The world’s oldest restaurant faces a challenge from another Madrid tavern that says its even older

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM
Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — In the heart of Spain’s capital, Sobrino de Botín holds a coveted Guinness World Record as the world’s oldest restaurant. Exactly three hundred years after it opened its doors, Botín welcomes droves of daily visitors hungry for Castilian fare with a side of history.

But on the outskirts of Madrid, far from the souvenir shops and tourist sites, a rustic tavern named Casa Pedro makes a bold claim. Its owners assert the establishment endured not just the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and the Napoleonic invasion in the early 1800s, but even the War of Spanish Succession at the start of the 18th century — a lineage that would make Casa Pedro older than Botín and a strong contender for the title.

“It’s really frustrating when you say, ‘Yes, we’ve been around since 1702,’ but … you can’t prove it,” said manager and eighth-generation proprietor Irene Guiñales. “If you look at the restaurant’s logo, it says ‘Casa Pedro, since 1702,’ so we said, ‘Damn it, let’s try to prove it.’”

Guiñales, 51, remembers her grandfather swearing by Casa Pedro’s age, but she was aware that decades-old hearsay from a proud old-timer wouldn’t be enough to prove it. Her family hired a historian and has so far turned up documents dating the restaurant’s operations to at least 1750.

That puts them within striking distance of Botín’s record.

Clients and rivals

Both taverns are family-owned. Both offer Castilian classics like stewed tripe and roast suckling pig. They are decorated with charming Spanish tiles, feature ceilings with exposed wooden beams and underground wine cellars. And both enjoy a rich, star-studded history.

Botín’s celebrated past includes a roster of literary patrons like Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Graham Greene. In his book “The Sun Also Rises,” Ernest Hemingway described it as “one of the best restaurants in the world.” While Casa Pedro may not have boasted the same artistic pedigree, it boasts its own VIPs. Its walls are adorned with decades-old photographs of former Spanish King Juan Carlos I dining in one of its many rooms. The current Spanish monarch, King Felipe VI dines there, too, albeit more inconspicuously than his father.

But the similarities between the two hotspots end there.

Casa Pedro was once a stop on the only road heading north from the Spanish capital toward France. Its clientele is largely local regulars, like David González and Mayte Villena, who for years have spent every Friday lunching at the tavern.

“It wouldn’t change a thing for us,” Villena said about the restaurant someday securing the Guinness title.

Botín, on the other hand, is a stone’s throw from Madrid’s famed Plaza Mayor, where any day of the week tour guides are herding groups around town — and often straight through the restaurant’s front door.

Antonio González, a third-generation proprietor of Botín, concedes that the Guinness accolade awarded in 1987 has helped business, but said the restaurant had enough history to draw visitors even before.

“It has a certain magic,” he said.

Pretenders to the crown

The question then becomes: How can either restaurant definitively claim the title? Guinness provides its specific guidelines for the superlative only to applicants, according to spokesperson Kylie Galloway, noting that it entails “substantial evidence and documentation of the restaurant’s operation over the years.”

González said that Guinness required Botín show that it has continuously operated in the same location with the same name.

The only time the restaurant closed was during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did Casa Pedro.

That criteria would mean that restaurants that are even older — Paris’ Le Procope, which says it was founded in 1686, or Beijing’s Bianyifang, founded in 1416, or the 1673-established White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island — aren’t eligible for the designation.

La Campana, in Rome’s historic center, claims over 500 years of operation, citing documents on its menu and in a self-published history. Its owners say they have compiled the requisite paperwork and plan to submit it to Guinness.

A dream for Casa Pedro

Guiñales and her husband couldn’t consult archives from the former town of Fuencarral, now a Madrid neighborhood. Those papers went up in flames during the Spanish Civil War. Instead, they delved into Spanish national archives, where they found land registries of the area from the First Marquess of Ensenada (1743-1754) that showed the existence of a tavern, wine cellar and inn in the small town as of 1750.

In their spare time, the couple continues to hunt for records proving that Casa Pedro indeed dates back to 1702, as is proclaimed on its walls, takeout bags and sugar packets.

But even if they dig up the final documents and wrest the Guinness honor from Botín, Guiñales concedes that her restaurant’s quiet location makes it unlikely to draw Botín’s clientele in central Madrid.

“To think that we could reach that public would be incredible,” Guiñales said. “It’s a dream, but it’s a dream.”