Adiós to the siesta as new Latino wave transforms life in the Spanish capital

Fleeing turmoil or lured by the economy, more than a million South Americans call the city home,

- Richard Assheton

The sun went down and one of Madrid's better-known flamenco bars started blasting out rhythms of a Latin persuasion. "At lunchtime they play flamenco. In the evening it's salsa," says Victor Rocha Laporta, a Venezuelan estate agent.

He was in a good mood. The day before, he'd sold an apartment to another Latin American Madrileño, Édgar Ramírez, the Venezuelan actor who starred in the Oscar-nominated Emilia Pérez. "Latin Americans are everywhere," he says. "I have more friends here than in Caracas."

At the turn of the millennium, Madrid was made up almost solely of Spaniards. It had not long shaken off its past as the sleepy administrative centre of Gen Franco's dictatorship. Now it is a cosmopolitan metropolis. A major reason is an influx of Latin Americans who for the first time number more than a million, according to December's census. From just over 70,000 in 1998, they now make up one in seven Madrileños.

Venezuelan and Colombian restaurants compete to make the best arepa, a fried polenta snack. In chic Justicia, Mexican "concept stores" sell baggy jeans. Under their influence, Spanish shops and restaurants increasingly forego the siesta, while customers suggest the city's notoriously brusque waiters have discovered a soft side.