Senzone

The current insider favorite among Madrid’s food and wine elite, Senzone, at the new Hospes hotel in Barrio de Salamanca, brings together the unique talents of 27-year-old chef Francisco Morales—a protégé of avant-garde guru Andoni Aduriz, of San Sebastián’s Mugaritz—and his wife, Rut Cotroneo, the country’s brightest young sommelier. The restaurant’s muted minimalism—taupe hues; metallic scrims on windows—is in perfect sync with the understatement of Morales’s short menu. Each dish is a meditation on nature. A thin layer of sea urchin broth dotted with black charcoal oil veils a silken kohlrabi custard. A dusting of macadamias lends nuttiness to the squid, which is shaved into pearlescent, pastalike strands atop a pile of the world’s sweetest green beans. Cotroneo’s connections assure rare sherries and big-ticket, small-release Priorats.