Madrid: Gold Gourmet

Gold Gourmet is the go-to food emporium for Madrid's best chefs.

Another good Madrid olive oil emporium (among other things) is Gold Gourmet, owned by Luis Pacheco Torres who started the family business in 2001 along with his wife and two sones. Madrid’s finest chefs come here for the edible orchids and roses as well as the spectacular selection of Spain’s finest fruits and vegetables—Victoria grapes the size of golf balls, white asparagus from nearby Aranjuez, pale green melons from Villaconejos.

While I chat with Torres, he hand-picks honeycombed colmenilla mushrooms (morels) from a box in front of the store for, he tells me, a “muy famoso” chef. It wouldn’t happen to be Sergi Arola, I ask him, the Ferran Adrià acolyte (of elBulli fame), whose growing empire includes the Arola restaurant in the Reina Sofía Museum and the eponymously-named Sergi Arola Gastro?

Luis just shrugs and smiles in answer to my question. Which I take as a yes.

Gold Gourmet, José Ortega y Gasset 85-87, Madrid.