Winter Cheese Board & Holiday Wine Box The holiday season is here! With travel being extremely limited and typical holiday parties canceled or going virtual, we are left with small gatherings at home with only a few close family or friends. For some, this may be a breath of holiday fresh air, a calm holiday season, at home. Small doesn’t…
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Despite a thriving café culture, Spanish coffee has long suffered a maligned reputation, thanks to its Franco era practice of torrefacto. Faced with shortages and trying to keep costs down, local roasters coated coffee beans in sugar prior to roasting (torrefacto), giving the resulting coffee a burnt flavor. The practice still endures today, well past any need to do so…
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Sometimes it’s good to do one thing and do it well. COVID closures have forced some local restaurateurs to switch to delivery and become inventive with their offerings and menu changes. There’s also a growing trend of entrepreneurs who are keeping it simple by offering one dish, with orders taken via Instagram DM or WhatsApp (not Glovo). Here are eight…
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Dogs are generally welcomed in Barcelona and are well tolerated in most public spaces. They are just as much a part of café life here as cañas and bravas. The city has required leash laws and taking your canine friend on public transportation requires a carrier or muzzle, depending on the type of transport. With 111 official dog areas (pipicans),…
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Gràcia, Gotico, and El Born may receive all of the attention, but Barcelona has a wealth of other neighborhoods just as distinct as the touristy favorites. Time Out magazine recently declared the Esquerra de l’Eixample (Eixample left) as the 2020 coolest neighborhood in the world. So, what’s the definition of ‘cool’ in the midst of a global pandemic? Neighborliness, kind,…
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Mixed Variety Mushroom Paella with Truffle Picada (vegetarian/vegan) The name paella comes from the pan itself in which is cooked. The typical Spanish flat pan with handles is the main center point on a weekend in Spain, when families gather around the fire and cook a paella together. In the Mediterranean region of Catalunya, the paella is also called a…
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Wedged between a farmacia and a school, Casa Vicens is an outlandish gingerbread house monster of a building on an otherwise nondescript little street in the Barcelona neighborhood of Gràcia. To be fair, only fields surrounded the house when it was completed in 1888 as the summer home of the Catalan stock broker/financier, Manuel Vicens i Montaner. Plus, it was…
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