Madrid is a city that resists the sofa: the culture is built around going somewhere, sitting down, and staying until everyone at the table has said something worth remembering.

And yet, some nights the sofa wins. On those nights, the question is not whether to order in, but what to order.

This list is not exhaustive, it is edited: these are the restaurants we actually tried and retried, grouped by what you're in the mood for, rather than by category. We'll keep updating it.

Mercado de Antón Martín + Plaza de Matute, via Uber Eats or Glovo

Yoka Kamada arrived from Japan and started with a two-square-metre stall in the Antón Martín market in 2007. Nearly twenty years on, she brings her smile to the stall and to the newly opened restaurant in Matute: it has grown through word of mouth into one of the most reliable Japanese spots in central Madrid.

Ramen is the obvious delivery order, and it works. The smoked eel nigiri and the butterfish with truffle are what people talk about, but those perhaps are better enjoyed at the counter.

For delivery, we would recommend the Yokaloka mixed set, wakame salad, spicy salmon / spicy tuna uramaki, the makimaki set, or if you feel like it - a ramen and some gyozas.

Just off Recoletos, order via Glovo

The menu is broad but clear: sushi, sashimi, and a layer of hot dishes that travel well. It leans slightly fusion, but stays controlled. Fish is good, rice is consistent and everything is built to arrive in shape.

For delivery we would suggest the rainbow tuna roll, add a couple salmon and toro nigiri and a side of ebi gyoza. Try the nigiri maguro tataki too.

It is one of the more reliable Japanese deliveries in Madrid.

Calle Zurbano 28, Chamberí, order via Glovo or their website

Monster Sushi spent years becoming a reference point in Barcelona before landing in Madrid, and it brought with it a considered aesthetic and serious technique: torched nigiri with precise caramelisation, rolls built with restraint rather than excess sauce, rice seasoned correctly.

The Madrid location at Zurbano has been consistently well-reviewed since opening, with a second location now at NUGA Castellana. Delivery is available and they apply the same attention to packaging that they give to plating: presentation is not treated as an afterthought once the food leaves the kitchen.

Order the nikkei selection. The anticuchero roll has made several people's short lists.

Malasaña, Velázquez, Recoletos, via Uber Eats and Glovo

Everything is homemade. If they didn't make it themselves, they won't serve it. The saj bread dough is kneaded fresh every day in their own production kitchen.

That daily dough is why the wraps survive a delivery journey where most wraps don't. Sirloin shawarma with tahini and pickles. Pork shoulder braised eight hours with hoisin and ginger. Sumac chicken. Multiple locations means reasonable coverage across the city.

Order the sirloin shawarma. Add a hummus plate with their homemade crackers.

Calle Humilladero 6, La Latina, via Glovo

The founders are Lebanese who moved to Madrid, found no version of their own food that satisfied them, and opened their own place rather than keep looking.

The name means "pavement" in Arabic, which is exactly what it is: proper Lebanese street food eaten with your hands, with arabic bread as the base of everything. Rasif Madrid Won a Repsol Solete in the Fast Good category 2023.

Alonso Cano 37 + Avenida de Filipinas 14, via Glovo

Two brothers from Naples who walked away from marketing careers to make the pizza they believed in, built around a dough fermented for 36 hours that comes in three versions: traditional, wheat and five-grain.

Since starting their delivery operation in 2021, around 2,000 pizzas a month have left their kitchen for people's homes. That number means the operation is rehearsed. The Filipinas location also does Neapolitan fried food: arancini, crocchè, fried pizza, which is the right excuse for a visit in person.

The Margherita tells you everything you need to know about the dough. The mortadella and pistachio tells you everything about their ambitions beyond the classics.

Calle Humilladero 16, via Uber Eats, with a stall also on the upper floor of Mercado de la Cebada

Attilio uses his grandmother Gemma's recipe for panzerotti: fried Pugliese parcels, lightly crispy, available in six flavours including the original and and a gorgonzola-nduja version with sobrasada from Calabria, plus a sweet Nutella version.

The puccia is a Salento bread sandwich: dense, toasted, filled with proper ingredients. Reviewers describe finding it by accident and coming back repeatedly. The orecchiette con cime di rapa, anchovy, garlic and breadcrumbs is the pasta to order.

If you order at home, get a panzerotto each and add a puccia.

There is nowhere else in Madrid doing Apulian food at this level, full stop.

Chamberí and Ópera, via Glovo and Uber Eats

Tamara is from Philadelphia. She moved to Madrid, found the bagel situation unacceptable, and fixed it.

The bagels are baked every day and the recipe has no real competition in the city: tender, properly crunchy, with that specific aroma that only comes from dough that's been boiled before it's baked.

On weekends they do challah French toast. The herbed fries are better than they need to be.

The chicken schnitzel bagel. The ‘everything bagel’ with cream cheese if you want the purest version of what makes these different from everything else calling itself a bagel in this city.

Via Glovo, pre-order 24 hours ahead, around €20-25 per dish

Dabiz Muñoz built GoXO around what he calls "gochismo ilustrado": imaginative home cooking with serious ambition behind it. Potato gnocchi with smoked chorizo de León bolognese and mandarin cream. Lentils stewed with prawns, mint and lemon butter.

Everything arrives in separate containers with finishing instructions, and a QR code where Dabiz walks you through the last steps himself.

One dish feeds one person properly. The portions are not polite.

You have to order the day before. This is not a spontaneous Tuesday night option.

Multiple locations, via Glovo and Uber Eats

The Frankie Cheese Bacon has been officially recognised as the best delivery burger in Madrid, and the Super format - double meat chopped daily, cheddar, bacon, Frankie sauce in a brioche that holds together, placed third best burger in Spain overall.

We know and realise it is a chain, yes, but an honest one with a genuine product. On the nights you want a burger and nothing else, this is the call.

Malasaña/Chueca, order by phone -
663 439 110

You could be sceptical about ordering a paella in Madrid, fair enough, but this is one of the few places where that scepticism doesn’t really apply.

We recommend ordering a full paella for 6 (115€ at the time we’re writing). Go for the Paella del Señoret, otherwise Arroz a Banda is the other great call.

They can bring it to your home, or they can deliver to a park (where you pick it up at one of the entrances and carry it in to eat with friends). It travels well and it’s delicious.

Mercado Barceló, 2ª planta, local 313, via Uber Eats and Glovo

A Korean-Spanish couple: Jiwoo, who grew up cooking in Seoul, and Gonzo, who was writing and directing in advertising, decided in 2018 that Madrid had no Korean food worth eating and opened their own place.

The counter inside the Barceló market is dedicated to bibimbap, mandu dumplings, kimbap rolls and Korean fried chicken: everything homemade, with organic produce, and a menu that changes.

The fried chicken in yangnyeom sauce has its own following. The kimbap with ibérico donkatsu is a genuinely unexpected combination that works. The delivery is through both Uber Eats and Glovo, and the menu is described as small, ambitious and always evolving.

Only eight bar stools in person. The delivery option is the more forgiving way to get to know them before you try to squeeze in.

What to order: The bibimbap with bulgogi, the yangnyeom fried chicken, mandu dumplings.

Calle Ave María 18, Lavapiés, delivery and takeaway direct

Multiple regulars who have worked through most of the Indian restaurants in Madrid describe this as the best of them, full stop.

The curries are the reason to come: tikka masala, rogan josh, jalfrezi -cooked properly, not calibrated for Spanish heat tolerance. Small local, paper tablecloths, entirely uninterested in aesthetics, entirely focused on the food.

The prawn madras is specifically good, full of layered flavour, with chunky prawns and fluffy basmati.

They do direct delivery and takeaway; confirm by phone (91 527 1787) as their online presence is deliberately minimal.

One note: there are several restaurants called Moharaj in Lavapiés -offshoots from the original. The one to go to is Ave María 18, which is where the original chef still cooks.

What to order: Lamb rogan josh, prawn madras, garlic naan, finish with mango lassi.

Glorieta de Bilbao, Calle de la Princesa, Gran Vía, via Uber Eats and Glovo

Neapolitan chef Ciro Cristiano built this around a simple idea: pasta made fresh every day, served at a price that doesn't make it an occasion. The result has been three locations in two years, all full.

The delivery version is intelligent: dishes arrive deconstructed as a kit with a QR code: Ciro walks you through the final steps, which is the right way to handle fresh pasta at home rather than sending it overcooked in a box.

The pappardella with Neapolitan beef ragù cooked eight hours, and the tonnarelli in a pecorino wheel with truffle and parmigiano, are the standouts.

The pecorino wheel presentation is a restaurant thing and doesn't come that way on delivery: they'll tell you so themselves. Order the ragù instead, which is the honest delivery answer.

What to order: Pappardella with ragù napoletano. Tiramisu if they have it on delivery that day.