Gourmet Experience, Corte Ingles Callao: extra info

I received a lovely comment from the blogger, Playa de Madrid. They kindly added the cool article they wrote on the new Gourmet experience at the Corte Ingles that went with their video. After reading the article which is in Spanish, I realized that this space has real history. And no, not the rich century upon century history that Spaniards readily have under their belt but a nostalgic remembrance of what was once a piece of Madrid in the eyes of a Spaniard. According to Playa de Madrid, the top floor used to originally be a large restaurant cafe and was even a Galeria Preciados when they were younger.  Funny enough, I remember that brand of department store as I was living there when this chain was about to be absorbed by the Corte Ingles. So, with its long term tradition of endearing waiters and hard core Spanish granny's, who incidentally used to always get the better cuts of meat whenever I went up against them at the butchers, the top floor had a thoroughly retro Madrileno atomosphere to it, where smoking indoors was acceptable as was nursing a cafe and a "tortita". 

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to tell you that Playa de Madrid elaborates on what it feels like to be up at the top dining in the new space and the benefits of using the spectacular terrace that wasn't available before. Oh, and you can apparently smoke outside too. So score one for the past and its bad vices. There's more elaboration on the several restaurants participating in the "autoservicio" way of dining.  Like I said, this ideaology is new to many Spaniards but with the caliber of food places, you can't go wrong like you can here at a Sbarro pizza. The scenic top floor views that are simply Madrid Majestic and that is not easy to come by in the heart of the city, so its worth a trip. Check out the Cafeteria El Corte Ingles De Callao post, check out the Playa de Madrid blog, and let me know if you need to translate!