Venta Marcelino

A 1924 inn at the top of the pass

Venta Marcelino stands on the Los Cotos pass, at 1,830 metres, inside the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, next to the Peñalara car park and a couple of kilometres from Valdesquí. It has been open since 1924. It has two menus: the café menu, with breakfasts and sandwiches for anyone heading into the mountains early, and the restaurant menu, for a proper sit-down meal. Its website has webcams and a weather station for the pass, handy for checking the snow before you leave home.

What to order

Traditional Castilian cooking with fresh produce. Every day they stew judiones beans from La Granja with chorizo, and tripe Madrid-style. For meat, there is veal T-bone steak and suckling lamb chops; from the river, trout, either pickled or fried, with ham. The desserts are homemade: flan, rice pudding, custard and fried milk. The website links to the menus and the allergen information; check prices there.

How it works

It opens every day of the year, but it does not take bookings: tables are served in order of arrival. On a snowy Sunday the dining room fills up at lunchtime; if you are coming down from skiing or from Peñalara, eat a little earlier or wait until later. The website does not publish opening hours: if you are going out of season or midweek, call 91 852 19 24 or write to [email protected].

By Navacerrada, by Rascafría or on the 691

Take the M-601 to the Navacerrada pass and the SG-615 to Cotos, or the M-604 from Rascafría. The 691 bus from Moncloa stops at Cotos. On snowy weekends, the Cotos and Peñalara car park, with 250 spaces, fills up before 8:00.

It fits well after a morning at Valdesquí, as in the Sunday of skiing at Valdesquí, or after the walks that leave Cotos for Peñalara.