Gay Bars in Madrid: Fulanita de tal

Fulanita de tal is a bar geared toward lesbians.  If you don’t possess feminine charms you’ll have to show up with a girl in order to get in, for the doorman is likely to refuse lone men admission to the place. It makes a fantastic alternative to Chueca’s mostly male gay bar scene, both due to its location (Justicia/Recoletos, a ritzy section where the new Marc Jacobs shop has been set up) and for its clientele.  Refrain from heading here belligerently drunk.  The bouncers (aside from being rather selective) have a system for allowing people to pass through the two doors in the entry that has been designed to prevent noise and music from Fulanita from entering the street and disrupting the quiet repose of the wealthy neighbors.  You have to enter a small vestibule and allow the first door to close before opening the second to get you inside the bar.  So if you show up to the bar squawking, you’re not likely to be allowed within its warm orange walls.

Don’t expect to do much talking and prepare to wince in pain occasionally as the music- fantastic, poppy, and modern- is played at deafening levels.

What the bartender/deejay plays is highly danceable and gravitates towards the 90s and new pop. The bartenders are difficult to get to, sometimes a bit haughty and represent, in this author’s opinion, a downside to Fulanita de tal.  The space is intimate- read ‘prepare to be sweat on by other people’- and includes a downstairs space adjacent to the bathrooms where you might be able to get someone to hear you if you’d like to talk. The unisex, Ally McBeal-style restrooms are painted orange and trimmed in stainless steel.

The hook-up factor?  Since the clientele tends to be clean well-to-do professionals, students and residents of the area, Fulanita de tal is an inspired husband-hunting destination and- if you can make yourself understood over the music- as a (short-lived) boyfriend hunting ground, it has been proven to be a success.

Expect to pay on weekends (10-11 euros), and to wait in a short line (5-10 people).

Fulanita de tal
Conde de Xiquena 2
Metro: Chueca or Colón

By Allen Ribblett