The best bar in the world is under your house
Because we all have a bottom bar of irrefutable axiom ; because my downstairs bar is mine and hey, it's the best downstairs bar in the world . Ok, yours too. You're right: all the bars below will always be the best in the world even if they don't appear in guides, even if they don't sweep Instagram, even if Paris isn't reflected in their windows.
the downstairs bar it is the place where the coffee has your name written without anyone painting it on the glass ; it's the bar where** they give you an extra cover** with a complicit look of “you, chitón”; it is the table that is always free even if it has to be invented; is the glass of wine with a splash more ; it is the milanesa with potatoes at five in the afternoon because “boy, you without eating you don't get up”.
The bar below is a refuge, it is a parish and amen, it is family and warmth . It is where you land after a long trip and, before going home, you show your suitcase to let them know that you have returned. So that they remember that tomorrow as always, in a glass and with cold milk. It is where you leave the keys in case the typical , where they keep your packages in the absence of a doorman, where a birthday that you did not aim for ends up totally, where they trust and trust you.
The bar downstairs gives a lot and asks for little, knows of your interested fidelity and that everything will end in a moving day . Because your downstairs bar is only downstairs while you're upstairs . Then you will go and it will be that again, a bar . And the nostalgia that you pretend will vanish as soon as you discover that another family impatiently awaits your arrival. New keys to leave, new coffees to prepare, that happy and nervous start over. Life.
Meanwhile, it's today, today, when your downstairs bar awaits you more than ever . He wants to see you there, he wants not to miss you for not showing up for days, he wants you to occupy that empty table and at eleven o'clock it's okay, all Cinderella. Do it, come down. And celebrate how lucky you are: the best bar in the world is under your house.
Alhambra Tavern, at number 9 Victoria Street in Madrid, the bar downstairs from Chus Lampreave in 'What have I done to deserve this?'