- Opened 1725, certified oldest continuously operating restaurant in the world
- Cochinillo asado from the original wood-fired oven
- Four floors, the cellar room is the one to book
- Calle de Cuchilleros 17, off Plaza Mayor
The Guinness certificate hangs by the door — Botín opened on Calle de Cuchilleros in 1725 and has operated continuously since, which makes it the oldest restaurant on earth and a stop that even the resident Madrileño will book once for the trade. The wood-fired oven is the original; the cochinillo asado comes out of it the same way it has for three centuries. Hemingway wrote it into The Sun Also Rises and it has not needed to advertise since.
Book the cellar — the brick-vaulted room on the lowest floor, the one with the oven visible from the corner of the eye. Cochinillo, never anything else; one bottle of Ribera del Duero. An hour and a half, walk it off through Plaza Mayor.
Book it for the certificate and the suckling pig.
