Playing Solo closes its Madrid counter after four years
Luis Caballero serves the last dinner at his eight-seat counter in Malasaña on 26 September, citing physical exhaustion and the limits of a one-cook restaurant.
Playing Solo closes on Saturday 26 September, when chef Luis Caballero serves the last dinner at his eight-seat counter in Madrid's Malasaña neighbourhood. He announced the decision on the restaurant's social media and gave physical exhaustion as the main reason, according to Infobae.
The restaurant at Calle de Manuela Malasaña 33 worked like a small stage: one sitting per service, eight guests starting together and Caballero cooking almost alone behind the bar. The Michelin Guide, which lists Playing Solo among its selected restaurants, describes Japanese-inspired cooking with French and Scandinavian influences built on local produce, plus a shorter menu at weekday lunch.
Why Playing Solo closes now
A counter with eight chairs caps revenue however full the book is.
After four years, Caballero wrote, his legs no longer respond as they did, and new obligations made it the moment to end the project, Infobae reported. He was just as direct about the money: he said he always knew Playing Solo would not make him a millionaire, but he did not want it to bankrupt him either.
That arithmetic is familiar in small-format fine dining. A counter with eight chairs caps revenue however full the book is, while rent, produce and energy do not shrink to match. When the cook is also the whole brigade, the ceiling is physical as well as financial.
El Español listed Playing Solo this week among a run of closures in Spanish high-end dining, alongside Lúa in Madrid and Tohqa in El Puerto de Santa María. Madrid had already lost Michelin-starred Santerra and its game cooking this month, and in Barcelona Slow & Low swapped its tasting menu for tapas.
A first chapter, not a farewell
Caballero has described the closure as the end of a first chapter and suggested that a new one will follow for his cooking. He has not said where, when or in what format.
Until then, the last services at Manuela Malasaña 33 run until 26 September. For a room built around a single cook, the notice is short; the waiting list was always longer than the bar.
