Casa Botin

In the heart of Madrid lies what is considered the world’s oldest restaurant. It is called Casa Botin and it centres around an old wood-fired oven that has not gone cold since it was first lit in 1725. In it are cooked the house specialities: suckling pig and milk-fed lamb. The floor of the kitchen is lined with worn blocks of granite, kept hygienic by a layer of coarse salt that the brigade of chefs grind underfoot as they march between wood-fired burners and the oven, which is warm, round and covered in ornate hand-painted tiles. Its raised hearth has been worn down with nearly 300 years of meals passed over it to be cooked and eaten. The old oven has seen so much human activity that it seems to have gained a life of its own.