Learned this lesson the hard way wandering around hangry at 7pm when literally every decent restaurant was closed or only serving drinks and olives. Madrid has this serious late dining culture where nothing opens for dinner until 9pm minimum and most locals eat around 10-11pm

The schedule is lunch 2-4pm then dinner 9pm-midnight or even later on weekends. If youre starving at 6pm your only options are tourist trap places with mediocre paella or grabbing tapas to tide you over until real dinner time. Honestly just surrender to the rhythm instead of fighting it

Mercado de san miguel stays open all day for snacks but its overpriced and touristy. Better move is hitting a proper taberna around 8pm for jamón and wine then doing dinner at 9:30pm like everyone else. Mercado de la cebada (thursdays and saturdays) has incredible produce and prepared foods if you want to picnic instead

If you absolutely cannot handle eating dinner at 10pm stick to malasaña or chueca neighborhoods where some places cater to foreigners with earlier service but honestly youll miss the real madrid experience. Embrace the late nights and afternoon siestas - thats how madrid works