Pike eggs

There, eggs are not eaten: we remember that. It is remembered as a well-spoken phrase or a timely silence. They come to the table with an insolent humility that needs no introduction because it’s just two eggs, fries and a yolk that brings the whole world together. Nothing more and yet everything. Pike eggs hatch with minimal ceremony. They blend together like a spoken truth, slowly and inevitably. There are those who say the secret is in olive oil (today terribly called EVOO); others say in the potato. The real secret is not wanting to invent anything, but at the same time reinventing everything. It’s about cooking the way we’ve always cooked, without bothering or coming across as a nerdy person who dreams of being an image consultant for each dish. Today, stylists operate in many kitchens and that is why Lucio and his eggs are a protected species of the best memory.

Additionally, their eggs represent harmony and happiness at its best. A plate without walls and without confrontations, a treasure against polarization and the baseness of those who seek to make us worse. Because entering Lucio is not just entering a restaurant, but rather a corridor of memory, a corridor through which politicians, kings, world stars, starving artists and hungover journalists have passed. And during all these visits, Lucio runs from table to table greeting, taking photos, breaking more yolks and making everyone sitting at his table feel special. The dining room doesn’t boast; observe. He has seen fashions, governments and regimes come and go. And he’s still there, with the security of someone who knows that what’s vital isn’t touched and I can’t think of another more important dish in the city of gossip and constant hustle and bustle.

The story of the restaurant tells itself, like stories that don’t need a moral. Lucio Blázquez started serving simple dishes and ended up nurturing a mythology. When you go to Lucio, no one is looking to learn something good: you come to confirm what you already know. Because a good fried egg is a form of consolation, a remedy for our wounds, an almost mystical moment that brings us back to all the secrets we had lost. Happiness, dear readers – it must be said to avoid confusion – is not usually presented at conferences, nor is it supported by Swedish studies. Happiness appears every Tuesday, without warning, on a flat plate. Happiness comes in the first serious action taken: breaking the yolk. This moment when yellow invades common territory is a life lesson that cannot be taught at school. Share without speech. Blend without the guilt. Stain the plate. Dip the bread. It all starts here.

You then discover that the problems have been reduced to two: that there is no shortage of bread and that no one has the audacity to ask you too many questions. Talking with Lucio’s balls in front of you is not a sin but rather an ordinary thing. The fried egg demands respectful silence – our secular church – and suddenly the world turns out to be reasonably well made.

Madrid is a squid sandwich, a tortilla skewer and a yayo served on a worn bar. Madrid is Puerta del Sol, Palacio de Oriente, Retiro and Gran Vía Street. Madrid is captive, night owl, suicidal and endearing. Madrid is all that, yes. But Madrid is Lucio’s eggs and anyone who hasn’t had the chance to try them doesn’t even know what Madrid is or what it means to be happy. It’s a bit like what Jabois said about Real Madrid: being happy is within everyone’s reach. Then the worries, the resolutions and the salad will return. But during this brief, intense and unique moment, we were happy without fully knowing it. It is the only serious way of being.