Sobrino de Botín
The exterior of the restaurant in 2006.
The location of the restaurant in Spain
Restaurant information
Established	1865; 160 years ago (1865) (restaurant)
City	Madrid
Country	Spain
Coordinates	40°24′51″N 3°42′29″W / 40.41420°N 3.70796°W / 40.41420; -3.70796
Website	www.botin.es

Sobrino de Botín is a Spanish restaurant in Madrid.^[1] It is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest in the world, as it was supposedly founded in 1725 and has been operating uninterruptedly since then.^[2] This is just a legend, as the restaurant, then called ""Pastelería de Cándido Remis, sobrino de Botín", opened in 1865.^[3]

It seems that at the end of the 18th century an establishment known as "Pastelería de Botín" was founded in the Plaza de Herradores in Madrid. Its owner was José Puertas Sánchez, alias Botín, who died in 1847.^[4] After the death of José Puertas, his nephew Cándido Remis Puertas took over the shop, although only as a manager or tenant, as the property belonged to his widow, María Prado (who died in 1855), then to her daughter Juana Puertas Prado and, after her death in 1856, to her widower, Eduardo León. In 1865 Cándido Remis broke with Eduardo León and opened his own establishment, "Pastelería de Cándido Remis, sobrino de Botín", at 17 Calle de Cuchilleros. On the façade there is an inscription from the year 1725, which only proves the date when the stone façade was installed, although it is used as a commercial claim about the supposed antiquity of the premises. In the 1930s, Botín was acquired by the married couple Amparo Martín and Emilio González. The González family is still in charge of the restaurant today.

The original premises in Plaza de Herradores, known since the beginning of the 20th century as "Antigua Casa Botín" and which boasted of having been founded in 1620 (other legend), closed due to financial problems in 1936, although it reopened in 1939. It closed permanently in the 1960s, after the property and the rights to the trade name were acquired by the González family, in order to eliminate competition.

Apart from using the original recipes, the restaurant has also kept the flame burning in the oven continuously, never to be extinguished.^[5] The restaurant and its speciality of cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig) are mentioned in the closing pages of Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises.^[6] Hemingway's visits were most likely to the "Antigua Casa Botín" in Plaza de Herradores. Its other signature dish is sopa de ajo (an egg poached in chicken broth, and laced with sherry and garlic), a favorite pick-me-up with madrileño revellers.

The González family, together with local partners, opened restaurants under the same name as Botín in Miami in 1998, in Mexico in 2004, and in Puerto Rico in 2007, but none were successful and all were closed some time later. Puerto Rican actress Von Marie Mendez and her husband, Dr. Vicente Sanchez, in association with Sobrino de Botin, opened a restaurant in Ponce, Puerto Rico, named Botin. The opening of the Puerto Rican location was attended by several well-known celebrities, including former governor of Puerto Rico Rafael Hernandez Colon and then current governor Anibal Acevedo Vila, actor Braulio Castillo, Jr. and Mexican singer and actor Fernando Allende.^[7]

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