Madrid's most elegant residential neighbourhood, lying north of Malasaña and west of Salamanca across the Paseo de la Castellana. Chamberí was the first neighbourhood built outside the old city walls in the 1860s — today it is gentrified, tree-lined, and dotted with terrace bars and slow Saturday-morning cafés. The residents tend to be professional and left-leaning, the kind of neighbourhood where good bookshops survive and the local market is taken seriously.
Calle Fuencarral and Calle Fernando VI are the main commercial streets. Mercado de Vallehermoso is the neighbourhood's covered market, selling proper produce. The Chamberí ghost station — a sealed 1919 metro stop reopened as a museum — sits directly under Plaza de Chamberí, which on Sunday mornings fills with a small antiques market. Santa Bárbara and Alonso Martínez squares have good bar terraces.