Where the Chefs Eat: Tamar Adler's favourite restaurants in Madrid

For this edition, we sit down for coffee with Tamar Adler. Tamar Adler is a woman of many great achievements.

She is a James Beard Award-winning author, a mother, and a Vogue contributing editor. Yet, as she opens her latest publication Feast on Your Life, it is evident her battle with depression has been utterly crippling. She describes how the autumn of 2023 left her on the floor, both mentally and physically; “I’d recently taken inventory of my life,” she says. “What I’d turned up felt meagre.

Somehow, my mistakes and missed chances dwarfed my accomplishments, haunting and hunting me.” This wasn’t the first time Adler had faced the demon that is depression – she has suffered it her whole life – but, from it, her latest book was born, and the result is a stunning diary of food, day-to-day life and the beauty found in the smallest of things. Feast on Your Life began as a gratitude list of sorts, suggested by her husband as part of his efforts to help her. The list was “predictable,” as she says. “Husband, son; warm bed – that sort of stuff.” And, yet, what grew was a gratitude for everything around her – the smell of coffee, “clouds of challah bread” and the “abrasive tang” of pineapples.

The repetition of certain things in the kitchen, the stunning description of food – all become entries in a diary for Adler that helped her to rebuild. They bind together into a stunning book that celebrates life, and food, of course, in the most beautiful of ways. When I speak with Adler from her new home in Madrid, I ask her what it is about food that she feels really pulled her out of the grip of such a dark place. “I think it's a few things,” she muses. “I think obviously the immediacy of it is really important: it's right there, and it's unavoidable.

So many of your senses are engaged in cooking and eating. You have to be completely present in it. And I think that amount of presence really does kind of remap your brain, even in tiny ways in the moment, because it sort of changes your attention, moving you from the terrible abstract to the sensory present.” And, for those who have suffered depression, even getting out of bed in the morning can feel like climbing a mountain,

so the physical closeness of one’s kitchen itself also helps. “When you finish really being present,” she continues, “you actually do think a little bit differently. And, so, I think it does a really amazing job of diverting you towards a way of experiencing the world that is positive and non-abstract, and that is really grounded in the present moment.

And it does it through your senses. I think because food demands so much of our senses, it's almost the perfect tool.”

Adler’s book is a beautiful tribute to the smallest of acts – stirring a spoon in a cup of coffee, peeling a juicy, fresh grapefruit – and serves as a reminder that joy can be found in all things great and small. But it isn’t just for those suffering.

It is a vessel for anyone seeking respite from their day, and it can be read from front to back or enjoyed in small sections. She explains that it is not only “for people in the midst of a major depression, but for those who want a kind of primer that they could turn to every day for a little bit of a reminder that there is something good and that it's right in the kitchen; that it's super close. It's not like you even have to leave your house for it.

You can find it right where you are.” Today, her kitchen is in the Las Letras neighbourhood of Madrid.

With her husband and nine-year-old son, Adler moved to the Spanish capital city in August 2025. “We really wanted to spend some time abroad, and my husband and I speak Spanish, so we knew we wanted it to be a Spanish-speaking country,” she tells me. “The city is so beautiful and vibrant, so it was a pretty easy decision.” She continues, “I have felt, since moving here, that my daily experience is sort of like a bath in beauty.

And that's really incredible. I can't think of another place that I've been to that has so many fountains.

There are fountains all over Madrid, and that is just an incredible thing, to always be in the presence of moving water; to always be hearing and seeing moving water is pretty fantastic.” Adler’s ability to appreciate beauty in all its forms, coupled with her profound knowledge of food, makes her a very reliable source for local Madrileño restaurants, and she shares with us her current five favourites.

Dolores

Dolores is right on the corner near my house, and we go there for one specific thing: the matrimonio (a tapas dish combining anchovies and a boqueron, which is a white pickled anchovy).

The right time to do that is just before dinner. So, we tend to go at about 7pm.

It’s always packed. We always get this dish wherever we go, but the best that we’ve ever had is at Dolores.

What makes theirs so amazing is they make their own boquerones, so they buy their own anchovies, and then they cure them in vinegar in-house, and then when they give them to you it’s like a big beautiful fillet of the anchovy and a house-made white anchovy. They do it with parsley and, I think, garlic and you eat it on potato chips. I don’t think anyone has come to see us in town and not been taken there for that and not totally loved it.

Address: Pl. de Jesús, 4, Centro, 28012 Madrid, Spain

Farah

A Palestinian woman called Heba Kharouf runs Farah, and she is always there.

I love to get the lubina (sea bass), which comes with a tahini sauce, and another sauce – they won’t tell you what’s in that one, though it tastes a bit like mustard. It’s served as a whole fish.

It’s just amazing. They also have a salad that is truly great.

It’s like a chopped Middle Eastern salad with date syrup and pink peppercorns. Address: C. de los Mancebos, 2, Centro, 28005 Madrid, Spain Website: restaurantefarah.com

Restaurant Sasha

Enter my favourite restaurant in Madrid. The restaurant reservations open up either six or seven days in advance, but you have to book to go because it’s so popular.

It’s small and it’s entirely generous. It is the most seasonal, menu-changing restaurant I have encountered in Madrid.

It really is different every time. They only put a price on the menu next to the things that they have at that time.

It changes dramatically based on what the kitchen sees and loves and gets in. I love the tortilla there.

I think it’s called a ‘lazy’ tortilla, a tortilla vaga. Sometimes it will be made with potato chips, morcilla and pickled peppers or it might be served with a fillet of fish.

The last time I got it, it was made with shrimp, finally sliced zucchini and some spring vegetables; it’s super simple but just perfectly done. The fried artichokes are also amazing.

Address: Zona ajardinada, C. de Juan Hurtado de Mendoza, 11, Posterior, Chamartín, 28036 Madrid, Spain Website: restaurantesacha.com

Ton Ton

Ton Ton is super delicious and super chic. It’s dark and romantic and small, but it’s just very special.

I love the artichoke and the beef tartare. You share lots of very small things, and it’s the perfect date restaurant or intimate diner spot.

Address: Calle de Jordán, 7, Chamberí, 28010 Madrid, Spain Website: tonton.rest

O’Pazo

The same people who ran the renowned restaurant Desde 1911 are behind O'Pazo.

It’s unreal. They cook absolutely perfect seafood; perfect in every way. I ordered everything when I visited.

We had percebes (barnacles) – the kids tried that, which was really fun. We also had the pink shrimp from Palamos, which I love, along with oysters and tiny little clams. Oh, and I loved that for the main course they served a bowl of potato chips and a bowl of sprouts as the vegetable sides.

You can look at all the fish behind you and just pick out what you want. Address: C. de la Reina Mercedes, 20, Tetuán, 28020 Madrid, Spain Website: opazo.es/movil