D’Fábula

This was another favorite place to eat in Madrid. We ate 3 meals here, 2 dinners and a lunch. The place is not a tourist spot, more locals come here. We ate all 3 meals outside, with a view of a small square with shops and apartments. The Mercado de San Miguel is a few minutes away. We were greeted by a wonderful and pleasant young lady. She was very helpful and gracious. The staff speaks English well enough.
We tried many dishes off the menu, both small (media-​raciones) and large (raciones). Some highlights: octopus croquettes; crunchy fois gras with a miniature mango ice cream cone; deer osso buco; suckling pig; scallops over asian noodles; 2 desserts– cheese cake made from Philly cream cheese, lol, and the killer dessert passion fruit mousse. I enjoyed the wines as well, especially the albarino by the glass.
Terrific.

First of, the food is really good — although the price is also quite a lot higher than other places.
Waiters were sweet and spoke English just fine.
However, D’ Fábula goes wrong in several ways. The biggest however is that we were charged for starters we did not order.
When the check came we saw a 2x2EUR charge and asked what it was since we didn’t order anything like that. Our waiter explained that the starters and bread were brought for all tables…
I ended up telling him it was disappointing that he did not tell us beforehand. He apologized, but did not remove the charge from our bill.
Charging customers without asking, and not removing the charge really fast when you realize they didn’t know is not worthy of a restaurant, especially in this price level.
A number of other things weren’t fully up to speed either.
I asked him to recommend a glass of white wine from their selection, where the most expensive was 2,95. He told us he would select a nice wine for us — which it also was. However, when the bill came that glass was 3,25. Not much, but I would have liked to know the price increased beforehand.
The décor and use of service is awfully taggy. They try so hard to be stylish that they lost all threads of style in the process.

Very pleasant place and away from all the crowd in the centre. Very local. Good food and reasonable price …

As tourists, we were practically attacked by the cafés in plaza mayor. We stumbled upon this and it appeared to be mostly locals. The food and service were excellent! We had a queso dish (mozzarella), a risotto, & a salmon dish. All excellent. Slight glitch w our bill — but I think it was an honest mistake as we had 2 servers.

3.5, Regulero. Me gustaria poder darle media estrella mas por el buen servicio y la fantastica terraza. Pedimos Noticias de nuestra tierra, una pasta crujiente rellena de steak tartar, el relleno estaba bueno y la tapa es original. Tambien pedimos las croquetas, que estaban reguleras. El mejillon tigre, regulero. El Risotto de Boletus, regulero. Alcachofas, reguleras y el cordero asado a baja temperatura, regulero. No tomamos vino ni postre. Salimos a 35/​persona. Creo que algun dia volvere por la fantastica terraza.

Tienen una carta bastante variada, con pastas, carnes, callos con garbanzos… (Sí, ese dato me parece importante). Sin embargo, lo que más me interesa es su carta de pinchos, que en Madrid escasea en todos los bares (a no ser que vayan de vascos por la vida) y se agradece. Los precios de cada uno rondan los 3 ó 4 euros. De los propios recomendaría el bocadillo de calamares o el mejillón con su concha comestible, originales y buenos. Y digo «de los suyos» porque también es posible probar los pinchos más famosos: el ganador a la mejor tapa de España (Noticias frescas de nuestra tierra), que es un rollo de periódico (pasta filo) relleno de steak tartar, ¡delicioso! y la mejor tapa de Madrid (mi favorita), que es del National Geographic Café pero aquí está deliciosa: «Planeta Marte» (buñuelo relleno de huevo poché, setas y jamón, ¡buenísimo! ¡y originalísimo!). Me encanta que a Madrid hayan llegado los pinchos, la verdad.