Come for the food, stay for the night: inside Bless Hotel, Madrid's latest hipster hang-out
It is not immediately clear, at the moment I step through the entrance of the Bless Hotel, that I have walked into a place designed for slumber. The broad thoroughfare of Calle de Velázquez outside, and the refined purr of traffic along it, has confirmed that I am in Madrid – in the well-to-do district of Salamanca, no less, with its chic boutiques, pricey real estate and easy access to the green lung of El Retiro park. But beyond this, in the warmth of what I expected to be the lobby, the visual clues are rather more confusing.
Directly in front of me, a circular bar is weighted with bottles of spirits; the ceiling above it adorned with numbers, boxed into alternating squares of red and black. Away to the right, a second bar is similarly stocked for action – although not, in this case, attempting to impersonate an upside-down roulette wheel. And all around me are tables where young urbanites are contentedly picking at plates of picoteas ("nibbles") – slices of mature beef carpaccio; shucked half-shell oysters, dressed with a cool sauce of cucumber and coconut. I am briefly perplexed. Have I come to stay the night, or have I come for dinner?
The answer is "both" – even though it takes me another two minutes to establish that the former option is a possibility. Finally, I locate the check-in area, which has been secreted into an interior chamber, away from all the first-impressions merriment. But even this concession to the rituals of arrival is pretending to be a library, the desk framed by an octagon of walls where shelves are laden with works of Spanish and Catalan literature – Les primaveres i les tardors by Baltasar Porcel; Cames de seda by Maria Mercè Roca. I hand over my details and take my key, though it still feels as though I have walked into a communal space with amusements that just happens to be a hotel.
“My first restaurant experience was similar, with a nice welcoming area for guests,” Martín Berasategui muses. “Behind that were the kitchens. They could be cold at that time. Or hot. The heat of the dining room would depend on how much we were cooking.”
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The surprise here is not to hear the voice of one of Europe’s culinary geniuses – a man who has long preferred the chopping board to the soundbite – but that we are talking in Madrid. Berasategui is Spain’s most decorated chef – he received his first Michelin star at 25, and has recently, at 58, earned his ninth and 10th (via the publication of the 2019 Guide). But he is forever tied, not to the national capital, but to his native Basque Country. His best known restaurants are there (Lasarte-Oria, near San Sebastián, notably), and in Barcelona and Tenerife.
But aside from a consultancy role with El Amparo, a shard of Basque and Galician fare in the Salamanca area that shut in 2010, he has had few dealings with the Spanish epicentre. This, though, is changing with the launch of Etxeko – the showpiece eatery at the Bless Hotel, to which Berasategui is lending his brilliance. “It’s great to come back to Madrid,” he smiles. “Bless is the first project I’ve wanted to collaborate on in this city in 20 years.”
The chef and the hotel are an intriguing alliance. He speaks of restaurants as intrinsic pieces of the community jigsaw, his ethos steeped in the life and lore of the Spanish north coast. He talks of fisherman hauling their catch to the kitchen door; of the local canteens where he learned his art – everyone eating together, no matter their profession or purpose.
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Bless, by contrast, is rather more affiliated to the world-view of the 21st-century hipster. It is a new brand, created by the Palladium Hotel Group – which, for now, comprises just two addresses (a second retreat will open in Ibiza later this year). It revels in the concept of “hedonistic luxury”, a buzz-phrase that plays out most noticeably (in Madrid) in the Fetén Clandestine Bar, a dimly lit underground drinking spot that comes with intricate mosaic tiling and twin 10-pin bowling lanes. This theme continues on the roof, where there is a small pool (rare for Madrid), and a sun terrace that is sure to become an Instagram staple.
Rooms are also on-message; exercises in minimalism where the mosaics of the basement are repeated on the bathroom floor. All the amenities you would expect of a luxury hotel are here – televisions boosted by state-of-the-art speakers, capsule coffee machines for that pre-breakfast caffeine shot. There are large beds, firm but comfortable, wrapped in pale linen. There are large walk-in rain showers. There are broad fireplaces where LED lights skilfully impersonate the glow of an old-fashioned fire (the heating system making the genuine article redundant). But as I settle in for the evening – admiring the sunset from the rear window – I am seized by the thought that I am not supposed to be here; that the bedrooms are for sleeping in – and that, at this hour, I should be downstairs, mingling.
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Etxeko is the most obvious reason to summon the lift. It lurks at the rear of the ground floor, distinct from the bar zone at the entrance. Perhaps, invisibly, a line is drawn. One that states that, while not short on style, the restaurant is very big on substance; a serious gastronomic landmark and a crucial addition to its master’s portfolio.
Berasategui dismisses my question as to whether this new Madrid restaurant has plugged a gap in his CV. “This was a project I couldn’t say no to,” he says. “But I don’t go out and look for specific projects in specific places.” On the contrary, his conviction sings loudly. It is there in Etxeko’s name – it translates loosely as “home” – and in a menu that speaks of his roots. There is a cold anchovy lasagne with Basque gazpacho (€17 [￡15]), hake baked in bacon, with risotto (€28 [￡25]), and pork trotters with truffled spring onions and mashed turnip (€22 [￡19]). Nothing on the menu costs more than €29 (￡25) – and, for extra emphasis, the food is eaten with clunky, chunky cutlery of the type you might find in a transport café. “My brand is not just gourmet dishes,” he explains. “It is the heritage of peasants, fishermen, country folk – everybody who has contributed to the food culture of the Basque Country.”
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Look carefully, and this warm nostalgia seeps into the rest of the property. Bless used to be the Gran Hotel Velázquez, a faded five-star that occupied this address between 1915 and 2015. The building has been heavily renovated, but ghosts linger: the slabs of ochre, green and gold Murano glass that once adorned the Velazquez’s meeting rooms, now redistributed around the ground floor, giving off an air of Twenties glamour; the central staircase, a retained feature, which corkscrews tightly upwards, its stairwell filled with light and elegance by the giant necklace of glass beads that hangs down from the eighth-floor ceiling. The latter is a spectacular sight – and, perhaps, a gentle hint that, just as Berasategui appreciates his origins, so does this hang-out for the modern traveller.
Read the full review: Bless Hotel, Madrid
Doubles from €302, room only; blesscollectionhotels.com
