La Latina: Dinner Is a Migration

Madrid's ritual: dinner 10 PM, drinks midnight, club at 2, home at 6. Calle de la Cava Baja is where it starts — a street of tapas bars, each stop one drink and two bites before the next. Juana la Loca for tortilla with caramelized onion (people queue). Txirimiri for Basque pintxos on toothpicks.

The Metro runs until 1:30 AM and reopens at 6. The gap is designed to keep you out. Arriving at a club before 1:30 marks you as a tourist.