Come for the croquetas, stay for the stories: Madrid’s Rocablanca café-bar

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to Madrid

Rocablanca is a refreshingly unpretentious place on Calle de Fuencarral in Madrid’s trendy Malasaña neighbourhood. Around it, chichi boutiques try to entice big spenders with carefully curated interiors and opaque messaging, but this no-frills bar, which has been a neighbourhood gem since the 1970s, gets straight to the point. The simple menu is handwritten on boards in bold but slightly wonky lettering, with sandwiches, coffees, beers and hamburgers listed besides the star item: a chunky reimagining of that deep-fried Spanish staple the croqueta (croquette) that has earned legions of fans across Madrid.

Attracting locals and tourists alike, Rocablanca is a bright environment full of activity. The clatter of plates bounces off gleaming marble and mirrored surfaces, while crumpled napkins falling to the floor are quickly swept up. The ambience has changed little since Rocablanca was first opened two doors down in 1974 by newly-weds Fermín del Cerro and Cecilia Martínez. Back then, the bar was once part of a small community of shops lining an otherwise sleepy street. 

“I came here and rented a space that had been a milk bar. I started out with churros and breakfasts,” says Fermín. “The neighbourhood had a completely different atmosphere, it was another life. People knew each other [and] were long-standing neighbours; shops were institutions and everybody greeted you on the street. It’s different now.”

When I visit on a recent morning, I’m surprised to find the couple there, as they recently retired following their golden-wedding anniversary, leaving the business to their son Carlos del Cerro. However, they still pop in daily.

Delighted to share the history of his bar with me, Fermín takes me out into the street to point out where some of the old businesses were located on Calle de Fuencarral: long-vanished establishments such as the San Mateo hardware shop (established in 1925) whose catchphrase “Si no lo veo no lo creo” (seeing is believing) he still remembers well, and a restaurant that used to serve game now transformed into an upmarket hamburger joint. He even drags me into a shop selling novelty socks a few doors down, where he proceeds to sweet talk the young assistant into letting us see the storage space out back — the first premises he rented for the bar back in 1974. 

“But little by little, things started going downhill,” Fermín says of the economic crisis that roiled Spain in the 1980s. While the newfound freedoms after Franco’s dictatorship led to an artistic flourishing, jobs were scarce and many businesses struggled to get by. “We had some bad years then. Quite a few businesses closed,” says Cecilia. 

“Of course, it was the Movida Madrileña,” says Carlos referring to the period following the transition to democracy when Pedro Almodóvar and other emerging film-makers, artists and musicians gathered in Malasaña, earning the area a wild and exciting reputation. The artistic renaissance had a dark side: hard drugs like heroin were now freely available and crime soared. Addicts looking to score would gather in nearby Plaza de Chueca, — a phenomenon captured in Pedro Almodóvar’s 1989 Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Back then, muggings and burglaries were commonplace, and in the film, Antonio Banderas’s character Ricky is beaten up and robbed by a dealer. While the Rocablanca owners weren’t assaulted themselves, they say the bar was robbed at night on several occasions.

“There were about 15 drug addicts we knew of — they were around 20 to 25 years old,” recalls Fermín. “All those kids died.”

A change for the better came in the early 2000s with government subsidies to renovate local buildings, which attracted the buying power of the LGBTQ+ community. “And then came the gays, which made the neighbourhood change completely,” says Carlos. “Calle Fuencarral is the way it is, in part, thanks to that change.”

“The streets from Plaza de Chueca upwards began to change, with restaurants and stores opening. There was also a mayor who helped with subsidies for the buildings,” says Fermín, referring to Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, mayor of Madrid from 2003 to 2011, who oversaw the renovation of many of the area’s late-19th-century buildings that had fallen into disrepair.

Rocablanca, too, thrived in this period and by the early 2000s had expanded to open three locations on the street, and Carlos came on board to help out. Aged just 26 at the time, he had a few ideas about how to improve the business. Back then, Rocablanca closed around 8pm. He extended opening hours to around midnight.

“When I came, we started offering more food in the evening for a younger clientele: hamburgers, salads, and croquetas [with] an aperitif,” says Carlos. “My father wanted me to make them smaller. But I believed in that idea of a big croqueta, set out in a display case.”

Rocablanca’s unusually large croquetas, or croquetón, sit pride of place on the counter and are now famed throughout Madrid. Just €1.80 each, they come in six varieties that straddle the gap between innovation and tradition. Alongside the classic jamón version is a parmesan and aubergine number that injects a hint of Italy into the traditional Spanish dish. 

“I always wanted to create a vegetarian recipe, because there are quite a few vegetarians around here,” Carlos says, adding that he stayed up half the night perfecting the recipe.

Like any great croqueta, this chunky snack is coated in a crispy breadcrumb batter that yields to a wonderfully soft béchamel filling which can contain tender pig’s cheek (carrillera), garlic prawns or a traditional Madrilenian cocido: chickpea stew. 

Though customers rave about his creations, Carlos rarely surfaces to lap up the praise. Instead, the personal touch is provided by the counter staff, a gregarious bunch who are treated like members of the family. Loyalty to the business is strong among them, and one member of staff recently retired after 47 years of service — just before Carlos’s parents. 

The staff is part of the reason the business is still going. As property began to be snapped up in the increasingly gentrified area, the other branches of Rocablanca had to close. “We had quite a few years with high rents in Calle Fuencarral and we were considering closing,” says Carlos. “But we’re practically like a family, with people who’ve been working with us for many years.”

Luckily, the family had bought the current premises and were able to consolidate their position, closing the two rented venues — a wise move in hindsight, as Madrid rents are now soaring.

At the bar, Celia and Fermín are in their element, greeting the elderly clientele who sit at the zinc countertop enjoying their morning coffee and churros. 

“This isn’t a chain where everything is preprogrammed. Here you can come and say, ‘I want my sandwich this way, my toast that way,’” says Carlos. “People value that — to have someone in front of you who isn’t inputting your order into a machine. People come in to talk about the football match the night before, about politics, about everything.” 

Later, the atmosphere will be equally lively as the bar fills with hip young things clamouring for a caña — a beer poured with the huge foamy top traditional in Madrid bars — and, of course, Carlos’s blockbuster croquetas.

Rocablanca, Calle de Fuencarral 71, 28004 Madrid. Opening times: Monday–Wednesday, 7.30am–11pm; Thursday, 7.30am–11.30pm; Friday, 7.30am–12.30am; Saturday, 8.30am–12.30am. Website; Directions

This article is part of a new series on local gems: the understated neighbourhood restaurants that combine excellent, relatively affordable food with a sense of community. Do you have a favourite local gem? Tell us in the comments

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