🥡 What's on in Madrid: February 27

Screw your diet, there's always Ozempic.

Feb 27, 2026

Madrid | Issue #134

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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend

To be honest, this is the sort of AI-generated, aspirational photo we tend to hate.

It’s Friday again!

And what do you know? We’re once again recommending activities that involve a high-calorie diet and getting out of ~~downtown Madrid~~ your comfort zone because, unless you’re a certain British spy, you only live once. I don’t think you can blame us.

This has undoubtedly been the winter of our discontent: non-stop rain, stupidly cold mornings, and the inevitable retreat of democratic values. Dude, if you’re not depressed, do you even have a pulse?
So loosen that belt, put away those ridiculous winter jackets (finally!), and get ready for a weekend of fun and sun with your friends. ~~The nuclear winter~~ Spring is only a few weeks away, so you’d better make it count.

Happy weekend!

But first, click on this if you love art and the Prado Museum ⬇️

1.🥢 China Taste 2026: A taste of the Year of the Horse

Yes, we celebrated the Chinese New Year last week, but that doesn’t mean we’re done partying. In fact, Madrid is hosting the ninth edition of China Taste, a month-long gastronomic festival bringing together 24 top Chinese restaurants across Madrid to celebrate the Year of the Horse.

Each restaurant offers a special menu or dish inspired by Lunar New Year traditions, giving you the perfect excuse to explore everything from fiery Sichuan flavors to delicate Cantonese classics.
And it’s not just about food; there’s meaning behind every bite. In Chinese culture, the New Year reunion dinner is the most important meal of the year, symbolising prosperity, longevity, and good fortune.
Some of the dishes include whole fish (unity), long noodles (long life), dumplings, and other traditional delicacies reimagined for the occasion.
We know that for some of you, making it all the way to Usera (Madrid’s Chinatown) is cause for anxiety. So before you go all Kim Kardashian on us, asking if it’s “safe to be there 😭”, let us tell you the good news: some of these restaurants are in the Centro area. You’re welcome.

Oh, and there’s also a solidarity angle: for every special menu sold, a donation goes to the Red Cross.

🖥️ What: China Taste 2026

📍 Where: 24 participating restaurants across Madrid

📅 When: Through March 3

🎟 Prices vary by restaurant (special set menus available)

2.🤤 The reopening of the Mercado de San Miguel

In the immortal words of contemporary mean girl Madison Montgomery: Surprise, bitch. That’s right, after being closed for renovations for some time, one of Madrid’s most iconic ~~tourist traps~~ culinary landmarks reopened this week and it’s ready to be busy.

Oh, we kid. The Mercado de San Miguel was inaugurated in 1916 as a traditional food market and one of the city’s best examples of iron architecture. But it exploded in popularity in 2009, when it became the first gastronomic market in the city.
Located just steps from ~~another tourist trap~~ Plaza Mayor, it now attracts more than 10 million visitors a year and remains a temple of Spanish produce under one elegant glass-and-iron roof.
Inside, you’ll find more than 30 stalls showcasing top-quality ingredients from across Spain: Galician seafood, Iberian ham, artisan cheeses, rice dishes, tortillas, smoked fish, vermouth, pastries, and more.
Big culinary names that you probably never heard of are part of the draw, including Joan Roca’s Rocambolesc ice cream, Rodrigo de la Calle’s paellas, and Arzábal’s classic Madrid-style tapas.

So yes, it’s one of the city’s most touristed spots. But if you time it right and go in with a strategy (lap first, order second), it’s still one of the easiest ways to taste Spain in one sitting.

🖥️ What: Reopening of Mercado de San Miguel

📍 Where: Plaza de San Miguel s/n, Madrid

📅 When: It just re-opened!

🎟 Tickets start at: Free entry, but you must pay for the food inside, or you’ll get kicked out and/or arrested.

3.🎨 From Heaven to Hell: Bosch’s nightmares return with a digital twist

Alright, so you’re on a diet because the summer is only four months away. Then let us offer you something darker (and stranger) than tapas and vermut.

The Fundación Juan March is presenting an exhibition co-produced with the Colección SOLO that places two small panels by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch (aka El Bosco, aka the guy who painted this) alongside contemporary works charged with surreal, metamorphic, and fantastical imagery.

The two paintings (Heaven and Hell) originally formed part of a now-lost triptych dedicated to the Last Judgment. They capture the moral satire, meticulous detail and delirious imagination that made Bosch a singular figure in art history. But the exhibition makes a bigger point: Bosch’s dreamlike logic didn’t die in the 15th century.

From André Breton (who saw in Bosch a kind of proto-surrealist) to today’s digital artists experimenting with AI as a “machine of metamorphosis,” the show traces a lineage of fantasy, mutation, and black humor that runs straight into the present. Medieval nightmares meet Fortnite on psychedelics.

🖥️ What: A la Manera del Bosco

📍 Where: Calle de Castelló 77, Madrid

📅 When: Through April 12

🎟 Tickets: Free admission

4.📸 Unveiling the gaze: Hoda Afshar at La Casa Encendida

If you’re looking for something more esoteric so you can look cool on Instagram, La Casa Encendida is hosting The Fold, one of the season’s most thought-provoking exhibitions, created by Iranian visual artist Hoda Afshar, who interrogates photography, power, and perception.

The exhibition stems from Afshar’s research at Paris’s Musée du Quai Branly, where she encountered an archive of thousands of photographs taken in Morocco by French psychiatrist and photographer Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault.
His images of veiled Muslim women (and occasionally men) were tied to his psychoanalytic theories about the veil and fantasy — and embedded in a distinctly colonial gaze.
In The Fold, Afshar reworks this archive for the first time in her practice, examining the legacy of Orientalist and colonial photography while asking a sharper question: who controls what we see — and how we see it?
Through silver mirroring, darkroom printing, digital animation, video and installation, she builds a layered response that connects past regimes of representation with today’s politics of visibility.

Afshar’s work consistently explores the tension between aesthetics and violence, knowledge and control. Highly recommended.

🖥️ What: The Fold by Hoda Afshar

📍 Where: La Casa Encendida (Sala A), Ronda de Valencia 2, Madrid

📅 When: Through April 26

🎟 Tickets: Free admission

5.💃🏻 Flamenco, pushed to the edge: Jesús Carmona’s Tentativo at Matadero

You think you know flamenco? Jesús Carmona is here to challenge you. Centro Danza Matadero hosts Tentativo (Basado en paisajes reales), the latest creation by the National Dance Prize-winning bailaor and choreographer.

Performed by his company, the piece is an exploration of identity, vulnerability and the limits of movement, all through the evolving language of contemporary flamenco.
Carmona, one of the most innovative figures in today’s dance scene, blends technical precision with emotional intensity. In Tentativo, he turns inward, questioning what it means to be a bailaor while opening flamenco to dialogue with other disciplines and soundscapes.

With an international career that includes stages like Sadler’s Wells in London and New York City Center, Carmona is synonymous with global experience, but the raw power remains deeply rooted in flamenco tradition.

🖥️ What: Tentativo (Basado en paisajes reales) by Jesús Carmona

📍 Where: Centro Danza Matadero (Nave 11), Paseo de la Chopera 14, Madrid

📅 When: Through March 8 (Wednesday to Sunday performances)

🎟 Tickets start at €27

📺 What to watch if you’re staying in this weekend…

🖥️ What: Singular | Movie | 2025

📍Where to watch: HBO Max

❓What’s it about: Twelve years after their son's death, Diana and Martín reunite for a weekend at their old lake house. She's an AI specialist; he lives in seclusion. When a mysterious young man appears, old secrets and new suspicions emerge.

🤩 Why you should watch: Because it’s Spain’s most direct, intimate answer to the AI anxiety we’ve all been quietly absorbing since Black Mirror, and this time, it hits closer to home. It starts tense and elegant, and while the plot eventually loops and overstretches its central idea, Singular captures something unsettlingly current: the feeling that the future we feared is no longer theoretical.

💬 English Subtitles: No.

💃🏻 Places to try this weekend…

🍦 Colosso Gelato: Madrid’s creamiest obsession

What’s it about: Colosso Gelato, in Plaza de Santa Bárbara (Alonso Martínez), is serving authentic Italian artisan gelato made on-site under the direction of master gelato maker Julio Bertoni. Everything is produced in their own obrador, with Mediterranean-inspired recipes.

Why you should go: Because it’s proper gelato. Less fat, creamier texture, served at the right temperature, so the flavor actually hits. The pistachio is a must. The Dulce de Leche Colosso (with chocolate shards folded in) is dangerously good. Tramontana and the viral Chocolate Dubái are also standouts. Add specialty coffee and a prime central location, and you’ve got the perfect post-lunch, mid-afternoon or late-night stop.

Bottom line: If you love real gelato, Colosso delivers some of the smoothest, most flavour-packed scoops in Madrid right now.

Address: Plaza de Santa Barbara, 6, Madrid

🦞 A taste of Galicia in Retiro: Why O’Grelo still delivers

What’s it about: For over 30 years, O Grelo has been flying the Galician flag in Madrid’s Retiro neighbourhood. Get ready for top-quality seafood, fish, meats, and rice dishes prepared with traditional techniques and subtle modern touches.

Why you should go: It’s the kind of place that understands its product — and doesn’t need to overcomplicate it. You order pulpo con cachelos, empanada de vieiras, arroz con bogavante or merluza a la gallega and let the ingredients do the talking.

Bottom line: If you’re craving Galicia without leaving Madrid, O’Grelo is a reliable classic that still earns its reputation.

Address: Calle de Menorca, 39, Madrid

👨🏻‍💻 Viral Memes of the Week

😱 Therians everywhere!

📸 We'll never get tired of what a good idea Madrid Río was

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