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Don Quijote Quick Guide to the Best of Gay Madrid

Best Bars

Make your way through the street Calle Pelayo right in the middle of Chueca, and pick any of the numerous bars along this street, depending on the looks and likes of its patrons! (For the Bears among you, don’t despair after having covered all of Calle Pelayo and not having found what you were you were looking for: You will find “HOT” just around the corner at Calle Infantas 9).

Best Pool

Take the metro (Line 10) to the station called “Lago” in the middle of the Casa de Campo, the big park on the western side of the city. Follow the signs to the municipal sport centre / swimming pool after getting off the metro. The swimming pool has a nudist section in its solarium.

Best Dance

“OHM Dance Club”, located on the Plaza de Callao 4 (half way down the Gran Via): DJs who know their job, Gogo’s who bend their curves, excellently danceable house / techno music, highly recommended on Friday and Saturday nights when it is open from 12.00 until 06.00, with a capacity of up to 1000. Dance your heart out with the crowds!

Best Drag Show

Gula Gula Restaurant: located on Gran Via 1, just 4 minutes away from don Quijote Madrid. The restaurant offers a drag show every night, food is buffet style and so-so, but not expensive and there is no entrance charge. See their website www.gulagula.net

Best Café Scene

Before you head for the clubs, have a cocktail in “Liquid” located in Calle Barquillo 8. Enjoy their music videos and the pretty and oh-so modern-and-with-it (they think) clientele! Website www.liquid.es

Best Books

“BERKANA”, located in Calle Hortaleza 64 is Madrid´s oldest Gay and Lesbian oriented bookshop, with a wide selection of Spanish and International books and Magazines. It is also a good place to pick up your free copy of “Shangay” the bi-weekly publication in Spanish with lots of information on movies, theatre, expositions and other cultural and leisure activities, places to go for good food, drinks and for making new friends.

Best Sweat

Sauna El Paraíso, Calle del Norte 15: A classic! What else is there to explain with a name like this?

Best Recovery

Museo-Chicote, Gran Via 12, is best known as a stylish, glamorous, retro-chic art-deco bar that serves excellent cocktails. The place was established in 1931 by Pedro Chicote, an ex-waiter from the Ritz Hotel with an abundance of talent for mixing great cocktails. Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, and celebrities of more recent vintage such as Pedro Almodovar and Catherine Zeta-Jones have all visited it. Museo Chicote is open from 7 am until 3 at night, and, during the day, serves reasonably priced food, while, after midnight, the place buzzes in tune with the rest of Madrid.

Best Fun

Selecting outfits at GLAM, which sells all a drag queen might ever need! Walk up Fuencaral street from the Gran Via and you will find GLAM after about 200 metres on your left.

Best typical Madrid Tavern

Bodega La Taverna, (located in Calle Colon 13, a very short street connecting Calle Fuencarral with the Plaza de San Ildefonso): not a typical gay nor lesbian oriented place, but since you will find yourself in this area anyway and will be hungry by now, do step in and sample their tapas, especially the home-made croquettes and tortilla (spanish potato omelette), which are in a class of their own! Open every day from 12.00 until 01.00.

Best Restaurant price/quality

“Bazaar”, (located in Calle Libertad 21). This restaurant boasts excellent interior design with very large windows to the street. No reservations are taken so come early if you want to be seated on the level overlooking the street. The interior design also applies to the waiters and waitresses who represent all colours of the cultural rainbow. Food is excellent for the price you pay.