The house
Manuel del Rey, 1956, and the names who played here
How a wooden cattle store in La Latina became the tablao every visiting flamenco name is said to ask for, and why the Michelin star awarded to its kitchen in 2019 sits on top of nearly seventy years of history.
Check availability ↗Milestones
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1956 | Manuel del Rey opens Corral de la Morería in a former cattle store in La Latina |
| 1956 | Pastora Imperio attends the opening night; La Chunga makes her Madrid debut on this stage |
| 1970s | Paco de Lucía is said to have played an early version of "Entre Dos Aguas" here before its 1973 release |
| 2006 | Founder Manuel del Rey dies; his wife, dancer Blanca del Rey, and their son continue the house |
| 2019 | The venue's restaurant, Corral de la Morería Gastronómico, is awarded a Michelin star |
| 2026 | The house marks its 70th anniversary, still on the same street |
A cattle store becomes a tablao
In 1956, hospitality professional and flamenco enthusiast Manuel del Rey bought a wooden storage warehouse in La Latina that had been used for keeping cattle, and converted it into a modern-format flamenco tablao. He named it Corral de la Morería for the neighbourhood it sat in — an area of Madrid historically associated with the corralas, the courtyard tenements the old city was built around. It opened on the night of 20 May 1956, at a point when the tablao itself was still a relatively new format for presenting flamenco to a seated audience rather than in a private juerga or a music-hall variety bill.
Who was in the room on opening night
The venue's own account of that first night names actress and dancer Pastora Imperio among the guests, alongside flamenco performers including Regla Ortega, Porrina de Badajoz and Salvador "El Chaqueta." A young dancer called La Chunga made her Madrid debut on the Morería's stage that same night — the beginning of a pattern that would repeat for decades: new names getting their first serious Madrid booking here before they were famous anywhere else. That opening bill is still cited by the house itself as evidence of how seriously it was taken from the very first night, rather than growing into its reputation slowly.
A stage where flamenco has been tried out, not just performed
Corral de la Morería's own history credits it as the stage where Paco de Lucía first played an early version of "Entre Dos Aguas," years before the piece opened his 1973 album Fuente y caudal and became one of the most recognisable flamenco guitar pieces ever recorded. Camarón de la Isla is said to have sung here at just thirteen years old. Treat both as house tradition rather than a dated concert bill — the point isn't a precise date, it's that the tablao has long been a place where new work got its first hearing.
The names on the wall
Over nearly seventy years, the venue's own account of who has performed there reads like a shorthand history of post-war flamenco: Antonio Gades, La Chunga, Fosforito, María Albaicín, Lucero Tena, Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, Manuela Vargas, El Güito, Mario Maya, La Paquera de Jerez, Lola Greco, Javier Barón, Diego el Cigala, José Mercé and Antonio Canales, among many others. Few flamenco venues anywhere can point to a guest list that spans that many decades without a closure in between.
2006: the house changes hands, but not families
Manuel del Rey died in 2006, and the tablao passed to his wife, the Córdoba-born dancer Blanca del Rey, and their son — who continue to run it. That continuity matters in a scene where tablaos have opened, closed and changed owners repeatedly since the 1950s; Corral de la Morería is one of the few originals still run by the founding family, which is part of why its own archive of who performed there reads as a continuous record rather than a story with gaps.
The Michelin star, and what it changed
In 2019, the Michelin Guide awarded a star to Corral de la Morería Gastronómico, the venue's separate restaurant — making it the only flamenco tablao in the world holding one. Basque chef David García, who had previously earned a star at Álbora and led the kitchen at the Guggenheim Bilbao's Nerua, took over the kitchen. The restaurant runs as its own booking, with four tables and eight covers, entirely apart from the tablao's show-with-dinner tiers — a distinction worth understanding before you book either one.