The best rooftop bars in Madrid, and the hour to arrive
Madrid is broad, flat and low, which makes it the right shape for this. Eight rooftops compared on the view, the crowd and the bill, plus the two booking traps that catch people out.
The Circulo roof, which is the one on the postcard and still the best.Photograph courtesy of Azotea del Círculo de Bellas Artes
Madrid is the right shape for this. The city is broad, flat and mostly low, the light in the hour before sunset does something absurd to the terracotta, and there are around three hundred clear days a year to see it in. Get twelve floors up anywhere central and you can read the whole city: the Gran Via curve, the Palacio Real, the Guadarrama mountains behind it all with snow on them until May.
The catch is that a rooftop is the easiest thing in hospitality to sell badly. Most of these sit on hotels, most will charge you sixteen euros for a gin and tonic, and a few are selling the view and nothing else. So: which ones are worth the lift, what each is actually for, and the two booking traps that catch people out.
The short answer
- The view, if you only do one: Azotea del Circulo de Bellas Artes.
- The highest: 360 Rooftop at the Riu Plaza Espana.
- Dinner rather than a drink: Dani Brasserie at the Four Seasons.
- A scene: Oroya at The Madrid EDITION.
- An afternoon by a pool: Picos Pardos at the Bless.
- Least painful bill: Nice To Meet You at the Dear Hotel.
Azotea del Circulo de Bellas Artes
The one on the postcard, and still the best. The Circulo is an arts institution rather than a hotel, in a 1926 building on Alcala, and the roof gives you the definitive Madrid view: the Metropolis building directly below with its winged statue, the Gran Via sweeping away behind it, and the Palacio de Cibeles the other way.
It charges an entry fee, currently six euros, and it is the only one on this list that does. Pay it. Everywhere else is free because the drinks are the price, and here you are buying the view honestly rather than through a twenty euro cocktail.
It gets extremely busy from about seven. If the main roof is full, the Tartan Roof on the third floor is the same building, the same city, a lower angle and a fraction of the crowd, and most people do not know it is there.
360 Rooftop at the Riu Plaza Espana
The highest central rooftop in the city, on top of the old Edificio Espana on Plaza de Espana, and the only one where the view is genuinely the entire point rather than the setting.
You are properly high, it wraps the whole building, and there is a glass viewing deck that projects out over the edge. What it is built around is the view rather than the evening, it is busy, and the drinks are priced for the altitude.
Go for the first hour after opening, take the photographs, and have the actual drink somewhere else.
Picalagartos Sky Bar
Directly over the Gran Via, on the NH Collection, and the best of the Gran Via rooftops because it is on several levels rather than one, which means you can be at the rail with the traffic and the neon underneath you or back from it with a table.
It is a good compromise: high enough for the view, low enough to still feel like you are in the street rather than above it. Weekends are loud in a way weeknights are not.
Ginkgo Sky Bar
On the VP Plaza Espana, and the one with the different view. Most Madrid rooftops look east across the Gran Via; Ginkgo looks west at the Palacio Real and the Casa de Campo behind it, which means it gets the sunset rather than the light the sunset makes.
There is a pool up there, the cooking has an Asian lean, and it is more of a restaurant than the others. Book if you want to eat, and if you only want a drink go early.
Dani Brasserie, Four Seasons
The best food of any rooftop in the city, and it would hold its own at ground level. It sits on top of the Four Seasons on the Canalejas block, it belongs to Dani Garcia, who has held three Michelin stars, and the terrace looks north over the rooftops with the mountains behind.
The booking trap: you can reserve for lunch and dinner, but not for drinks. Drinks are walk-in only and subject to whether there is space, which on a July Friday there is not. If you want the terrace at seven with a drink in your hand, book a table and eat.
Oroya, The Madrid EDITION
The scene, and the most fun of the lot if the night is going that way. Peruvian, on the fourth floor of The Madrid EDITION three minutes from Sol, with the largest luxury rooftop pool in the city on the same level.
The other booking trap, and it is a real one: reserving a spot on the terrace requires buying a bottle in advance. Not a minimum spend settled at the end, an advance purchase. That is normal for a club and startling for anyone who thought they were booking a table for two, so know it before you ring rather than after.
Go on a weeknight in June or September. In August it is a different and considerably sweatier proposition.
Picos Pardos Sky Lounge, Bless
Up in Salamanca rather than the centre, which is the point: you are looking at the city from outside it, across the Milla de Oro, with an infinity pool and a great deal of space.
It is the one to spend an afternoon at rather than an hour. Non-residents can buy a day pass on one of the Balinese beds, in timed slots, which includes the pool, towels and some food and drink. That is an unusual thing to be able to buy in Madrid and it is the best version of this list for a hot Saturday.
Nice To Meet You, Dear Hotel
On Gran Via at the Plaza de Espana end, open to anybody rather than just guests, with a small rooftop pool and a long view over the tiled roofs towards the Palacio Real end of the city.
It is the value pick. The drinks are priced for a hotel and not for a landmark, it is less of an event than the Circulo or the Riu, and on a weekday evening you can usually walk in and get a seat at the rail, which at seven o'clock in Madrid in July is worth more than another ten metres of altitude.
Before you go
The season is shorter than the weather suggests. Most run roughly April to October, and several close or move indoors outside that. In March and November, ring first rather than turning up.
Go before sunset, not at it. Everyone arrives at dusk, which means the good tables have gone by then. Arriving an hour early gets you the rail and the last of the light, and you watch the city come on rather than finding it already lit.
Budget sixteen to twenty euros a cocktail at the hotel rooftops and about twelve at the Circulo. Smart casual everywhere; a couple will turn away shorts and flip flops in the evening.
August is the wrong month and Madrid knows it. The city empties, the rooftops stay open and hot, and the good ones are in June, September and the first half of October. Three days in Madrid covers the rest of the trip, and the spa hotels if you would rather be by a pool than a rail.
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