Joy Madrid | Spain | Penélope Cruz Sánchez | food

"I can eat at the same time we do the interview," says Penélope Cruz, ordering lunch at a fashionable hotel in L.A. and encouraging me to do the same. But I can hardly keep up, as in short order she plows through fried risotto balls and a titanic salad stacked with slices of fried goat cheese.

Cruz is deservedly hungry. It's been a morning packed with meetings, yet another day in a career involving movie after movie since the 31-year-old actress first arrived in Hollywood a scant seven years ago.

Clad in jeans and a pink Chanel-esque jacket, she's part Audrey Hepburn elegance and all Carmen Miranda energy. Early in our interview, it's clear Cruz knows where she's going - and that she's going there fast. This month alone she's got two new releases: Sahara (an action/adventure flick costarring current beau Matthew McConaughey) and Don't Move (an Italian-language drama now opening stateside).

But we're here today to talk about her hometown of Madrid, where she was born Penélope Cruz Sánchez, the daughter of a merchant and a hairdresser, and a performer practically from birth. She was in ballet class at four and a professional dancer in her teens. By the time she turned 16, she was hosting a TV show for kids and auditioning for movies. She became a star first in Spain and then across Europe before coming to America for 1998's The Hi-Lo Country. By her mid-20s, with dozens of films under her belt, she began appearing on the big screen with a string of leading men, including Matt Damon (All the Pretty Horses), Nicolas Cage (Captain Corelli's Mandolin), Johnny Depp (Blow), and ex-arm candy Tom Cruise (Vanilla Sky). But today, in the hotel, she might as well be back in the city of her birth, which she still visits several times a year to spend time with family and check on her business, a clothing shop called Amarcord, named after one of her favorite movies. So sit back and get ready for a whirlwind tour through Madrid with Señorita Cruz.

Do you still have a house in Madrid?
Two. One is an apartment. It's the first thing I ever bought. I sold it to my sister and then bought it back. My mother said, "I don't want your sister to sell it to somebody else. It's the first house you ever bought." I thought, That's true. It means something. And it's a good investment. I should buy it back. It's in the Barrio Salamanca, which is a great area. Really nice and peaceful. Near the center of town, but more quiet, with a lot of great restaurants and nice stores, good shopping. My other house is my real house in the countryside, where I live when I'm there.

Where did you grow up?
In a place called Alcobendas, and also San Sebastian de los Reyes, which is 20 minutes outside of Madrid. As a little girl, I would go to Madrid all the time, shopping or going for a weekend. It meant we would have to take the Metro and the bus, and that was a treat for me. I loved going to a big mall or a theater or the movies.

Where did you go as a child that still exists?
There was a park, Parque de Atracciones, and going there was like the highlight of the year. It's like our Disneyland. Just go and do the rides and eat all the sugar you can find. The same thing you have here: cotton candy and caramelized apples. You eat all you can get from your parents, do all the rides, and go home crying from all the confusion.

Any other favorite childhood memories?
Prince played in Madrid when I was 14, and I was fascinated. I was speechless. Speechless! I never dreamed that I would get tickets to that concert, being so young. I just felt very inspired by an artist. I had seen a lot of opera and ballet because I had been dancing since I was four. I'd been a fan of classical music since I was four, too. I would sit in a corner of my house and listen. But this was just one of these days that you remember, that inspires you. We had a party afterward at a discothèque called Joy Madrid. That was one of the first times I went out and experienced the nightlife of Madrid.

What do you consider the must-see sights in your hometown?
The Prado. You have to see the Goya Room. You have to see one of my favorite paintings ever, the Bosh. You know this painter? He's called Bosh, but in Spanish we call him El Bosco. The painting is called El Jardin de las Delicias. It's sort of a dark painting and can be a little bit disturbing. But it's just incredible that somebody did that. Maybe you can look at it and see what I mean. There are only one or two paintings by El Bosco there. Some of the flamenco painters are there. There's one I love, but I can't remember his name. There is some Velazquez in there, but El Bosco's is the painting. You can look at it for hours.

Okay, where next?
El Parque de Retiro is beautiful, our biggest, most famous park. It has a lot of runners, a little lake. It's very near the center of the city. I love to walk around the middle of town. For someone who hasn't been, I would say go to the Plaza Major. You will see the spirit of the city. A combination of couples with young kids, magicians in the street, old women together. Good energy. Good people. [There are] a lot of painters in the street [at the Plaza Major].

I know you like to go shopping, but I'm told that as a kid you could only go twice a year.
We weren't rich, so we went twice a year and would buy whatever we needed. It was a big celebration that day. I like buying in my shop, and I don't give myself a big discount. People laugh at me, but I say, "No, I don't get the right numbers at the end of the month." If I buy, I pay.

Tell us about your shop.
It's in the Barrio Salamanca and is called Amarcord. I bought the place and decorated it with a decorator. I had a vision of how I wanted it to be: pink, with all wood, and a little bit of a vintage feeling, but also a '50s feeling. I just saw it in my head and wanted it to be materialized some day. The day I came in before construction was finished, that was a great day for me. Because I had seen it in my head, and we made it happen. The clothes we sell are from designers I've found on my trips. I discovered designers who weren't being sold in Spain, you couldn't find them in Madrid, and others you could only find in a couple of places.

Where do you like to shop besides at your own store?
There is one street, Ortega Y Gasset, that has all the boutiques, like Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana. For shoes, [Max Addict, owned by] Paz Vega. Her store specializes in shoes.

Say it's your first night back in Madrid. Where would you go to eat?
I would go home, eat at my house. But if I had to go out, I would probably go to De Maria, an Argentine restaurant. This is some of the best meat you can find, and the people who work there are very nice. I always go with my family and friends, all of us together, and I always see a lot of friends there. I would also go to Lucio, which is probably the best restaurant we have in Madrid. It's a very simple place, a very old restaurant. They do this dish that I also can do because somebody told me their secret. It's broken eggs with fried potatoes, and it's just incredible. They fry the eggs and break them in a particular way with garlic on top of the fries - plus a little secret. But I can't talk about it. They have good Serrano ham. Good wine. Good fish. Great taste.

What kind of wine do you like?
Roja Sangre de Toro is a famous wine. Not very expensive, but very strong. I don't like drinking very much, because I have one glass of wine and I already feel a little drunk. But I do like the taste of wine, and that would be my favorite Spanish wine. I heard they're going to quit making it. I don't know why.

Dinners in Spain often last for hours. What's your favorite place for those lingering meals?
Café Hispano. It's where I get together with friends like Fernando Trueba, the director of Belle Epoque. I've done two movies with him, and we have a group of friends and always go there. They have a room they give us that seats like 12 people, and they let us stay there until four or five in the morning. The food is sort of Mediterranean. They have clams with potatoes. A great dish. They also have one of the best croquetas, which are fried. They make it with harina.

Any other restaurant recommendations?
I would go to a restaurant north of the city called Caserón de Araceli. Or I would order food from there and take it home. The food is amazing. They have this black risotto, black rice. You know that? With the ink from the squid? And good clams. Very homey. Old. There's another place outside of Madrid called El Escorial. It's about an hour away. Good things to see there and good restaurants. Some of the best restaurants in Spain, where you can eat something called fabada, a Spanish dish prepared with white beans. El Escorial is one of the best places to find it. It takes hours to recover after that. You eat everything. You can't control yourself.

Where do you like to go after a long night on the town?
If you want to experience a night out in Madrid, you go to dinner about 10:30 or 11. Then you see the sun come up and you eat churros with chocolate. That's like the big tradition in Madrid. I've only done it once. But it's part of the ritual to end like that, eating churros in the morning. Then you go to sleep.

Speaking of sleep, are there any particular hotels you'd recommend?
I very much like the Santo Mauro. It's smaller. It has great gardens, great food, great meeting rooms downstairs, and a little bar. It's a very private hotel. Beautiful. It's also near the Barrio Salamanca, where I have the store. The Hotel Villa Magna is a big hotel with a Chinese restaurant downstairs. A lot of people go there just to eat at the restaurant.

Can you recommend any great bars?
Chicote. Manolete, the bullfighter, used to go there, and I believe Hemingway did also. It's very old, and you can feel all of that history. They have a lot of pictures.

Is there a drink that's unique to the city?
Not to Madrid, but to Spain in general. Sangria. It's wine with cassera, which has bubbles. But it's got so much sugar it doesn't taste like alcohol.

Flamenco dancing is another Spanish treasure. Tell us about it.
My sister, Monica, is one of the best flamenco dancers in the world. I love seeing her dance. She was dancing with Joachim Cortez for a long time. Now she has a TV show called Un Paso Adelante, which is really good. There are bars in the center of Madrid where you can see dancers. But the best thing is to throw yourself in the street in the south of Spain and look for a group of gypsies who are singing and join them. That's really the thing. You just go and sing with them. I once did a party in Madrid, a party for Tom when we were there for Vanilla Sky, and I did a flamenco party. So I called some friends and said, "Okay, bring some of your friends who play drums," and they improvised it. It was magic what we saw. They can play music with a fork, anything. They have it in their blood.

If flamenco is the national dance of Spain, paella is the national dish. Where do they serve your favorite paella in Madrid?
There's one place, Casa Benigna, where my friend Fernando Trueba took me. It's also where I met director Stephen Frears for the movie I did with him, The Hi-Lo Country. That's where he told me he was going to cast me. It was my first American movie. So I have good memories of that place. It was a good lunch.

Speaking of The Hi-Lo Country, I understand you donated all of your salary from that movie to charity, much of it to Mother Teresa.
I met Mother Teresa a year before she died. A group of journalists from Spain called me to go to India and interview her. I was there for a week and talked to her every day. I started to cry when I saw her. I was hugging her, and I couldn't control myself. Because I felt that she had such warmth and strength and I admired her so much. She was so tiny and so strong at the same time. She would put her forehead on my forehead, and she was saying, "Even if everyone gives one penny, even if it's only that, everything counts!" It changed my life, that trip. I saw horrible things there. I talked to Mother Teresa about it: "I've seen this and now I leave and go back to my normal life. And I have a good bank account and a job and I travel and I have privilege. What do I do with what I've seen here?" She said, "Don't change what you have. Use what you've seen to contribute to a change." Right now, I'm looking for things to do. I want to put together an event in Madrid for the tsunami. Not that it's going to change anything, but I can create something to contribute a little bit. Contribution counts.