History of Lhardy

The famous Lhardy restaurant enters its third century of existence in the same house on Carrera de San Jerónimo where it opened its doors in 1839, when Madrid was the Court of the Queen Governess and the embrace of Vergara between Espartero and Maroto had just been sealed.

A great part of the history of Spain has been woven amid the elegance of these walls, beneath lamps that evoke the etiquette and solemnity of Romanticism, and around tablecloths that continue to underline the most delicate gastronomic refinements.

In this unaltered atmosphere, spurred by delicacies and libations, kings and politicians have been overthrown, republics proclaimed, new dynasties introduced, restorations, regencies and dictatorships decided. Time that passes and returns always comes back to Lhardy's dining rooms, to the intimacy of the White Room and to the oriental fantasy and colonial reveries of the Japanese Dining Room, to keep weaving the secret history of Spain. Above all, however, past and future merge in the wavering light of the famous mirror, where our images live alongside the shadows of the figures once reflected here, and we meet again so many friends from the aristocracy, the arts and letters, now departed.

In the mirror of Lhardy, as Azorín used to say, “we fade into eternity”; we step in and out of the beyond. To the highest heights.

Around 1880, the noted decorator Rafael Guerrero established Lhardy's new physiognomy

Among the historical associations Lhardy offers us, it is most interesting to discover the personality of its decorator, Rafael Guerrero, father of the famous actress María Guerrero. This precursor of a profession that would acquire such aesthetic and functional significance in our own age had emigrated to Paris in his adolescence, where he had the good fortune to learn the arts of furniture and decorative staging, until his fame reached the ears of Empress Eugénie, who took him into her service at the Tuileries. On his return to Madrid, Guerrero opened a furniture shop on Caballero de Gracia street, but his prestige rested essentially on his talent as a decorator.

The taste of the Second Empire, endowed with that haute-bourgeoisie elegance which captivates us once more, shaped the design of Lhardy's façade, built of magnificent Cuban mahogany as a symbol of what were once our overseas provinces. The shop's interior decoration, with its two facing counters and the mirror at the back, above the opulent console that holds the “bouilloire” and the fine collection of bottles, remains intact, just as Rafael Guerrero designed and executed it. The dining rooms, conceived as the Isabelline Room, the White Room and the Japanese Room, preserve the period wallpaper; the fireplaces, fittings and ornaments are cited in the works of Galdós, Mariano de Cavia, Azorín and Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Shortly after the decoration was renewed, in 1885, the famous dinners were instituted, so praised by gastronomy specialists such as Doctor Thebussen. The “diner Lhardy” was always exquisite, with fillets of sole à l'Orly, little duck hams, poussin with watercress and other delicacies of absolute novelty at court.

To this evocation must be added the magnificent French wines that graced the table. When Emilio Lhardy died, the dynasty continued with his son Agustín, a most distinguished painter and engraver, who knew how to combine admirably his artistic activity and the social presence of a true gentleman with the constant improvement of his business. Among his artist friends, the closest was Mariano Benlliure, who would spend long spells living at Lhardy, inviting personalities from politics, the aristocracy, journalism and the arts.

When the Civil War ended, the mirror of Lhardy once again gathered the images of eminent figures of the Spanish intelligentsia, some marginalised by political circumstance, others drawn by the desire to share their prestige and exchange ideas. The “consommé” that had once gathered elegant ladies, accompanied by a small glass of Tokay, now graced the evening tertulia, whose essential presence was the eminent psychiatrist and writer José Miguel Sacristán, impeccable in his dress, perceptive in his gaze and ironic in his speech, wielding pressing dialogues equal to the wit of his great friend Julio Camba. The painter Ignacio Zuloaga, the sculptor Juan Cristóbal, the bullfighter Domingo Ortega, the writer Antonio Díaz-Cañabete, the architect Chueca-Goitia, the Counts of Villagonzalo, the García San Miguel couple, the actor Enrique Chicote and other regulars made up those evening gatherings, spurred on by the marvellous medias combinaciones (half-and-half cocktails), whose secret flavour no one outside Lhardy could ever imitate. Almost all of them have faded into the farthest planes of Lhardy's mirror towards eternity, like so many others of earlier generations across the long voyage of two centuries. We too, and our children and grandchildren… shall pass into the most abstract dimension through those remote planes of the mirror; but, as in a sentimental bolero, our lips will carry the sweet and bitter taste of the medias combinaciones and, in our hearts, the memory of the admirable pléiade we have known at Lhardy.

LHARDY has jealously preserved its aristocratic and intellectual atmosphere for a century and a half. Contributing to that tenacious labour, after Emilio and Agustín Lhardy and his grandson-in-law Adolfo Temes, were the collaborators who went on to become owners of the house: Ambrosio Aguado Omaña, head of the pastry kitchen, and head chef Antonio Feito, together with their descendants and heirs. The dedication and courtesy of Gabriel Novo, José María García Salomón and Ambrosio Aguado, as well as of head chef and co-owner Frutos García Jiménez, defined very difficult decades, in which they often behaved with the most generous liberality towards some of their patrons — highly distinguished figures of culture and science facing adverse circumstances in the trials of the post-war years. That generosity, of which we have been witnesses, must be added to Lhardy's tradition and remembered always.

Since the end of the twentieth century a new enthusiasm has unfolded at Lhardy, driven by the energy of Milagros Novo and Javier Pagola Aguado, who are bringing the infrastructure up to date, perfecting every detail and raising the gastronomy to the greatest heights this house has known in its long history.