Venite ad me omnes qui stomacho laboratoris ego restaurabo vos...", says apostle Rabelais. Meaning, no more and no less than this: let me "restore the stomachs of working men", depleted after the daily exercise of climbing up and down the peak of Europe's carousel. Where to go to restore one's stomach in Barcelona? I would propose two venues in particular. Both of them have a lot of cache, both are very cosmopolitan and both are located close to the heart of the city. And both also practice the old and noble tradition of Mediterranean cuisine, so highly acclaimed and also, unfortunately, so often betrayed and distorted.
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One of these establishments is the Restaurant de les Set Ports, at 14 Pasaje de Isabel II, which first opened to the public on Christmas Day of 1838. Here, a still young Carmen Amaya danced in exchange for some cocido and a few nickels; here, Lorca read his Poeta en Nueva York; and here have sat for dinner Bakunin, the prince and Bella Otero, André Malraux and Buffalo Bill. Located not far from the sea, the Set Portes presents and excellent array of local dishes from faves a la Catalana -beans a la Catalan, which are in season right now- to peus de porc amb gambes, or pork's feet with prawns. Its rice dishes and paellas are particularly reputed in the city. Among the paellas the Manolete and the Parellada are particularly tasty. As for the rice dishes the picat, with rabbit, onion, tomato, artichokes, red pepper, garlic and roasted almonds, is extremely popular in the neighborhood, especially favored by the city's albino gorilla, who has more than once left his home in the neighboring city zoo to have a taste.
Casa Leopoldo at 24 Sant Rafael is the other venue I would suggest you try. Located in San Rafael Street on the corner of the infamous Rambla del Raval, Casa Leopoldo occupies a prime spot in Barcelona's internationally renowned Barrio Chino. Initially an old wine cellar and food tavern, the establishment transformed throughout the years, especially after the Civil War into one of the city's landmark restaurants after famous bull fighters and folkloric singers started frequenting its tables. Now a favored spot by politicians, artists and intellectuals, it also usually hosts most international personalities passing through the city. Other than for the bullfighters and their cohorts, Casa Leopoldo has been immortalized in André Pieyre de Mandiargues's novel Le Marge. At the beginning of the 1960s, Mandiargues used to dine here together with a whore called Juanita, when the Generalísimo Franco still ruled over this country.
The restaurant's main specialties are seafood and fish dishes, oxtail and for dessert, the sweet homemade bread. And for your before or after dinner drinks, I also have an interesting suggestion. I recommend you go to Boadas Cocktail Bar located at 1 Tallers on the corner of La Rambla and Tallers Street. Boadas is a small bar, an American bar inaugurated in 1933 by Miquel Boadas, son to Catalan immigrants settled in Cuba. Born in Havana in 1895. At the age of 19, Miquel Boadas was already working at Cuba's infamous bar Floridita, owned by some relatives of his. When he arrived in Barcelona, in 1926, Miquel Boadas was already an internationally renowned figure in cocktail mixing. Today the Boadas is a small museum in homage to its founder, who died in Barcelona in 1967. This is the bar where best to try a classic Dry Martini or a Mojito, while the soft sound of the voice of Antonio Machín plays out and Maria Dolors, daughter of the famous barman, and his son-in-law, Josep Lluís, smile behind the bar.
And to finish off the night, a cigar, a good Havana cigar. Did you know Barcelona is the city with the highest consumption of Havana cigars in the world? And at a very reasonable price if compared to other European capitals. To buy a good cigar, one of Ramón Allones's Robusto or Partagás's Lusitania for instance, I would suggest you head towards Casa Gimeno, located at number 100 of La Rambla, almost directly across from the Boqueria market. It is a very serious cigar house that has been selling excellent tobacco for years now. Eat and dine well; have a couple of drinks, light up a cigar and go for a light stroll along La Rambla. You'll see, the summit will be much more bearable this way.
* Este artículo apareció en la edición impresa del Viernes, 15 de marzo de 2002