Posh Vips
Pro Decor and ambience are superficially stylish.
Con It's all a bit safe and dull, to be honest.
Pay
€€€
Per Person Shared starter and dessert. Main. 2 beers. €30-32. Gratis: absolutely nothing at all. Better still, €1.50 for some bread.
Find
Website https://www.lamuccacompany.com/lamucca-de-fuencarral/
Access
In Short
Hopes. Something interesting and novel.
Reality. Something old, something new, something borrowed. Nothing much blue.
First Impressions. Welcome to the new world.
USP? The first one in the chain with, standby for this, an "Organik Parriya".
The offer in three words. Madrid meets Manhattan.
Service! Professional and slick.
Friend friendly? Menu's meaty, but trying to be ethical.
Rating for dating. Designed for it.
Tip? Small one for prompt service.
Change one thing? Ketchup.
Revisitability. Low to zero.
Compare & Contrast
More tolerable than Perrachica and El Palentino. Not as good as Sunne.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
I had lunch with someone who lived in Madrid 5 years ago recently (waves to D & M). I tried to explain how the food world has changed in that time, but hadn't been to Lamucca. Now I have, I can do it in one review.
So. Welcome to North American Madrid eating. All day kitchen? Full-on aircon? Smart, modern but retro decor and design? A giant cocktail and drinks list? Staff who introduce themselves by name? A ridiculous gimmick on the menu[1]?
The answers? Enough yeses to remake that scene from When Harry Met Sally. But is the food up to orgasmic levels? Well, if they tried to make me go back to Lamucca, I'd probably say no, no no.
Now, let's be clear. It's not actively bad. There's nice stuff to be found. We had a very enjoyable peeled tomato dish, with some decent tommy chunks in their own tasty juice which meant they'd been well seasoned. But, and this isn't NYC, we had to pay €1.50 for some chunks of seedy bread accompanied, mystifyingly, by a cucumber-powered creamy dip that wasn't a raita but looked like one.
They serve Mahou as the default draught. We like the local touch. Main courses left us perplexed. For some reason this dish needed a 20-minute interval to prepare;
20 minutes to slightly overcook an al punto small steak? No idea how that happens. It takes about 3-4 minutes a side usually. The burger was an impressive stack, but managed to look atrocious, with a massive megasplodge of dripping cheese leaving it looking like it had been sneezed on by a benevolent but bunged up alien. Roasted micro potatoes were tasty enough as a garnish but, listen. We understand you don't want to fry, but you can make chips without frying them!
And is it me or does that plating look like there's something missing - even though we think there isn't? Banana choco cake was dessert from mass productionville. A micro thin layer of stuff that wasn't dark brown was apparently the banana. We think there was toffee ice-cream. It was bland enough to be not clear it wasn't coffee.
Service was rapid and profesional. The plates are smart and stylish. But I walked past dirty ones on shelves on my way out. Not good. Decor is modern and quirky. But also disingenuous. "No chemicals are used in our food," boasts a stencil. That'll make it a bit lacking in water, carbon, sugars and, well, anything we can eat then, won't it? Apparently, ingredients are ecological, hence the organic tag. Except when they can't be. So how's that any different to any other even vaguely socially conscious eaterie? For one thing, if you want to be socially conscious you start to look at water footprints. So, water footprints. Yep. You then spot we all need to go vegetarian now.
The summing up. Twenty years ago in this city, we'd have been writing about VIPs. This is the kind of place that's stolen that chain's thunder and plundered its market share. The decor's distinctive, with that predictable orange lighting that somehow universally signifies a bit posh. The slick service and modernistic food pitch will please visitors and locals after a bit of stylish presentation. The menu's not painful or badly prepared, but it's not inspiring. In the end, it's not interesting enough, the food's not cared about enough and there's disingenuousness or plain ignorance underpinning some of the self-image.
Are you getting a vibe that we won't be back? Your instincts serve you well.
Pro Decor and ambience are superficially stylish.
Con It's all a bit safe and dull, to be honest.
Pay
€€€
Per Person Shared starter and dessert. Main. 2 beers. €30-32. Gratis: absolutely nothing at all. Better still, €1.50 for some bread.
Find
Website https://www.lamuccacompany.com/lamucca-de-fuencarral/
Access
In Short
Hopes. Something interesting and novel.
Reality. Something old, something new, something borrowed. Nothing much blue.
First Impressions. Welcome to the new world.
USP? The first one in the chain with, standby for this, an "Organik Parriya".
The offer in three words. Madrid meets Manhattan.
Service! Professional and slick.
Friend friendly? Menu's meaty, but trying to be ethical.
Rating for dating. Designed for it.
Tip? Small one for prompt service.
Change one thing? Ketchup.
Revisitability. Low to zero.
Compare & Contrast
More tolerable than Perrachica and El Palentino. Not as good as Sunne.
In Pictures
On Google Images
What's the story?
I had lunch with someone who lived in Madrid 5 years ago recently (waves to D & M). I tried to explain how the food world has changed in that time, but hadn't been to Lamucca. Now I have, I can do it in one review.
So. Welcome to North American Madrid eating. All day kitchen? Full-on aircon? Smart, modern but retro decor and design? A giant cocktail and drinks list? Staff who introduce themselves by name? A ridiculous gimmick on the menu[1]?
The answers? Enough yeses to remake that scene from When Harry Met Sally. But is the food up to orgasmic levels? Well, if they tried to make me go back to Lamucca, I'd probably say no, no no.
Now, let's be clear. It's not actively bad. There's nice stuff to be found. We had a very enjoyable peeled tomato dish, with some decent tommy chunks in their own tasty juice which meant they'd been well seasoned. But, and this isn't NYC, we had to pay €1.50 for some chunks of seedy bread accompanied, mystifyingly, by a cucumber-powered creamy dip that wasn't a raita but looked like one.
They serve Mahou as the default draught. We like the local touch. Main courses left us perplexed. For some reason this dish needed a 20-minute interval to prepare;
20 minutes to slightly overcook an al punto small steak? No idea how that happens. It takes about 3-4 minutes a side usually. The burger was an impressive stack, but managed to look atrocious, with a massive megasplodge of dripping cheese leaving it looking like it had been sneezed on by a benevolent but bunged up alien. Roasted micro potatoes were tasty enough as a garnish but, listen. We understand you don't want to fry, but you can make chips without frying them!
And is it me or does that plating look like there's something missing - even though we think there isn't? Banana choco cake was dessert from mass productionville. A micro thin layer of stuff that wasn't dark brown was apparently the banana. We think there was toffee ice-cream. It was bland enough to be not clear it wasn't coffee.
Service was rapid and profesional. The plates are smart and stylish. But I walked past dirty ones on shelves on my way out. Not good. Decor is modern and quirky. But also disingenuous. "No chemicals are used in our food," boasts a stencil. That'll make it a bit lacking in water, carbon, sugars and, well, anything we can eat then, won't it? Apparently, ingredients are ecological, hence the organic tag. Except when they can't be. So how's that any different to any other even vaguely socially conscious eaterie? For one thing, if you want to be socially conscious you start to look at water footprints. So, water footprints. Yep. You then spot we all need to go vegetarian now.
The summing up. Twenty years ago in this city, we'd have been writing about VIPs. This is the kind of place that's stolen that chain's thunder and plundered its market share. The decor's distinctive, with that predictable orange lighting that somehow universally signifies a bit posh. The slick service and modernistic food pitch will please visitors and locals after a bit of stylish presentation. The menu's not painful or badly prepared, but it's not inspiring. In the end, it's not interesting enough, the food's not cared about enough and there's disingenuousness or plain ignorance underpinning some of the self-image.
Are you getting a vibe that we won't be back? Your instincts serve you well.
[1] Before we go. Someone with a science degree writes...
Revitalised water? You can filter water to remove tiny pieces of calcium and similar from it. But "revitalising it by returning its original structure"? It's a molecule with two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. There's no original structure or degraded structure. It's only got one structure. Ever. That's why it's called water not Deuterium or Hydrogen or Spongolonium Dineutride. Spongolonium Dineutride being something made up that sounds a bit sciencey but isn't. If you want to revitalise your drink, do what they do in Asturias: pour it from a great height to put more bubbles of air in to increase the flavour.