☔️ What's on in Madrid: January 30
Get ready for the Goyas while eating croquetas and torrijas.
Madrid | Issue #130
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Here Are 5 Things to Do in Madrid This Weekend
It’s Friday again!
Rainy weekends in Madrid can go two ways: staying in and doomscrolling about 🧊 and the current state of the world, or leaning into the city and letting it do the work for you.
This one looks firmly set to be wet, grey, and very Madrid in the winter. But we have the best antidote: good food, warm interiors, dark cinemas, theatre seats, exhibitions you can lose track of time in.
From comfort food elevated to obsession, to films everyone will be talking about in a few weeks, to culture that demands effort, consider this your short, sharp guide to making the most of a rainy Madrid weekend.
And if your Weather app says it will be sunny tomorrow… don’t trust it.
Happy weekend!
1.🎬 Catch the Goya 2026 nominees on the big screen before the awards
Want to understand where Spanish cinema is right now? This weekend is a very good place to start. The local film industry is gearing up for the Goya Awards 2026 (Spain’s version of the Oscars). The Goyas are awarded annually by the Spanish Film Academy, and they recognize the best films, directors, actors, and technical achievements of the year.
As part of the run-up to the ceremony (which takes place on Feb. 28 in Barcelona) the Sala Berlanga is having its traditional Goya warm-up cycle and is giving audiences the chance to watch a wide selection of nominated films in cinemas, at really low prices, before the ceremony takes place.
This weekend’s program brings together animation, intimate drama, and some of the strongest contenders for the prizes.
Friday, Jan. 30
El tesoro de Barracuda
One of the animated films competing this year, showing how Spanish animation continues to expand beyond children’s cinema into visually ambitious storytelling.
La buena letra
Directed by Celia Rico Clavellino, this is quiet, carefully observed cinema, centered on memory, family and emotional inheritance. A good example of the intimate, literary strand that remains one of Spanish cinema’s strengths.
Sirat, which is also nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars, is also screening today but is already sold out :(
Saturday, Jan. 31
Norbert
Another animation nominee, confirming the strong presence of the genre in this year’s Goyas.
Maspalomas
From Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi, Maspalomas has picked up nine nominations and stands out for its emotional depth and careful storytelling. One of the films most likely to feature prominently on awards night.
If you want to arrive at the Goyas knowing what deserves applause (and what doesn’t) this is the cheapest and most enjoyable way to do it (also, Susan Sarandon is coming!).
🖥️ What: Goya Screenings at the Sala Berlanga
📍 Where: Sala Berlanga, Calle de Andrés Mellado, 53, Madrid.
📅 When: Through Feb. 14
🎟 Tickets: €3,50
2. 🤤 Hungry? Enjoy Spain’s best croqueta de jamón and the best torrija in the world
Look. It’s gonna rain for the next 10 days or so (except maybe tomorrow). So if your idea of a perfect weekend involves eating exceptionally well and indoors, we’re going to make things very easy for you.
Madrid Fusión 2026 (Spain’s most important international gastronomy congress) just concluded that this year, Spain’s best croqueta de jamón and the world’s best torrija are both here in the city. (FYI, a torrija is Spain’s version of French toast. So, like, Spanish toast).
The title of Spain’s best croqueta de jamón ibérico has gone to Salino, a restaurant next to El Retiro Park, where chef Alejandro Cano has turned a humble classic into a masterclass in precision.
The winning croqueta combines Sánchez Romero Carvajal ibérico ham with a silky béchamel inspired by traditional home cooking. It’s looser, creamier, and damn it, it's tasty. Technically flawless.
When you’re done enjoying that one, we hope you’ve saved room for dessert.
The world’s best torrija, officially crowned at the First World’s Best Torrija Championship during Madrid Fusión Pastry 2026, is made at Villaroy’s.
This is no surprise to locals. Their torrija had long been making waves. Created by Madrid-born chef Martín Martínez Villamor, the winning formula is all about restraint and quality: ultra-soft bread that absorbs without collapsing, and top-grade milk and cream that give the dessert depth and identity. Perfection.
One city, two icons, zero excuses.
🖥️ What: Spain’s best croqueta de jamón & the world’s best torrija
📍 Where: Salino (Menorca 4, Retiro, Madrid) & Villaroy’s (Calle de Maudes 11, Chamberí, Madrid)
📅 When: Whenever you’re hungry
3.🎭 A modern return of Luces de Bohemia at Teatro Español
One of the cornerstones of Spanish literature is back on stage and, to be honest, it feels… pretty timely.
Director Eduardo Vasco has revived Luces de Bohemia, the landmark play by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, in a new production now running at Madrid’s Teatro Español.
Written in the early 20th century, Luces de Bohemia is a foundational text of Spanish modern theatre and the work that introduced the concept of “esperpento”, a genre that distorts reality into something grotesque and exaggerated in order to expose its cruelty, hypocrisy, and injustice.
Valle-Inclán famously described it as holding society up to a concave mirror: the image is warped, but the truth is sharper.
The play follows Max Estrella, a blind, impoverished poet and archetypal bohemian artist, during the final day of his life. As night falls, Max wanders through Madrid with his companion, Latino de Hispalis. Their nocturnal journey takes them through taverns, streets, police stations, and backrooms of power, encountering characters who embody political corruption, repression, poverty, exploitation, and moral decay.
Sounds like a typical Saturday night for The Bubble crew, to be honest. The cast is led by Ginés García Millán and Antonio Molero, two familiar faces of Spanish stage and screen, who help deliver a devastating portrait of a society that crushes its artists and normalises injustice.
🖥️ What: Luces de Bohemia (in Spanish, duh)
📍 Where: Teatro Español, Calle del Príncipe, 25, Madrid
📅 When: Through March 7, Tuesday to Sunday. Check website for schedule.
🎟 Tickets start at: €6 to €22
4.🚫 NO-DO: An exhibit on how propaganda shaped Spain’s reality under Franco
Hey, Gen Zers! Here’s an exhibit on how Franco’s dictatorship, which some of you fantasize so much about these days, turned propaganda into entertainment and made it feel normal.
Filmoteca Española’s exhibition, “NO-DO. The World of Yesterday: Image and Propaganda under Franco” focuses on NO-DO (Noticiarios y Documentales), the state-controlled newsreels that Spaniards were required to watch in cinemas during the Franco dictatorship.
Shown before every film, NO-DO became one of the regime’s most powerful tools: tightly linked to authoritarian power, yet packaged as
sexistharmless news, spectacle, and escapism.More than 80 years after NO-DO’s creation (and nearly 45 years after its disappearance), the exhibition asks what meaning these images hold today. Were they simply crude propaganda? Or did their polished tone, optimism, and ritualised presence help shape how an entire society understood reality, authority, and normality?
More importantly, are they getting a reboot soon? (Although they would probably come in the shape of Elon Musk’s
brain-fartstweets).
But we digress. Rather than offering easy answers, the exhibit invites visitors to rewatch these films with modern eyes, questioning how audiovisual language can soften repression, rewrite history, and turn ideology into background noise.
🖥️ What: NO-DO. The World of Yesterday: Image and Propaganda under Franco
📍 Where: Filmoteca Española, Calle de la Magdalena 10, Madrid
📅 When: Through July 26
🎟 Tickets: Free admission
5. 🧳 Since we’re at it: Trace Spain’s exile through memory, objects, and letters
The Francoist dictatorship was marked not only by those who stayed, but by those who were forced to leave (and by what they carried with them).
The Casa de América hosts until next month The Wandering Body: Spanish Exile 1939–1975, an exhibition that explores the lived experience of exile after the Civil War through deeply personal materials: objects, letters, photographs, and memories preserved far from home.
Much of the material on display is previously unseen, focusing not on political history as abstraction, but on how people lived, loved, remembered, and held on to identity while living abroad.
The exhibit begins with documents disguised to cross borders illegally, followed by a narrow corridor where more than 1,500 suspended letters reconstruct the correspondence between a mother and her son separated by exile.
One of the most striking sections is a sound installation featuring six women’s voices, highlighting the central role women played as keepers and transmitters of collective memory.
🖥️ What: The Wandering Body: Spanish Exile 1939–1975
📍 Where: Casa de América, Plaza de Cibeles, 2, Madrid.
📅 When: Through Feb. 14
🎟 Tickets start at: Free entry
📺 What to watch if you’re staying in this weekend…
🖥️ What: Pelayo - Más Allá del Límite | Documentary Miniseries | 2025
📍Where to watch: Prime Video
❓What’s it about: A former instructor ventures into the heart of drug trafficking, exposing its dark reality as a global system that profits from violence. His dangerous journey reveals a silent war that can no longer be ignored.
🤩 Why you should watch: Because it offers rare, first-hand access to a real and ongoing conflict that usually remains abstract or distant: the global war on drug trafficking.
💬 English Subtitles: Yes
💃🏻 Something to try this weekend…
🌮 Madrid’s new taco obsession: why everyone is queuing for Taquería Puerco
What’s it about: A no-frills neighbourhood taquería in the Universidad area, just opposite Casa de México, serving proper Mexican-style tacos the way you’d find them in Mexico City: simple menu, zero gimmicks, no reservations, and everything made in-house.
Why you should go: Puerco focuses exclusively on pork-based tacos: pastor cooked on a real trompo, carnitas, their signature taco puerco, and rajas poblanas for vegetarians, with handmade corn or flour tortillas and proper salsas. Tacos are €4, generously filled, and capped at around 300 a day, which explains the constant queues and daily sell-outs.
Bottom line: If you want tacos that taste like Mexico (messy, bold, and deeply satisfying), this is one of the most exciting places in Madrid right now. Go early, don’t overthink it, and order more than you think you need.
Address: Calle de Alberto Aguilera 19, Madrid
☕️ Breaking Coffee: The Madrid café you’ll wish was your local
What’s it about: A cosy neighbourhood coffee bar that gets the fundamentals right: excellent coffee, a calm, welcoming space, and genuinely warm service. Breaking Coffee feels equally right whether you’re stopping in to grab a quick cup of coffee, settling in to work or study, or just catching up with someone over a carefully made drink.
Why you should go: Because this is one of those places where the experience is as good as the coffee. The staff (shout out to Walter) are consistently praised for being friendly, attentive, and genuinely passionate about what they serve. The menu goes beyond the basics, with standout drinks like the pistachio coconut coffee and pistachio mocha.
Bottom line: A true local gem: great coffee, great people, and the kind of place you end up missing after you’ve left.
Address: Calle de Pelayo 45, Chueca, Madrid
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🤙 Thank you, Chris Hemsworth
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Excellent curation here. The Goya warmup screenings at €3.50 are such a smart way to prep for awards season, and I had no idea Filmoteca Española has that NO-DO exhibit going on. Planning to check out that exile exhibition at Casa de América too since the suspended letters corridor sounds incredibly moving. Been meanign to get more into Spanish cinema and this gives a solid roadmap.