AA
Share
There is not a single corner of Volcanes that does not evoke Nicaragua. The half-finished mural painted on the wall to the left. The blue-and-white flags used as table centerpieces. The guardabarranco (Nicaragua’s national bird) displayed alongside other national symbols on the wall to the right. The tangy, spicy aroma of the cabbage and carrot salad served with the fried potatoes offered as appetizers. And today, the sound of the marimba filling the air as traditional musician Emilio Gutiérrez—who traveled from Masaya to Madrid—strikes the first notes.
“I feel like I’m in Nicaragua. I feel alive. I feel among my people,” says Nicaraguan Milagros Pinel, known to her friends as Mila.
Mila is co-owner of the restaurant Volcanes, located at Calle del General Ramírez 14, in Madrid’s Tetuán district. A Nicaraguan migrant, she and her husband, Carlos Andrés Pérez—whom she met in Madrid, although both were born in Jalapa, Nueva Segovia—began their entrepreneurial dream 13 years ago.
The longing to return home, something only those who no longer live in their country fully understand, led them to create the restaurant. Carlos, tall and dark-skinned, learned to cook out of necessity. He left Nicaragua in 1997 at age 18, persuaded by neighbors who had migrated to Costa Rica and returned to their hometown on vacation.
“They told me to go with them, so I went along with the group,” he recalls with a smile.
In Costa Rica, where he lived for 11 years, he learned to cook to survive. He worked in restaurants and gradually developed a passion for what had begun as an obligation. In 2007, “tired of the routine,” he says, he migrated to Spain with the help of a sister. There he met Mila, a lawyer by profession, who had arrived in Spain in 2006 after losing her job. At the time, few Nicaraguans were arriving from so far away in search of opportunities their homeland denied them.
In 2006, the Nicaraguan community barely exceeded 2,000 people. By 2025, however, more than 93,905 Nicaraguan-born citizens were living in Spain, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).
Those early years were not easy, Carlos admits. Although he already had “experience” as a migrant—if such a thing exists—and even though Spain shared his language, there were words, phrases, and slang he did not understand, which made him feel like he did not fully belong.
“They would tell me, ‘Bring me a trina,’ and I didn’t even know what that was,” recalls Carlos, who initially worked as a waiter to survive in the new country.
The Roar of Volcanes
Their longing to return to Nicaragua, even if only through its flavors, led them to open the restaurant. They chose the Cuatro Caminos neighborhood because it was where they themselves used to walk around, unsuccessfully searching for the taste of Nicaraguan dishes.
At the time, there were no Central American restaurants—much less Nicaraguan ones—so they settled for fried chicken with rice found in an Arab restaurant or Dominican food that, even if it wasn’t the same, reminded them somewhat of home.
“It was pure necessity,” they say.
Using the savings they accumulated during their first five years in Spain, along with loans from relatives and support from friends, they opened Volcanes. The name refers to the chain of volcanoes that runs along Nicaragua’s Pacific region.
They decided to stay in Cuatro Caminos because many Central Americans visited the neighborhood’s call centers (places for international calls and remittances) and because the Nicaraguan embassy was located there at the time.
Soon the restaurant became popular within the Central American community, which shares many similar flavors.
“It filled up with Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Costa Ricans who also didn’t have a place to eat and who missed the warmth, the accent, and the customs of Central America,” Mila says while sipping a cup of coffee outside her business, because inside, the deafening sound of a marimba — that has been playing nonstop for about 20 minutes — fills the room.
“And it’s not only migrants who live in Madrid who come,” adds Mila, who keeps an eye on the restaurant’s tables. There have even been cases of compatriots living in the United States or elsewhere in Europe who take advantage of a stop in Spain to return home, if only for a moment, in this small corner of Nicaragua.
“I’ve met people who come straight in to touch the mural and say they feel like they’re in their country. Others tell me, ‘Carlos, this restaurant isn’t yours—it belongs to all of us,’” her husband says proudly.
The business has grown so much that a few years ago they opened a second location, in Madrid’s Ciudad Lineal district, at 1 Calle Movinda. Prices range from two euros for a repocheta to 18.50 euros for a “volcán,” a platter featuring assorted meats, gallo pinto, salad, fried plantains, and cassava.
“People come from far away because they want to reconnect with themselves,” Carlos adds. “Even though we don’t know our customers, we feel like brothers and sisters. We greet each other like family.”
All it takes is the first spoonful of gallo pinto to feel, if only for a moment, as though you are sitting at the dining table in your own home; the first sip of cacao drink with milk, or the first drink from a can of Toña—Nicaragua’s traditional beer—brings back memories of gatherings with friends, hot summer streets, the sound of cumbias, and the laughter at local jokes that need no explanation. In just a single dinner, one returns home, even though we are more than 8,500 kilometers away.
