Best tapas in Barcelona? I’m still not quite sure. But Ciudad Condal comes pretty damn close. It’s the first place I’d think of if asked for the “best overall tapas experience,” after considering a wide range of pros and cons. I recommend it to friends visiting Barcelona as a way to prevent them from falling into the tourist potholes. Heaven forbid…
As our impending move to Bordeaux began to finally sink in, and I started counting our remaining days in blue-skyed Barcelona, my mind began to race, composing interminable lists of favorite things. Favorite last things. One last 3-wine nightcap on Plaza del Sol with the girls. One last wild night out with them, one last late-night falafel bowl, one last…
I really enjoy spending my Sundays hiking to small, very very old towns in the mountains of Catalunya. It´s a great way to burn calories, be under the sun and to collect Instagram snaps of plazas that look like they were taken in the 16th century. These towns are usually pretty similar: they each have…
As the weather cools and days become shorter our priorities begin to change too. We bid adieu to those light dinners on a terrace, those chilled boquerones en vinagre, those carefree beers with olives and cigarettes. We embrace instead the comforts of home: blankets, socks and sweaters, the joy of being inside where it’s warm and soft…
On a recent excursion to Priorat wine country I acted the tour guide for my mother and my man. I lead them to the little cottage in the mountains of Montsant, which I had called home for close to six months. We walked through the town of Poboleda and had a beer on the terrace of ye olde La Venta. I…
It’s gotten cold up in the mountains of the Priorat as of late. While I sit in my brightly lit and climate-controlled Barcelona apartment my colleagues gather dry wood in early afternoon darkness, twigs with which to make a fire, not recreationally. There’s no marshmallows or campsite stories going around. It’s just a part of the routine. I…
Ask me about Bar Cañete and I’ll give you two thumbs up. Yes. Go there. Why? Because the food is local and traditional, yet playful and fun. The ingredients are fresh and proudly representative of the region, with a notable prominence of sardines, anchovies and acorn-fed Iberian piggy parts splattered all over the menu. There’s classic laid-back pica-pica favorites like croquetas…
There is a 2 block x 3 block area in the southeast corner of Gràcia that hosts a large portion of my favorite Barcelona eat and drink joints, and I´ve been lucky enough to have lived just around the corner from most of them since April of last year. On Bonavista I love Bodega Bonavista for their…
Since moving from Gótico to Gràcia I’ve come to appreciate more strongly the neighborhoods on the other side of Eixample. What once represented to me a type of palm tree lined Disney World in which I would lie awake until 4 a.m. waiting for the rumble of inebriated tourists to cease is now something more beautiful. I descend for special occasions…
empanada /ˌɛmpəˈnɑːdə/ : a Spanish or Latin American pastry turnover filled with a variety of savoury ingredients and baked or fried. Spanish, feminine past participle (used as a noun) of empanar ‘roll in pastry’, based on Latin panis ‘bread’. There were chapters in my life during which I pretty much depended on them for sustenance. I first…
That Best Bite 