Ópalo Gastro Pub

It's been over a year since I last posted on this blog and I feel I should explain what I've been up to all this time. So here it is: I opened up my own bar with a friend. Well, not really a bar, but a gastropub.

Opening a beer spot in Madrid has been my dream ever since I tried my first Duvel. That dream has gone through different phases, from a simple beer bar when Duvel wasn’t readily available here, to a gastropub, now that good beer is everywhere, but not yet so much in restaurants in this city. It’s taken me close to five years of learning, planning and hard work to see this dream come to fruition. Now that it’s open, I can hardly conceal my excitement and happiness (you can’t see it, but I’m actually dancing in my seat as I write), aware as I am however that now the real work begins.

The creature's name is Ópalo Gastro Pub and, although still in its infancy, it strives to be the place where craft beer, Spanish food, American brunch, wine and cocktails all meet. A pretty tall order and no small feat.

The tasting room

We have 15 beer taps, 12 in our main bar area and 3 more in our tasting room, serving mostly local Spanish craft beer, as well as some European and American beers. The selection on tap is complemented by a couple of bottle fridges, allowing us to tap mostly beers that have a shorter shelf life and need to be drunk fresh off the fermenters (IPAs for example), while leaving the fridges for things that age beautifully (strong ales, trappists, sours, imperial stouts or barrel aged beers, for example).

One of our fridges

We also offer a wide array of Spanish wines, by the glass and by the bottle, ranging from cava and sherry, to white and red, from Riojas to wines of Cádiz. The effort we have given to the wine list was a conscious decision, having noticed that places in Madrid tend to concentrate on good beer or good wine, but rarely both. We felt that, just like craft beer drinkers find themselves occasionally in wine bars without good craft beer options, craft beer drinkers often go to bars and restaurants with non-craft beer drinkers and that, in a wine producing country like Spain, not showing off the local wines would have been a shame.

Ópalo is not only about fermented beverages though. Chances are non-craft beer drinkers like distilled alcohol, cordials, cocktails. Heck, even craft beer drinkers might occasionally opt for a little something on the side. With that in mind, we stock a full bar, offering shots, mixed drinks, cocktails and even a few beer cocktails (my personal fave is the Black Widow).

On the food side,  we decided that Ópalo should offer modern Spanish food with a few twists as well as an American brunch on Saturday and Sunday.

The dining room

This is why our regular menu boasts perennial Madrid classics like the bocadillo de calamares (or calamari sandwich, which we have revamped by adding sriracha mayo and honey to it) or the patatas bravas (which we make with kimchi sauce and ranchero aioli), together with more innovative dishes, such as our Iberico Pork and Foie Gras Gyozas over a Pumpkin Purée and Sautéed Mushrooms. Most of these are plates to share (tapas and raciones), but we have a few more hearty entrees.

Our taps

Our brunch menu is straight out of the southern United States and, more specifically, from Texas. Mouthwatering dishes like breakfast tacos or chicken and waffles, never before seen on a brunch menu in Madrid, have quickly caught on, after perhaps some mild initial bewilderment from the Spaniards, and are now some of our best sellers.

We also offer a prix fixe menu (what we here call a Menú del Día) for lunch on the weekdays, which allows you to choose two courses, a dessert and a half pint of beer or a glass of wine, all for €12.50. This gives us a chance to try out possible new dishes and our clients an excuse to have a beer with lunch on a weekday.

In case the above wasn't enough, we've also become hardened event planners. This is why you'll often find beer and wine tastings, tap takeovers, or parties (private or open to everyone) in our tasting room, or paired dinners, special menus and what we call Fusion Friday (basically mixing Spanish cuisine with the gastronomy from somewhere else in the world) in our dining room.

Our chicken and waffles

As I mentioned before, Ópalo's just getting started. We have a long way still to go to get to where we aspire to be, but the reviews we're getting on sites like Rate Beer, Yelp, or Tripadvisor, or the accolades as one of Madrid's best new brunch spots, are already making us proud and egging us on.

If you haven't yet paid us a visit, make sure to pop by next time you're in Madrid. You'll find us in 9 Calle Zaragoza, at the foot of the Plaza Mayor, right next to Puerta del Sol. If you can’t make it  though, don’t worry, like the proud first-time father that I am, I’ll make sure to talk about it once in a while in this blog.