Caja de Huevos Madrid opens with six broken-egg plates

Caja de Huevos Madrid has opened at Pelayo 35 in Chueca, the second address in the city for Enrique Valentí and a deliberately narrower idea than the restaurant that made his name: six plates of broken eggs, and not much else.

The opening date is the one detail the Madrid press does not agree on. El Español put it at 21 September; Gastroeconomy, writing on 18 September, said the following Tuesday. Either way the bar is trading this week, Tuesday to Sunday, from midday to midnight, closed Sunday evening and Monday, with a counter, an open kitchen and a dining area under paper tablecloths. Valentí calls it more than a bar and less than a restaurant, and subtitles it "bar de avituallamiento" — a provisioning bar.

The Caja de Huevos Madrid arithmetic

One technique, one format, a price that lets people come back on Tuesday.

The menu is built on six versions of huevos rotos, the Spanish plate of fried eggs broken over potatoes. One runs with aubergine, tomato and basil; one with chistorra; one with guanciale, pecorino and pepper, which is a carbonara in disguise; one with Iberian ham; one with lobster and garlic; and one with imperial caviar. Average spend in the dining area is about €35, more if you order the last two. To drink there is beer, vermouth and roughly fifty wines.

Carlos Valentí, the chef's brother, runs operations. It is a narrow proposition by design: one technique, one format, a price that lets people come back on a Tuesday rather than book six weeks out.

What Caja de Cerillas taught him

Caja de Cerillas opened in Chamberí in April 2025 with eight tables and a Monday-to-Friday service, and promptly became the hardest reservation in the city. It sits in the Michelin Guide's Madrid selection. Valentí has said he never meant it to be exclusive; eight tables made it so anyway, and the new bar reads as the correction rather than the sequel.

Before Madrid he spent some twenty years in Barcelona, behind Casa Paloma, Chez Coco, Marea Alta, Adobo and BarBas, which is a longer record of opening and running rooms than most Madrid debutants bring.

Chueca gets an informal counter in a season when the city is adding Nobu, Lhardy's café and a wave of Malasaña openings, and not long after Madrid lost a Michelin-starred game restaurant. Six dishes is a thin menu to defend. It is also very hard to get wrong.