Garlochi Bar

When Miguel Fragoso opened his bar in 1978, he named it after a Rafael de León poem where ‘garlochí’ means heart in local Roma slang. Inside, crimson walls drip with centuries of Semana Santa devotion: statues of weeping Virgins, brass candelabras, the scent of incense, yet none of the religious artifacts were ever blessed or used in worship. The signature cocktail, Sangre de Cristo, mixes grenadine, whisky, and cava into something sacrilegiously sweet.

Fragoso, a self-described devout man, has kept the place open since June 15 of that year, adjusting only for Lent, when it opens earlier in the evening to accommodate the season. Uma Thurman once stopped in and left dressed as the Virgen de la Dolorosa, crown, mantle, and glass tears included, an evening still cited as the bar’s most photographed act of devotion. The register only accepts cash, a detail that seems less like an oversight than a small penance for anyone who forgets.