Museum Piece
Pro You can say you've been.
Con There's one main course on the menu. We counted. Twice.
Pay
€€€
Per Person Set menu is €24 for two courses. Dessert and drinks are extra. El Tenedor may have a discount offer.
Find
Website museochicote.com
Access Revolving door and three steps down.
In Short
Hopes. A touch of class.
Reality. Faded Glory.
First Impressions. Antiquity.
USP? What's in a name?
The offer in three words. OK for steakholders.
Service! Timely.
Friend friendly? Did we mention the one-dish menu?
Rating for dating. For dinner? Forget it.
Tip? Didn't get chance, but the service was good. We'd have done 5%.
Change one thing? The present.
Revisitability. For food, not a chance. For cocktails, perhaps.
Compare & Contrast
A different kind of Madrid institution.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
A legendary name in Madrid's society past, Museo Chicote (it's not connected to the chef who appears on TV) warrants a look, but standby to spend most, possibly all, of your visit shaking your head and asking yourself what on Earth is going on.
It's a splendid location, slap on Gran Via, a space with plenty of tables, with a name that's historic enough for its own wikipedia entry. But at 1500 on a Saturday in May, the bar is deserted. the front of house eating area half empty. We can't speak for the bar & cocktails, but we tried half the entire food menu today and, no point holding back, we've probably saved you bothering with it.
The food offer is scarcely believable. Not a set menu, it's a set meal. A nut & grape salad, followed by steak/entrecóte with one of three sauces, ending with four dessert options. That's your lot. If you're after something V-friendly, walk on by.
So when there's a grand total of six dishes on the entire menu and two thirds of them are desserts, how do things shake out? Well, the salad was good, with grapes for sweetness, walnuts adding crunch and a fine, moreish vinaigrette demanding bread moppage. Very enjoyable, we polished this off pretty sharpish.
With the steaks, we opted for green pepper and Cafe de Paris sauces. One we know well, the other I'd never heard of. First instinct for one heady minute was it might actually be a coffee sauce. Well, it wasn't. Probably. I'm still not entirely sure. Research explains not only is Cafe de Paris apparently a classic sauce, it's also a secret buy-the-rights-to-use-it licensed recipe sauce. Anyway, assuming there isn't coffee in it, it's - probably, apparently - a butter and thyme concoction and its colour, a pale off-green, supports that. But the taste was such I still wonder if there might have been a bean in it somewhere. Very odd and not entirely pleasant, if I'm honest.
Both sauces reverted from creamy to watery as time passed, which didn't help them. They'd have been better served if they'd been served off-platter in pouring pots. The meat was pretty good quality and well-cooked. The potatoes, fried skin-on, were tastier and fresher than the menu photo - and ours - makes them look. No spice in the pimientos de padrón, though. Ahh well. They are a filling pair of dishes, but even given the location, is it worth €24? Not of my money.
We tested out a dessert. Only fair. Tarte tatin was billed with biscuit ice cream. I'm not sure the moulding lines from a tin on the bottom - i.e. the top - of the apple layer mean it was prepared in a kitchen or factory, but it wasn't very good, with mushy industrial-feeling apple puree. The biscuit ice-cream seemed made from vanilla biscuits.
Drinks-wise we stuck to beers as we simply didn't feel the goodwill to invest in either wine or the famous cocktail menu. A litre of something German came for €5.50 which isn't expensive. Service was prompt and efficient. Decor is supposed to be a selling point, and a wall of photos attests to names you might not know, but someone local would spot a few famous faces quickly. There's a display case of memorabilia to gawk at if you're in the right corner, and a couple of window tables with a fine Gran Via view, with plenty of people staring in at and over you. Distressingly, you may be looking over the wiring feeding the stylish but dusty 1950s lampshades though.
This is a spectacularly missed, or perhaps lost, opportunity. If we'd not had a 50% discount we'd not have gone in, and it only just makes the two courses it covers worth the money.
A Michelin* chef should be after this spot. No need to spend out on consultants, we'll do it for nothing. Keep the cocktails. Up the food menu to the max. You'll make a well-earned packet from quality lunches and fine dining in an iconic venue. As present, the eating experience doesn't even aspire to disappoint. It's a token effort with no sense of love, place or respect for its own history. It's like a classic ocean liner left to chuff along as a ferry to some forgotten backwater. Even the cutlery looks tired. We'd love to love it, we're sorry we feel sorry for it.
Perhaps of an evening it's a different story. We'll wait for the future to begin to find out.
Pro You can say you've been.
Con There's one main course on the menu. We counted. Twice.
Pay
€€€
Per Person Set menu is €24 for two courses. Dessert and drinks are extra. El Tenedor may have a discount offer.
Find
Website museochicote.com
Access Revolving door and three steps down.
In Short
Hopes. A touch of class.
Reality. Faded Glory.
First Impressions. Antiquity.
USP? What's in a name?
The offer in three words. OK for steakholders.
Service! Timely.
Friend friendly? Did we mention the one-dish menu?
Rating for dating. For dinner? Forget it.
Tip? Didn't get chance, but the service was good. We'd have done 5%.
Change one thing? The present.
Revisitability. For food, not a chance. For cocktails, perhaps.
Compare & Contrast
A different kind of Madrid institution.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
A legendary name in Madrid's society past, Museo Chicote (it's not connected to the chef who appears on TV) warrants a look, but standby to spend most, possibly all, of your visit shaking your head and asking yourself what on Earth is going on.
It's a splendid location, slap on Gran Via, a space with plenty of tables, with a name that's historic enough for its own wikipedia entry. But at 1500 on a Saturday in May, the bar is deserted. the front of house eating area half empty. We can't speak for the bar & cocktails, but we tried half the entire food menu today and, no point holding back, we've probably saved you bothering with it.
The food offer is scarcely believable. Not a set menu, it's a set meal. A nut & grape salad, followed by steak/entrecóte with one of three sauces, ending with four dessert options. That's your lot. If you're after something V-friendly, walk on by.
So when there's a grand total of six dishes on the entire menu and two thirds of them are desserts, how do things shake out? Well, the salad was good, with grapes for sweetness, walnuts adding crunch and a fine, moreish vinaigrette demanding bread moppage. Very enjoyable, we polished this off pretty sharpish.
Both sauces reverted from creamy to watery as time passed, which didn't help them. They'd have been better served if they'd been served off-platter in pouring pots. The meat was pretty good quality and well-cooked. The potatoes, fried skin-on, were tastier and fresher than the menu photo - and ours - makes them look. No spice in the pimientos de padrón, though. Ahh well. They are a filling pair of dishes, but even given the location, is it worth €24? Not of my money.
Drinks-wise we stuck to beers as we simply didn't feel the goodwill to invest in either wine or the famous cocktail menu. A litre of something German came for €5.50 which isn't expensive. Service was prompt and efficient. Decor is supposed to be a selling point, and a wall of photos attests to names you might not know, but someone local would spot a few famous faces quickly. There's a display case of memorabilia to gawk at if you're in the right corner, and a couple of window tables with a fine Gran Via view, with plenty of people staring in at and over you. Distressingly, you may be looking over the wiring feeding the stylish but dusty 1950s lampshades though.
This is a spectacularly missed, or perhaps lost, opportunity. If we'd not had a 50% discount we'd not have gone in, and it only just makes the two courses it covers worth the money.
A Michelin* chef should be after this spot. No need to spend out on consultants, we'll do it for nothing. Keep the cocktails. Up the food menu to the max. You'll make a well-earned packet from quality lunches and fine dining in an iconic venue. As present, the eating experience doesn't even aspire to disappoint. It's a token effort with no sense of love, place or respect for its own history. It's like a classic ocean liner left to chuff along as a ferry to some forgotten backwater. Even the cutlery looks tired. We'd love to love it, we're sorry we feel sorry for it.
Perhaps of an evening it's a different story. We'll wait for the future to begin to find out.