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CHECKING-IN TO | CABANA TRAVEL | WORLD OF CABANA
Madrid’s Gran Via is not synonymous with a sense of calm, but venture beyond the flashing billboards and crowds of shoppers - into a Philippe Starck-designed haven - and you’ll surely find it. Elizabeth Bennett checks-in to Brach Madrid, one of the most charming additions to the city's hotel scene in recent years.
BY ELIZABETH BENNETT | CABANA TRAVEL | 3 JULY 2025
With no sign above the door, it's just a window full of exquisite pastries that signals your arrival at the hotel, Brach Madrid. Masterminded by French hoteliers Evok Collection, Brach has brought a slice of Paris to Madrid with its in-house patisserie, which sits street level alongside a restaurant and bar in this handsome 1922 building.
The hotel’s 57 rooms are hidden upstairs, accessed with a discreet lift tucked at the back to whisk you one floor up to the candle lit check-in room. Brach’s design was placed in the hands of French architect and designer Philippe Starck who looked to 1920s Spain for its revival. It might feel calm but it certainly isn’t minimal.
Across the ground floor spaces, art is hung salon-style, books on art, poetry and philosophy line shelves and sculptural lamps light all corners. The palette of warm colours pulls it together. Burgundy hued Breccia floors sit alongside glossy chocolate tiles and tan leather upholstery is paired with pops of sunshine yellow glassware.
The restaurant’s menu is Mediterranean meets Middle Eastern with a number of dishes cooked in a Josper oven. The baba ganoush – prepared at the table by a waiter with a pestle and mortar – is one of the best I have eaten. After dinner, the adjacent bar fills up with Madrileños working their way through the cocktail list – the aptly named Gran Vía with mezcal, mint and rosemary hits the spot perfectly.
In the bedrooms, Starck’s imagination runs its wildest, conjuring up a fictitious couple from the 1920s as his starting point. The bed is framed with an illustrated map of a trip they took across Spain and is topped with a shelf full of ceramics collected on route.
Lying in bed, you admire a cabinet of their favourite belongings, including a ukulele, a cocktail shaker and a pair of boxing gloves, all of which are available for purchase after check-out. There’s even a large photograph of the couple staring down at you while you sleep – it sounds a little eccentric but it works.
Nods to the surrealists of this period pop up too: downlights that look like noses run along the skirting board while a moss green ceramic mirror in the bathroom appears to be holding two lampshades in its hands like hats. Meanwhile, extras such as the myBlend LED face mask available on room service and The French Herborist Sleep Booster placed on the pillow at turndown remind you this is a hotel with a very 2025 mindset.
This thinking continues in the basement spa, La Capsule, with its infrared sauna, ice bath and even a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. In this bright white, futuristic-feeling space, therapists dressed in space-age style suits guide guests between the treatment rooms and the indoor pool flanked by floor-to-ceiling white curtains and shimmering gold tiles.
It was the ideal spot to spend my last morning in Madrid, and leave feeling restored, ready to tackle the city, the bright lights of Gran Vía included.
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