Eating in Madrid

In Madrid we ate when we were hungry. The late dinner reputation is nothing to worry or even think about. Tapas bars are fine but are not the only meal choice. We found most restaurants are open and ready to serve dinner at 6pm or even earlier. We are not in the habit of eating late and don't enjoy doing so. We ate dinner at our regular time. Someone else may suggest a few vegetarian restaurants for you but I believe there must be quite a few. My wife enjoyed her favourite dinner (salad) at most of the restaurants we selected.

You can usually find tapas anytime, even though the tapas "hour" starts around 7:30 until dinner time, which is really more like 9pm. We almost always ate tapas for dinner rather than sitting down to a later dinner. Madrid also has cafeterias that serve food whenever they are open, they're affordable but generally not that great. The bars closer to the touristy area seem to be used to serving food all day. There are also McDonald's, Burger King (and I think KFC) that will serve you anytime you're ready to eat. We generally had a cafe con leche and a croissant (or something similar) for breakfast, a menu del dia at a cafe for lunch, and two to four stop tapas crawls for dinner. We sometimes had Chocolate con Churros as a breakfast item, but often saw locals eating them in the afternoon (5 or 6 pm).

Cliff,
My experience is close to a decade old, but I do remember my favorite meal in Madrid was a vegetarian paella at a vegetarian restaurant called Artemisa a bit east of the area you mention. Things may have changed there since my visit, but a quick Google search shows me it's still in business. You might want to look for recent reviews to see if it's still a good choice.

I believe Artemis was the name of a vegetarian place we visited back in late 2009 in the Plaza del Carmen area, which is very close to Puerta del Sol...excellent vegetarian paella. Don't go to a fast-food type place for paella...they're all over town with posters advertising their paella...not good. There are lots of choices aside from tapas bars...it's a big city after all. But I'm sure you'll want to try some tapas...I can recommend these spots: Casa Toni, Oreja de Oro, and Cerveceria de Santa Ana. Also, Hotel Europa has a really decent café. The cafeteria at El Corte Ingles was actually more like a casual and less expensive sit down place that was open all day (I think) with wait staff...order from a menu...not really a cafetreria at all. I think they also had a higher-end restaurant for dinner...didn't go. We had pizza one night...can't recall where, but pizza is an option. I don't think you'll have any trouble eating at whatever time you wish to dine. We ate at a nice restaurant just once...regular dinner time for us...there was only one other table dining at the time...yep, they were Americans, too. Inexpensive treats: Häagen-Dazs is all over town, there's a good ice cream/gelato/sorbet place in Plaza Santa Ana, confectionary in PdS...can't recall the name, but try the yemas, and churros places are all over, but, frankly, churros are terrible. Check tripadvisor for more restaurant ideas. It's sort of funny...you can get really good cafe con leche in lots of places, even at Häagen-Dazs. Happy travels!

There is a chain called Fresc Co that has some stores in Madrid, one is near PdS. We did not eat there but I've seen others here recommend it. We usually ate our main meal in the afternoon at someplace serving Menu del Dia, and the nighttime meal was lighter. Tapas certainly can make a light dinner (or eat enough and you can get quite full!), as can a bocadillo. Bars will probably have some food available around 6pm. Madrid museums are open until 7, 8 or 9pm and during the summer months it is light out until 9pm. We found ourselves out and about until 8 or 9 and not even thinking about dinner until that time...possibly your schedule will shift a bit when you arrive in Spain.