In Madrid, there are almost no bar bouncers left. There are still hoteliers, waiters, franchisees, and even “gastronomic experience managers.” But the bartenders, the kind with the strong arm, the white coat, and the look who checks to see if the customer needs another beer, are only two or three, from Lucio to Rafa and a few. … additional. But until recently there was one. And this person – or the one penultimate – was called Alfredo Rodriguez, the owner of the bar El Brillante, in front of Atocha, where the whole life of the city passes every two or three minutes.
The place doesn’t need marble or tricks. He had his steel and his lighted sign, and the clatter of his dishes, and his unmistakable scent: the scent of noble oil, clean and sufficiently reheated. Brillante was not righteous. It was a civic institution, a community of anonymous neighbors, but as Madrid as the Paloma Festival or the traffic jam on the M-30 in that pre-election year.
Alfredo inherited the invention from his father, who founded it in 1951, when Madrid still smelled of coal and hunger was no longer an empty plate. But it was son Alfredo II who turned him into a legend, by waking up early before sunrise and maintaining his pride in his work when others had resigned themselves to the automatic coffee machine. He defined himself without embarrassment or marketing as a “pub owner by profession.” And it was true: his goal was to serve, to listen, and to always have a clean gesture and a measured word.
In his kingdom, the cuttlefish was the prince, the shepherd, and the emblem. Pacific squid, chickpea flour, fresh bread and guilt-free olive oil. The squid sandwich at El Brillante was not food: it was a sacrament, a civil baptism into the asphalt ritual and upon arrival in Madrid, the first thing one saw after getting off the train in Atocha was El Brillante. If one wants to truly feel like a resident of Madrid, it is not enough to register; You had to eat your sandwich there, standing up, with a napkin and those other local sausages with cheese that you took as a shield against the hangover when the night was over.
And there was Alfredo, at the foot of Madrid’s most famous bar for fifty-four years, watching history pass by with an impeccable apron. He saw the station grow, governments fall, and fashions change, and he fought back without changing the price of coffee too much. In a time of algorithms and touch screens, he maintained an unwavering faith in humanity: he hired people over fifty, people with career, tanned hands and dignity. “Here you work with the head and the heart,” he said, and he achieved that. He then expanded the business to another location in Lucana, where the loudest people would stop and congregate at the bar with taxi drivers, manganites, office workers who were first in or lost people who ordered another kobata to devour the sandwich.
He died on August 30, 2021, at the age of 67, according to those who do not need to say goodbye. And on that day, they say, Madrid smelled a little less of squid and a little more of nostalgia. The bar remained silent for a moment – a rare miracle – and even the oil seemed to stop boiling as a sign of respect. He didn’t leave because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t take it anymore. It is worth noting that neither miracles nor battles made this city great: this city is what it is now because people like Alfredo Rodriguez believed in it. The hotel owner did not leave, but a way of understanding life remained. Who confuses work with calling, service with pride, and routine with sincerity. Last time I was there I met Rammoncin at the back of the bar. I realized that even though Alfredo was gone, Madrid had written his best memories in this bar. Because Madrid, without players like Alfredo Rodriguez, would just be a beautiful city. With them there was, and still is, a feeling of warm bread and shared sorrow.
El Brillante’s squid sandwich was not food: it was a sacrament, a civil baptism in the asphalt ritual.
Today, whoever approaches Il Brillante and orders his sandwich feels, without knowing it, the friendly shadow of the bar bouncer who still loiters around the bar, adjusting the tray, watching the squid pip and smiling from the other side of time. When you eat bread, you do not know whether you are tasting the taste of the sea or the taste of memory. But one thing is clear: in Madrid they eat squid sandwiches. Alfredo Rodriguez was one of those who made us possible. A statue of your legend, Mayor.
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