A Slice of Madrid for Less Than Three Euros
It happened by accident, as most great finds
I had just slipped out of the tourist crush in Puerta del Sol, half-hungry and fully aimless, when I turned onto Calle del Arenal. That’s when I saw it: a no-frills pizza shop with giant red letters screaming “PIZZA XXL €2.95” in a font so bold it looked like it had been designed with a paint roller and no regrets. No menu boards listing a hundred toppings. No curated playlist. No Instagram corners. Just pizza—and the promise of it being cheap.
Madrid, I’ve found, is not short on places that look like a deal but aren’t. Restaurants with English menus posted outside and prices that multiply once you sit down. You learn to be suspicious. But there was something disarmingly honest about this place, something unfussy and unapologetic. I stepped inside.
The first thing that hits you isn’t the smell of pizza (though that comes a close second). It’s the size of the slices. They aren’t slices, really. They’re slabs—cut from 60-centimetre pies that lounge behind a long glass counter. I pointed to a Margherita, and less than a minute later—about 45 seconds, if I’m being precise—it was hot in my hand. The crust crackled at the edge, the tomato had bite, and the cheese was gooey and stringy in all the right places. It tasted like something you’d pay twice the price for in a trendy part of town. It was €2.95.
I’m not sure if it was the pizza or the principle that won me over—the fact that it wasn’t just cheap, but honestly cheap. The kind of place where you’re not penalised for speaking English, not nudged toward the tourist set menu. As one reviewer had perfectly summed it up later, “No foreigner pricing tricks—just honest, tasty food at great prices.”
I ate the slice standing up, leaning slightly against the wall, elbow to elbow with a delivery guy, a university student, and two Italian tourists who were debating whether to get one more slice or call it a day. (They got one more.) There were no tables, just a high counter by the window and the constant whoosh of the pizza oven behind us. The music was loud, the staff friendly, and the turnover relentless. This wasn’t a place built for lingering—it was built for feeding the city. I came back the next day. And again, the day after.
Each time I tried something new—pepperoni once, bacon the next. The formula never changed. Huge, hot slices. Drinks for spare change: €1 for soda, €2 for Red Bull. The service was lightning fast, and the pizza remained shockingly good for something so affordable. Every slice reminded me that sometimes value isn’t a compromise; it’s a quiet kind of integrity.
Of course, not everyone will love it. There are no tables. The place doesn’t try to look good, because it doesn’t need to. One review I read later said bluntly, “Pizza good but the place doesn’t look good, neither has place to sit and eat.” Fair. But if you want a fast, filling, delicious meal for under €5—total—this is the spot. “If you are short on time or on money,” someone else had written, “this place is perfect. What else do you need?” I couldn’t have said it better.
And if you’re not near Calle del Arenal? No problem. I learned later that Antonia Pizza has a few other outposts across Madrid—one in Malasaña, another near Chueca, and a third somewhere around Lavapiés. Same concept. Same pricing. Same enormous slices. But there was something special about that first one I stumbled into. Maybe it was the surprise of it. Maybe it was the way the crust snapped between my teeth. Or maybe it was just the joy of finding something real in a city that, like all great cities, is full of performance.
You go to Madrid for the art, for the architecture, for the history. But sometimes, you stay just a little bit longer for a €2.95 slice of Margherita that reminds you how good simple things can be. The address of the Antonia Pizza location you visited is: Calle del Arenal, 12 Izquierda, Centro, 28013 Madrid, Spain. Go and check it out when you are in Madrid!