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Located in Madrid’s financial district, Isabela Gourmet Market is the newest of Madrid’s contemporary markets. (The first was San Miguel, located beside the Plaza Mayor, and then San Antón, in Chueca.) Here you’ll find 38 stalls selling gourmet foods like crepes, steak tartar, Gianduia ice cream, mini hamburgers with Kobe beef, French cheese and lots of modern tapas. Due to its location and upscale feel and decoration, it’s an ideal place to pop in for a tapa or two after shopping, or have an after work drink.
Though the center calls itself a market and you can buy cuts of meat and fish, or empanadillas and croquettes to fry up at home, it is not really for grocery shopping. (San Miguel would be a better bet in that regard.) Isabela is more of a multi-faceted center dedicated to food. In fact, that will be more evident in the near future since the top floor is earmarked to become a restaurant under the direction of Chef Joaquín de Felipe, while the bottom floor is destined to hold cooking demonstrations, movie screenings and events. But for now, the food stalls are indubitably the star.
Isabela Gourmet Market is open every day from 11 am to midnight, except on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, when it is open until 2 am.
