Lhardy, this is a traditional stew restaurant in Madrid

If from the Puerta del Sol you head down the San Jerónimo Race towards the building Congress of Deputies and Museo del Prado, you will have the opportunity to visit one of the establishments with the greatest history in Madrid, Lhardy restaurant.

El Lhardy restaurant It is located very close to Puerta del Sol, in the St. Jerome's Race 8., and reopened in October 2021 after the restoration carried out by its current owners.

This centenary establishment of Madrid It will already catch your attention for its façade of undoubted nineteenth-century style, as a sign that you are looking at a restaurant with a lot of history.

But that facade, in reality, corresponds to the Lhardy delicatessen, since the restaurant is located on the upper floor, and is accessed through the door that you see to the right of the aforementioned facade.

Curiosities history of Lhardy restaurant

History Lhardy restaurant in Madrid dates back to year 1839 , when the French chef and restaurateur Emilio Huguenin He came to Madrid from Bordeaux, where he lived, to open a restaurant in the image and likeness of the Café Hardy on the Boulevard de los Italianos from Paris.

To this end, he took the name of his new establishment, becoming known as Emilio Lhardy.

In its beginnings it was a typical restaurant French and game cuisine.

It was the time of romanticismo, when the exiles to Bordeaux returned to Spain after the disappearance of the absolute king Ferdinand VII.

But, also, Lhardy It was the first restaurant in Spain with features that are now common in this type of establishment, such as separate tables, fixed prices of dishes and written menus.

It was around 1880 when the decorator Rafael Guerrero placeholder image, father of the actress Maria Guerrero, redesigned the Lhardy facade Built with Cuban mahogany wood, which is the same one you can see today.

After the death of Emilio Lhardy, your son Augustine “Spanishized” his cuisine with the inclusion of dishes that are currently implicit to the Lhardy fame, As the Calluses and, above all, the Cooked, yes, with a special preparation that includes French blood sausage and truffled sausage.

At that time the Lhardy restaurant Madrid began to become a place where important developments took place. political meetings, with the assistance of ministers and politicians of the time.

These meetings took place in the so-called Japanese Lounge, which in its day was very frequented by the dictator General Primo de Rivera, and where the appointment of Alcala Zamora as president of the Republic.

After Civil War, Lhardy restaurant was famous for its evening gatherings, which were attended, among other personalities, by the painter Ignatius Zuloaga, bullfighter Sunday Ortega, Antonio Díaz Cañabate y Chueca-Goitia.

Nowadays, as we have mentioned, the new owners of the Lhardy restaurant, Coruñesas fishmongers, have carried out a major restoration of the establishment.

In a previous restoration, along with the historic rooms, three new rooms from the adjacent building were incorporated, which maintain the characteristic decoration of the period of the romanticismo, and which are known by the names of Sarasate, Gayarre y Tamberlick.

In sum, Lhardy is a traditional restaurant where you can taste a traditional and famous cooked, as well as some typical Madrid tripe, surrounded by a historical atmosphere.