Restaurant Barcelona
Attending the recent Sydney Writer’s Festival one evening last month, I spent an entertaining hour in the company of food industry heavies A.A. Gill, Anthony Bourdain, and Tony Bilson, as they talked all things food and travel.
Their round table repartée included the revelation of a constant temptation to simply tell the chef to ‘just fuqing stop!’ upon finding themselves full, exhausted, and ready to give up halfway through a degustation meal; and the question of whether or not one is still obliged to pair a cracking lobster dish with a cheeky white burgundy (for the record: no one gives a toss anymore, you can pretty much drink what you like).
Whilst listening to their witty, expansive, oft’ times cynical, and almost always inflammatory opinions on food and travel, I got to thinking about some of the things I enjoy most about my own Spanish food travels, and the fond memories that go with it.
(And this is by no means an exhaustive list – these are just the photos I happened to have closest to hand – so there could easily be another instalment to come…)
Markets near Figuerola
Let’s just get right down to the ‘meat’ of it – what the Spanish don’t know about sausage either isn’t worth knowing or they’ve left to the French to perfect for themselves. In Cataluña, it’s got to be butifarra, plain for the purists or flavoured with ingredients like foie, onions or nuts for that extra ‘Mmm’ factor…
I visited the above market on an Easter Weekend spent in the Catalan countryside, that included a sublime meal of wild pig with artichokes & potatoes, all baked in the oven until golden brown and falling apart at the slightest sideways glance…
Jamon Sevilla
Still on the subject of meat (no, not many vegetarians in southern Europe), if you fancy jamón – go Ibérico, and go de Bellota – my favourite, infused with subtle hazelnut flavours. This was taken in a bar located somewhere in the backstreets of Sevilla’s barrio of Santa Cruz, on a night off from seeing flamenco shows at the 2006 Biennale. Or perhaps we were on our way to one or coming back – at times it was simply a wonderful blur…
El Rinconcillo Sevilla
This is one of my regular Sevillian dinner haunts ‘El Rinconcillo’, where when you eat standing up at the bar (is there any other way?) you have the perfect view straight across the bar of the guy whose only job it is to slice the jamón, all night, wafer-thin for the salivating clientes…
Summer Sailing Costa Brava
No summer in Barcelona would be complete without a lazy afternoon sail on the Med up to the nearby Costa Brava. After a lunch of homemade bocadillos crammed full with fresh tomatoes, cheese or jamon, and finished with a crunchy apple, you to hop off, take a late afternoon dip and hit the showers.
Apples & Tomatoes in the Gemini Galley
Refreshed and ravenous in that certain way that only being near the ocean (or in the snowfields) can bring, you retire to a local mate’s holiday flat to enjoy some chilled and refreshing blanc pescador - lightly carbonated white wine – and lashings of lovingly homemade fare…
Adrian's Paella in Blanes
I love these crustaceans called cigalas – like yabbies or mini Balmain Bugs, super sweet and juicy! Which reminds me of a plate of them I had in Salobreña on a day trip to the beach on the Costa Tropical outside Granada: hot off the grill, doused in lemon juice, and washed down with a very chilled cerveza…
Chocolateria El Born
The Spanish, like their neighbours the French, are obsessed with chocolate. So much so that they even put it in their cereal and sell it already mixed through so they can start the day with it – something I’ve been dying to try but can’t bring myself to do just yet…
Chocolate Museum Barcelona
Following a close second to chocolate are cakes and sweeties. Every feast day or holiday – religious or otherwise – has its own special pastel or dulce that goes with it, which people buy and take with them as they go visiting family and friends to celebrate the fiesta in question.
Pasteleria Eixample
I must have taken this photo close to the Catalan national holiday, as you can see the cakes on the right are decorated to look like the red & yellow stripes of the Catalan flag…
Vino y Agua Sevilla
The essentials in life. Need I say more? Just add a hot afternoon in Sevilla and some montaditos – mini toasted sandwiches with delicious fillings such as cured goat’s cheese, manchego, jamon or anchovies & caramelised onions…
Jerez Sherry
Which brings us to the Sherry of Jerez. Sweet & crisp, lightly carbonated, and just the thing to whet the palate before your meal – best enjoyed with a few green olives of course…
Cafe Passeig de Gracia Barcelona
Spain makes the best cup of Joe the world has to offer as far as this humble coffee drinker is concerned. I even stray from my usual black espresso every few months just to indulge in the famous café con leche, made with hot – but not frothy – full cream milk. Never so tart or bitter that I have to call for a glass of water to go with it, or so weak I have to have three in a row just to get a hit of flavour, Spanish coffee is always hot, smooth and hecho con amor…
Cafe con hielo Barcelona
A superb and essential variation on the coffee theme, café con hielo is simply coffee with a couple of ice cubes tossed in to cool it down. Best enjoyed outdoors in summer when the temperatures soar…
Cafe Culture Gracia
In the small and decidedly groovy barrio that is Grácia in Barcelona, café culture is alive and well at all hours of the day and night. Not that it isn’t the same deal in any other part of town, it’s just that here, the clientele are all somehow younger, cooler, more relaxed, and with that really local feel that you don’t always find in other, more hurried and tourist-driven neighbourhoods.
Restaurant El Born Barcelona
All over Barcelona you will find bright, airy, sun-filled cafes and restaurants like this one, where you can spend hours over casual meals, conversations with amigos, or immersed in a good book – or, of course, as an electric, atmosphere-charged venue in which to watch all-important football matches.
You can imagine that every bar in the country was packed to the rafters the night Spain won the World Cup final in 2010 – I was in a small English pub behind the Parc de la Ciutadella on the finals night, but I watched other matches in bars all over town that ranged from my favourite cocktail & burger joint, Betty Ford’s (for the Aussie matches!) to a packed out chiringuito on the beach…
Chiringuito Costa Brava
As A.A. Gill so passionately – and rightly – asserted towards the end of the conversation, “Food is everything. It’s all encompassing, it’s the identity of everywhere you go; to know what a culture is like – just eat the food.”
Barcelona skyline from Parc Guell
Amen – and Olé – to that.
Happy food-inspired travels!
Rubi
Catalonian Summer Sunset
