SAONA, THE MEDITERRANEAN IN LANDLOCKED MADRID

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Restaurant Saona

Calle Ventura Rodriguez, 7
28008 Madrid
Metro Line # 3 – Ventura Rodriguez station
Buses C1 and C2, 001, 1, 2, 44, 133, 138

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Text & Photos: Margaux Cintrano

In March 2013, Group Saona opened Restaurant Saona on the Gran Vía, in the heart of Valencia. They expanded in both Valencia and Alicante. The arrival of the new-model restaurant came about in the Madrid Capital in February 2018 when The Group Saona and its founder Gonzalo Calvo were in the process of expanding throughout the Iberian Peninsula. Foodwise, the Saona restaurants embody the essence of the Mediterranean. This would be in allusion to the fact that Valencia, an iconic Mediterranean city par excellence,  is the cradle of  Group Saona’s.

To date, there are 30 Saona restaurants across Spain, each with a different interior design scheme to fit their individual locations.

The GUIDEPOST visited Saona’s latest venue last summer, on Calle Ventura Rodriguez in Central Madrid’s famous Plaza España area, where the minimalist, blonde-wood scheme, with a Japanese feel to it, awoke in us a Zen-like sentiment.

The Menu
The Starters included the boûche-sized croquettes filled with Iberian ham and the Coca–crossed as a Focaccia rectangular pizza covered with Burrata and cherry tomatoes. With Basil Pesto, it was simply divine.
For the main course, I had the Gilt Bream Tempura. Rose, Guidepost’s Executive Editor, had the amazing Duckling seasoned
with Japanese spices and Teriyaki.  Guidepost Publisher Daniel had the chicken breast in a French Camembert Cheese sauce.
The desserts were shared amongst us and included a blueberry cheesecake and a milhojas of fresh mango slices layered and filled with fresh cream and fresh strawberries.
Definitely an extraordinary lunch fit for such special occasions as the GUIDEPOST’s traditional rotating birthday celebrations.

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Note: The brick-wall background of  “Calle de Ventura Rodriquez”, overlaid in the featured image, is by Namoud Gorguis from Unsplash; the Madrid coat of arms is by Hiralder, CC BY-SA3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.