Casa Alberto opened on Calle de las Huertas in 1827. It has been continuously operating ever since - through two Carlist Wars, a republic, a dictatorship, a democracy, two property booms, one financial crisis, and the great Madrid vermouth revival of the 2010s that the bar quietly took credit for, since it had never stopped serving vermouth in the first place. The interior, the menu and the tap system look more or less as they have always done. The bar's identity is in what has not changed. Three things matter.
Casa Alberto is not in any meaningful sense hidden - it is one of the most visited bars in the Las Letras barrio, and has been for fifty years. It earns its place on a hidden-gems list because the longer-running version of the visit - lunch, the late-afternoon sobremesa, two vermouths, three tapas, then a coffee - is the version most foreign visitors miss. Go on a Tuesday at 2pm. Stay until 4. That is the visit.
