Please sign in to post.

Botin Restaurant in Madrid (Tour?)

Hi.
The world's oldest restaurant in Madrid - Botin - offers guided tours before a meal. It sounds like it could be interesting - or a tourist trap. Has anyone experienced this? Is the food good? Would you recommend it?

Thanks!

Posted by
11053 posts

The food is good and very popular with tourists. Not a tourist trap though.It is an experience! We were taken there by Madrid locals around 10:30pm for dinner.

Posted by
7181 posts

We ate there on our own. The food is good, but it's not a "Michelin" experience. It's largely the Hemingway connection.

Posted by
687 posts

We ate there in 2018 and thought the food was very good. We were the only English speakers in the upstairs section, and it definitely didn't feel touristy. Make sure someone in your group gets the suckling pig.

Posted by
6385 posts

My wife’s friend went to Sobrino de Botín in 2019 and thoroughly enjoyed the food. She didn’t take any tour. My guess is you’ll be able to see most things just walking around. Only you know if you think a tour is worth it. For me, I’ve seen underground bodegas and old ovens, so I’ll pass on the tour for our upcoming trip and just go for dinner.

Posted by
1 posts

Hi! I literally just got back from Madrid and Barcelona on 4/27. We did the Botin Experience. It was FABULOUS! We had an AMAZING 1 hour tour of the whole restaurant 1 hour before opening…3 floors of dining, plus the basement and another cellar below that. We were given lots of great info and lots of history and tidbits about the restaurant itself and the 2 families who have owned it, as well as people who have frequented it. After our amazing tour, we were able to pick ANY seat in the restaurant and sit down to our six course meal including water, soft drinks and a bottle of wine AND a beautiful hand painted sangria pitcher as a gift. The price was €70 and DEFINITELY worth it in my opinion! Everyone piling in to eat there knew they were eating at the “oldest restaurant in the world” but they knew NOTHING about it and what makes it so special!