MADRID (AP) — Within the coronary heart of Spain’s capital, Sobrino de Botín holds a coveted Guinness World File because the world’s oldest restaurant. Precisely 300 years after it opened its doorways, Botín welcomes droves of every day guests hungry for Castilian fare with a facet of historical past.
However on the outskirts of Madrid, removed from the memento outlets and vacationer websites, a country tavern named Casa Pedro makes a daring declare. Its house owners assert the institution endured not simply the Spanish Civil Conflict within the Nineteen Thirties and the Napoleonic invasion within the early 1800s, however even the Conflict of Spanish Succession in the beginning of the 18th century — a lineage that might make Casa Pedro older than Botín and a robust contender for the title.
“It’s really frustrating when you say, ‘Yes, we’ve been around since 1702,’ but … you can’t prove it,” stated supervisor and eighth-generation proprietor Irene Guiñales. “If you look at the restaurant’s logo, it says ‘Casa Pedro, since 1702,’ so we said, ‘Damn it, let’s try to prove it.’”
Guiñales, 51, remembers her grandfather swearing by Casa Pedro’s age, however she was conscious that decades-old rumour from a proud old-timer would not be sufficient to show it. Her household employed a historian and has thus far turned up paperwork courting the restaurant’s operations to at the very least 1750.
That places them inside placing distance of Botín’s file.
Shoppers and rivals
Each taverns are family-owned. Each provide Castilian classics like stewed tripe and roast suckling pig. They’re adorned with charming Spanish tiles, characteristic ceilings with uncovered wood beams and underground wine cellars. And each take pleasure in a wealthy, star-studded historical past.
Botín’s celebrated previous features a roster of literary patrons like Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Graham Greene. In his e-book “The Sun Also Rises,” Ernest Hemingway described it as “top-of-the-line eating places on this planet.” Whereas Casa Pedro could not have boasted the identical inventive pedigree, it boasts its personal VIPs. Its partitions are adorned with decades-old pictures of former Spanish King Juan Carlos I eating in one in every of its many rooms. The present Spanish monarch, King Felipe VI dines there, too, albeit extra inconspicuously than his father.
However the similarities between the 2 hotspots finish there.
Casa Pedro was as soon as a cease on the one street heading north from the Spanish capital towards France. Its clientele is basically native regulars, like David González and Mayte Villena, who for years have spent each Friday lunching on the tavern.
“It wouldn’t change a thing for us,” Villena stated concerning the restaurant sometime securing the Guinness title.
Botín, alternatively, is a stone’s throw from Madrid’s famed Plaza Mayor, the place any day of the week tour guides are herding teams round city — and infrequently straight via the restaurant’s entrance door.
Antonio González, a third-generation proprietor of Botín, concedes that the Guinness accolade awarded in 1987 has helped enterprise, however stated the restaurant had sufficient historical past to attract guests even earlier than.
“It has a certain magic,” he stated.
Pretenders to the crown
The query then turns into: How can both restaurant definitively declare the title? Guinness gives its particular tips for the superlative solely to candidates, in line with spokesperson Kylie Galloway, noting that it entails “substantial proof and documentation of the restaurant’s operation over time.”
González stated that Guinness required Botín present that it has repeatedly operated in the identical location with the identical identify.
The one time the restaurant closed was throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as did Casa Pedro.
That standards would imply that eating places which might be even older — Paris’ Le Procope, which says it was based in 1686, or Beijing’s Bianyifang, based in 1416, or the 1673-established White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island — aren’t eligible for the designation.
La Campana, in Rome’s historic middle, claims over 500 years of operation, citing paperwork on its menu and in a self-published historical past. Its house owners say they’ve compiled the requisite paperwork and plan to submit it to Guinness.
A dream for Casa Pedro
Guiñales and her husband could not seek the advice of archives from the previous city of Fuencarral, now a Madrid neighborhood. These papers went up in flames throughout the Spanish Civil Conflict. As an alternative, they delved into Spanish nationwide archives, the place they discovered land registries of the world from the First Marquess of Ensenada (1743-1754) that confirmed the existence of a tavern, wine cellar and inn within the small city as of 1750.
Of their spare time, the couple continues to hunt for information proving that Casa Pedro certainly dates again to 1702, as is proclaimed on its partitions, takeout baggage and sugar packets.
However even when they dig up the ultimate paperwork and wrest the Guinness honor from Botín, Guiñales concedes that her restaurant’s quiet location makes it unlikely to attract Botín’s clientele in central Madrid.
“To think that we could reach that public would be incredible,” Guiñales stated. “It’s a dream, but it’s a dream.”
