Madrid No Frills

04/06/2026

Two sides of the same building📍 Entrevías

02/06/2026

In a neighbourhood where 43.5% of the population was born abroad, Lavapiés has developed one of Spain’s most diverse and dynamic food scenes – yet it remains surprisingly overlooked.

Here are my five recommendations for where to get amazing Bengali food in Lavapiés...

In a neighbourhood where 43.5% of the population was born abroad, Lavapiés has developed one of Spain's most diverse and dynamic food scenes – yet it remains surprisingly overlooked.

29/05/2026

As part of the Picnic del Barrio celebrations, the cinema at the Reina Sofía Museum will screen our documentary Soy Tribulete 7!

This screening will feature English subtitles, as requested by the museum, allowing tourists and international audiences to experience and understand the spirit of Lavapiés, the neighbours’ struggle, and the vibrant area the museum calls home ❤️‍🔥

🗓️ Saturday 13 June
🕧 12:30 – 14:00
📍 Museo Reina Sofía, Sabatini Building, Cinema
💬 English subtitles
🎤 Bilingual talk with the directors
🎟️ Free entry until full capacity
🔗 More info: https://www.museoreinasofia.es/actividad/elisa-gonzalez-leah-pattem-soy-tribulete-7

26/05/2026

Once upon a time in El Palentino 🩷

18/05/2026

It’s impossible to walk past Bar La Gloria, with its beautifully old-school sign, without sticking your head in. If the charming tiles and decor doesn’t manage to lure you in, the menu will for sure. It’s a very pleasant, chilled out no-frills bar in Prosperidad, where you can enjoy eavesdropping the older clientele over their glasses of wine, or watching other barrio regulars pop in to collect various raciones they’d previously ordered – as I did one rainy day at the start of last winter, when fulfilling the kind of of callos craving that hits when the seasons change.

I got to know the owner Santi, between him serving the occasional customer, enjoying a slice of birthday cake with a regular who brought some left over from his party the day before, and occasionally checking the the pot where he was preparing the next day’s callos. He first started visiting La Gloria as a customer, after finishing shifts at a nearby restaurant, and started working there soon after, around 1995.

“I’ve really maintained the essence of the bar I took over 12 years ago,” he tells me over the sound of quiet conversation and a 70’s film playing on a small TV, “People like it how it is and so do I. With how everything in Madrid has become more modern, there are much fewer places like this, and I’ve enjoyed keeping it like a traditional tasca.”

He’s not only talking about the character and how the bar looks – but also the food, which he takes a lot of pride in. “The fried aubergines are la reina de la casa, you can’t leave without trying them,” he tells me. “It’s the go-to order of the barrio regulars, and they’ll build the rest of their meal around that.”

The fried anchovies are also great, with a thicker, crunchier batter than how they’re usually done in Spain, and there’s an enticing selection of offal on the menu that I’m keen to work my way through.

My personal highlights include the fried lambs brains (and the joy it gives me to see them whole on the bar top), the gambas al ajillo, and the fact that whenever I’ve grabbed a bocadillo on my way to the Estadio Metropolitano to eat at half-time, Atléti have never lost.

📸 & ✍️ by Abbas Asaria
📍 C. de Ramos Carrión, 5, Prosperidad

17/05/2026

Foreigners living in Madrid are far too often excluded from the conversation about housing. In fact, we're often blamed for it. But Madrid's housing emergency affects us just as much as anyone else. That is why I've decided to create English subtitles for our film, to be able to involve everyone in this conversation, and host a Q&A in English after the screening itself.

🎞️ Join us on Wednesday 27 May at 8pm for an English screening of our documentary Soy Tribulete 7!

This one-hour film follows the lives of residents of an iconic Lavapiés block, which has been bought by an American investment fund who want them out. But, against all odds, the residents might just have a chance at winning ✊🏾

🎟️ Free-of-charge tickets available now on the website of Sala Mirador linked below!

👉🏾 https://lamirador.com/funcion?nombre=soy-tribulete-7-2026

📍 Sala Mirador, Calle Doctor Fourquet 31, Lavapiés
🗓️ Wednesday 27 May
🕖 8pm-9.30pm

13/05/2026

Secret traces of the old Vicente Calderón football stadium still survive in the names of many no-frills bars in the now-residential neighbourhood built in its place. Having lived in Madrid through the stadium’s peak, demolition and redevelopment, it’s impossible for me to not to notice them. But it also makes me wonder how much of this history has already been forgotten by the area’s newer residents. There are no obvious plaques, monuments or signs marking the site of one of the city’s most significant football stadiums in its history… only the no-frills neighbourhood bars quietly keeping its memory alive.

07/05/2026

My Dad once sent me to school with a small plastic bag of sugar cane. I must have been about seven but I remember that day so clearly. He’d chopped it up into the size of sugar cubes for my classmates to try and many of them loved it and asked for more until there was nothing left. Others were puzzled by the idea that you had to chew it for the juice and then spit out the inedible fibres.

Looking back, this was clearly one of my father’s ways of helping me connect with my Indian heritage by feeling comfortable doing so among my peers. He continued to send me to school with Indian foods, sweets and spices, each one accompanied by a story about India – about its flavours and its people.

Over time, those stories built a vivid geography in my imagination: tall sugar cane plantations, street vendors piling canes onto the back of tuk-tuks, like scaffolding, delivering them to market sugar cane grinders who’d press them until all their green juice had poured into a glass and they were bone dry. As an adult, I finally took my father back to India for the first time since before I was born. There, on the streets of Mumbai, I tried fresh sugar cane juice directly from the press.

The decade I have lived in Madrid, I had never come across fresh sugar cane juice until I stumbled upon a small stall in Mercado Maravillas a few weeks ago. First, I spotted the stacked sugar canes in the display window, then I saw Favian Lovo slowly pushing the stalks into the grinder. I ordered my first cup of sugar cane juice in the city and listened to his sugar cane story.

👉🏾 Read my full story on El País: https://elpais.com/gastronomia/2026-05-07/el-primer-quiosco-de-zumo-de-cana-de-azucar-fresca-de-madrid.html

01/05/2026

That’s me preparing for my panel at Bloomberg CityLab this week – also looking uncannily like my dad in 1970s Mumbai. This time, though, I’m in Madrid, standing outside the Prado Museum an hour before going on stage.

I screened a short clip from my documentary 'Soy Tribulete 7' to a room of around 100 mayors and some of the most influential urban voices from cities across the world. After watching, I told them a stark truth: Spain’s housing laws are not being applied in Madrid.

I pointed out that, over three days of discussions, dozens of panelists had spoken about housing – but almost no one had spoken about the people living through the consequences of the crisis, or the social movements pushing for change from the ground up.

In conversation with Dr. Hahrie Han, we spoke to a room of global leaders about what it actually takes to engage communities meaningfully – and how to support civic leadership that pushes upward, crucially not top-down solutions.

Madrid is a global city and the reason I was invited to speak at one of the world’s largest summits. This would never have happened in Newcastle, where I’m from, no matter how much I wish it would. I came here over a decade ago to work hard, to develop my career, and to try to make the world – and above all, this city – a better place for all of us. But as I take one step forward in my career, I take an equally sized step backwards. Why? Housing instability.

In Madrid, opportunity and challenge go hand in hand, and I often find myself right at that intersection. If the city’s housing crisis was meaningfully addressed, all of our lives would improve, and Madrid would be stronger for it.

I hope that message came through in my 10-minute panel, or even in the 49-second clip from my documentary. But I’d welcome many more opportunities to take part in conversations like this – spaces to talk about real solutions, not performative ones that serve individual interests, but those that grow from the grassroots and punch up.

24/04/2026

I’m so excited to launch the third screening of Soy Tribulete 7, this time in collaboration with DJ Jessy and El Elemento at nightclub Club 33 in Lavapiés! 🪩

🎬✨ One night. Two experiences ✨🎶

Join us for a special evening where our documentary Soy Tribulete 7 by Leah Pattem and Elisa González meets the dancefloor, alongside DJ Jessy and El Elemento, a collective of DJs with and without disabilities.

DJ Jessy, a former resident of the Tribulete 7 building – currently fighting to stay in their homes – and El Elemento have played at many of the neighborhood’s housing rights protests, supporting their neighbors and their homes. Well known in the area, she has performed in front of thousands during the summer festivals and is one of the standout protagonists of Soy Tribulete 7.

At 21:00 we’ll begin with the documentary screening. Seating will be available, but capacity is limited, so we recommend arriving early to secure your spot.

From 22:00 to 00:00, the space transforms. Lights down, volume up. DJ Jessy and El Elemento take over with an electrifying set full of rhythm, energy, and connection! No reservation is needed for the club session, and capacity increases – doors will remain open until full.

Come for the film, stay for the music, or experience both!

📍 Club 33, Calle Cabeza 33, Lavapiés
🗓️ Friday, May 8
⏰ Screening: 21:00 (tickets below)
⏰ DJ set: 22:00–00:00 (open doors until capacity reached)

See you on the dance floor, dancing for the constitutional right to housing! 🪩💃✊🏾

🎟️ Tickets 👉 https://www.eventbrite.es/e/proyeccion-de-soy-tribulete-7-con-musica-de-dj-jessy-y-el-elemento-tickets-1987823989062

Illustration of DJ Jessy by Eleanor Cowell and poster by Leah (not AI 😉)

Disfruta de la proyección de Soy Tribulete 7, con DJ Jessy y El Elemento ponen la mejor música hasta tarde!