"Under a taxidermied bull head in Antonio Sánchez, the oldest tavern in Madrid (est. 1787), Osorio wonders aloud whether—as local legend has it—patrons really flocked here after the Peninsular War to drink wine flavored with the flesh of a decaying French soldier killed by local gangs. 'It wouldn’t be the first time somebody hid a cadaver in a jug of wine,' he says with a wink. Ah, if only these chipped, tobacco-stained walls could talk. Azulejos (traditional ceramic tiles) peek out between cobwebbed wine bottles that teeter precariously on bowed wooden shelves. A carved-wood bar brims with bowls of olives and thick-sliced salchichón, a peppery Castilian salami. On the walls, portraits of bullfighters, painted by a long-forgotten artist, share precious real estate with sepia-tone newspaper clippings; a replica of an Ignacio Zuloaga sketch immortalizing the bullfighter Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, whom Lorca eulogized in one of his best-known poems; and wood panels bearing calligraphed menu items ('Specialties: Tripe, Dogfish, Squid, Doughnuts, Omelets, Fried Bread')."
