Casa de Madrid

A luxurious, highly civilised B&B with 7 theatrically decorated rooms in an 18th-century building near the Opera House and Royal Palace

Madrid has more design hotels than you can shake a cocktail stick at. But if you’re after an intimate townhouse where you can relax in old-fashioned comfort, with deep-sinking sofas, hard-working gubernantes and cut-glass decanters of sherry in the armoire, you’ll have to look a little harder. Especially as the Casa de Madrid does not advertise itself at all: most guests come through word of mouth, and there are no signs outside the 18th-century palacio whose first floor it occupies.

Having finished decorating her Carmona hotel, the aristocratic Marta Medina restored this abandoned apartment in the late 1990’s, and her early guests were friends and performers at the Opera House just over the road. The homely atmosphere remains today, with just 7 bedrooms, or 6 when she’s in town (the Damascus suite is her Madrid pied-à-terre). She’s also responsible for the flamboyant decoration – geometrically stencilled walls, Romanesque murals, Greek urns in the salon – and each bedroom reflects one of the countries she has fallen in love with on her art-collecting travels.

Highs

• Staff can book restaurants, opera and queue-beating tickets to the Royal Palace a short stroll away
• The theatrical, antique-laden interiors are a colourful change from mono-chrome minimalism
• It's a great location,: you can walk to the palace, the Plaza Mayor and Gran Via; Opera Metro is 100 yards away
• This is not a hotel but a home, where you feel privileged and in-the-know (the only sign is a discreet label on one of the gate buzzers)

Lows

• This is a place of creaking, home-grown charm, not slick and shiny fashionability
• There can be (appetising) smells from the restaurant below, but joss sticks and frequent ventilation quickly banish them
• It's hard to find – make sure you have good directions and their phone number (provided when you book through i-escape)
• Two rooms are smaller, with no views
• Not for friends travelling together: all rooms are double-bedded