Why Madrid is the perfect party city

Madrid gets short shrift. Typically, visitors to Spain are distracted by other baubles on the tourist trail — Seville is the flamboyant heart of the party, Costa de la Luz is brilliant for beaches.

Madrid, on the other hand, is the capital city: historic, elegant, refined and a financial centre.

However this central Spanish city has plenty of mischief up its sleeve, too. I was in town for Mad Cool Festival, now in its second year, held in a park 15 minutes from the centre of town by metro. The site was a dreamlike fairground: a huge Ferris wheel watched over the festival and illuminated rings hung in the sky. Kings of Leon electrified a crowd that tried — for about 10 minutes — to be too cool for anthemic stadium-pleasers, and London girl M.I.A. slouched on to stage and sent the crowd into paroxysms over ‘Bad Girls’.

The festival didn’t start until sundown — though it ran until 4am and one bartender serving me described measures as an ‘ironic’ concept, rather collapsing any lingering suspicion that Madrilenians don’t know how to party.

Moreover, the festival’s schedule gave me ample time to explore the city’s grand boulevards and pinpoint other spots for naughtiness. You can certainly indulge a gluttonous side. A first evening’s stroll from our lodgings — the Hotel Puerta América, a madcap, futuristic design hotel — ended at La Tasquería on Calle Duque de Sesto, where my boyfriend enthused over the sweetbreads, lamb and plump baby pig tails — though as a vegetarian in central Spain, I was left mostly to the thrills of the wine list. The next day’s highlight was lunch at Tartan Roof, an almost never-ending meal of courses including gazpacho, salty prawns and pigs ears, washed down with plenty of Spanish cava. What’s more, it’s positioned on the expansive roof of gallery Círculo de Bellas Artes, high above the wide, ancient Gran Via, and offering 360 degree views of the whole city.