became a piece of history. Its rooms and bars hosted a wide range of personalities – WWI spy Mata Hari, artist Salvador Dalí, writer Ernest Hemingway, scientist Alexander Fleming, and more recent celebrities such as Ava Gardner, Michelle Pfeiffer or Madonna. In 2015, the hotel was acquired by Mandarin Oriental, and in 2018 renovation was tackled. The Covid pandemic delayed its reopening until 2021. Part of the restoration focused on the inner court, with an iron-and-glass ceiling. This is the area where the restaurant Palm Court is located.

When we arrived, they confused my reservation with someone else’s with the same first name – I had to correct the lady, it was a reservation for three not for two. Then they asked if we were celebrating something, to which I replied that it was my birthday – again. As we sat down, the pianist was playing the OST of Aquaman. Cognitive dissonance? Check.

A nice gentleman brought out the tea menu – while the food is fixed, you can choose from a wide variety of tea. I had of course studied the options beforehand, and ordered sencha meicha, because it is one of my favourite teas, even if it is Japanese. I mean, I can get Earl Grey more easily – and affordably.

The booking confusion continued when we got our food – once more they brought out a three-tier tray for two, and when they brought out the third one, they had mistakenly brought out one of the dietary-restriction trays – easy to spot because the sandwiches had different colours. When the correct tray was brought out, the order of the different tiers was incorrect.

The tea itself was delicious. The food included has been designed to Quique Dacosta, mixing the “best afternoon tea tradition” with Spanish confectioneries. The classic mini sandwiches included a cucumber and cheese cream, Spanish ham, potato omelette, seafood and mayonnaise, and a salmon cracker, shaped as a rose. The sweets included chocolate mousses, lilac sponges and citrus pastries.

Afterwards came the scones, which were a bit too small and I was slightly disappointed that the promised clotted cream was merely butter. But the scones – two types of them – were warm and well done. Afterwards, as we were finished, the pianist played the notes to the traditional happy birthday song and I was brought a small mousse with “congrats” written on the plate – though they served it to someone else in the party!

Afternoon Tea: sandwiches, pastries, scones and the actual tea

Felicidades dessert

I loved the tea party. However, even if all the staff was extremely nice, it gave me the feeling that they were overwhelmed and nervous – almost improvising – as they made a few mistakes. Afterwards, we walked to the Royal Palace Palacio Real de Madrid. Even if it was an hour to the recital, we were allowed into the courtyard, and not much later into the royal chapel Real Capilla. The recital was called Afectos Amantes (Loving affections), and it mostly comprised music by José de Torres. Torres was the main composer of religious music for the Spanish 17th-century court, though the majority of his music was lost when the original Madrid alcazar burnt down – however, a few pieces were preserved in El Escorial, Salamanca, and Guatemala. There were also a couple of pieces by Händel.

Royal Palace and Chapel

The music was performed by Al Ayre Español, a classically-trained ensemble that focuses on Spanish Baroque Music. Its members are Eduardo López Banzo, (harpsichord, and director); Jacobo Díaz Giráldez (oboe); Alexis Aguado (violin); Kepa Arteche (violin); Aldo Mata (cello); Xisco Aguiló (double bass); Juan Carlos de Mulder (archilaúd and guitar); and finally Maite Beaumont (mezzo-soprano singer).

The program included:

  1. Pasacalles I & II (Passacaglia), Anonymous
  2. Divino Hijo de Adán (Divine Son of Adam), José de Torres
  3. Sonata Op.5 No.4 in G Major, Georg Friedrich Händel
  4. ¡Oh, quien pudiera alcanzar! (Whomever could reach), José de Torres
  5. Sonata Op.5 No.5 in G Minor, Georg Friedrich Händel
  6. Afectos amantes (Loving affections), José de Torres
  7. Grave (Low), José de Torres

Al Ayre Español bowing to the audience after the recital

The recital lasted a bit over an hour and a half. It was something really interesting to do once in your lifetime, and surprisingly not pricey at all. Even if Baroque music is not usually my thing, the event felt very appropriate in the chapel. We did not feel like any more food, so we just headed home, braving the thunderstom on the highway.