simon says french food blog

Is Paris The World Champion of Gastronomy?

By Joe Ray
PARIS

That's the question French food critic Francois Simon posed to a little panel: Nick Lander, Carlo Petrini, Ken Hom, Anissa Helou, Yumiko Inukai and...yours truly. For a recent article in Le Figaro's magazine, Figaroscope.

Here's my response in Version Originale...

World capital? That's loaded question.
Twenty years – even 10 – ago, the question was bandied about for fun but we already knew the answer, but now, just using the places I know well, it’s a legitimate debate. Barcelona combines an unquenchable curiosity and solid base to keep themselves on cuisine’s front edge. Sicily combines incredible raw ingredients with solid value and New York could win on sheer numbers yet it is Paris’ equal in quality and exponentially more diverse. India is a time machine whose cuisine never ages.

Plus, in Paris, coffee is awful and the beer second rate. It’s also pricey. That said, you forget all problems instantly when the former butcher who can hold four bottles of wine in one hand and owns Le Severo puts a côte de boeuf aged 40 days under your nose. You forget it when Pierre Gagnaire boils down a great vat of red wine to make a tiny component of a sauce. You forget it when Laetitia at Le Bistro Paul Bert greets you with a smile, seats you at your favorite table and gifts you with a glass of wine and when it comes to choosing a bottle of wine doesn’t foist something you can’t afford on you. You forget it when three bottles, two glasses of Calvados and one conversation into a meal, you realize with a start that it’s 5 a.m. and you’ve been at the table for nine hours.
Undeniable world champ? Not anymore. However, the French exception still reigns. Let’s call Paris first among equals.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @joe_diner. 

 

SPAIN LOSES ONE OF HER GREAT CHEFS

He may have been a bull in a China shop, but he was a very interesting bull. Spain's lost a great chef. R.I.P. Santi Santamaria.

BYE-BYE BARCELONA: LAST LUNCH & A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

 

I’d wanted to come back here for years. I’d also been wondering where to have my last meal of the summer in Barcelona.

Appropriately, I went with my old lunch partner/landlord Fede who introduced me to Restaurant Montalban when I rented my Poble Sec apartment from him years ago.

All I wanted for this meal was to repeat the one I remembered, as it seemed the owner had made some sort of deal with the devil to make good seafood. 

There is no disappointment.

We start with percebes - gooseneck barnacles - sugar sweet, wildly expensive, and looking like dinosaur toes, Montalban’s are made with a pinch of cinnamon in the court bouillon. To eat them, pinch the neck, pull out the sweet center, pop it in your mouth and wash it down with a Galician white and you, too, will be saying, “Money? What money???”

We follow with a plate of galician octopus that’s plump, tender, almost sweet and paprika smoky. Every time I eat this dish I like it more.

Barnacles and octopi, however, are sideshows compared with the real reason I want to return; I want the rodaballo. The turbot comes out crispy-chewy on the outside firm and flavorful on the inside. There’s a lemon, but there’s no reason to bother with it; this fish is worth a deal with the devil. My word - one taste and you wonder why anyone would bother with any other preparation.

You’ll pay for the pleasure, but Montalban is still a great value. As Fede says, “this place and Quimet & Quimet are the only places you’ll find people wearing suits in Poble Sec.”

Count on about 35 euros for lunch with wine. Sky’s the limit if you order percebes, but they’ll be worth it.

Bar-Restaurante Montalban “Casa Jose” - MAP
Margarit 31
+34 93 442 31 43

 Closed Sunday night and Monday.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

UPHILL FROM ANCHOVIES

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

 

We roll out of "the place with the amazing anchovies" and head next door to the new Cal Marino - which, with walls lined with bottles, barrels and a bar full of tasty vittles, looks like Quimet & Quimet’s little cousin.

Toni brought me here for a quick snac a month ago and I wanted to check in again and see what’s cooking.

They don’t cook much, actually, they source. There are gourmet snacks a gogo - lots of good things to skewer with a toothpick and a few combinations à la Quimet. There are plates with excellent olives, tasty shrimp, or little bites of octopus; you’d have to make a concerted effort to make a meal out of it, but paired with, say, a good cider, they get the appetite racing, the conversation moving.

They’re still working out a few kinks; I tried flagging the waiter for some tomato bread and he made a long-distance stiff-arm gesture that said, “Can’t you see I’m overwhelmed?” Come in at a quieter time, however, and the barman/owner will be happy to teach you about the products he stocks.

They’ll work it out. Can Marino is a great launching point, a future neighborhood reference as a watering hole and part of a great one-two punch after you have some of those anchovies.

Count on 5-15€ depending on how much of a meal you want to make of it.

Can Marino - MAP
C/ Margarit 54
Barcelona
+34 93 329 45 92

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner. 

THREE-STAR BEER IN BARCELONA

BARCELONA
BY Joe Ray

It happens to every host. Your and your guest are well fed*, you don’t need more caffeine, you’ve been walking for a couple hours and going home now would torpedo the afternoon.

There we were, sore of foot and in front of La Cerveteca - the beer place. Not the toss ‘em back and drunk by five style, though. In Barcelona, like in Paris, coffee and beer  are always good, but seldom better. La Cerveteca is one of the few wonders that falls into the ‘better’ category - the kind where you walk in and stare in wonder, saying ‘Holy cow - what’s this doing here?’

Case in point, I spy Nøgne Ø beers from Norway - something I recognize from Anders Kissmeyer’s wonderful Norrebro Bryghus brewery in Copenhagen - along with American IPAs, treats from Belgium and Germany and even Anchor Steam from San Francisco!

(Seeing the latter, I instantly pine for my San Francisco days, roaming Potrero Hill when the smell of the hops streaming out of the brewery takes over the neighborhood, with a scent that, inexplicably, will always remind me of Spaghetti-O’s.)

Guillaume and I order an IPA and a Liberty Ale, grab a few papers, find a back table and take a load off for an hour.

Perfect.

La Cerveteca MAP
Gignàs 25
Barcelona
+34 93 315 04 07

*Pinotxo, of course. A Joe Ray three-star.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

BACALAO’S AHA! MOMENT

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

 

Bacalao - salt cod - has never been my favorite. Catalans do backflips for it, but to me, there are so few aha! moments, I never quite understand the bother or the price.

To set me straight, my ever-helpful Barcelona tipster, food writer Carme Gasull, took pity on me and sent me to the Masclans kiosk in the Galvany market on the far side of Avinguida Diagonal. The only tourists up this way are lost.

First, the negotiations: three of us would like to try Esteve Masclans’ bacalao and there are no tables at his kiosk. The man behind the counter works out a deal where we’ll eat the fish at the tables of a nearby bar/food stall whose beer we will happily drink.

Our meal begins with a dive in the deep end.

“Start with this,” the waiter says. “It’s chick peas and bacalao spine.”

Technically, it’s the tissue inside the spine and my friends look at each other like they’re wondering what they’re in for, but it disappears in a flash. It’s possible I ate the whole thing. I don’t remember.

Masclans are masters of sous-vide, slow-cooking much of their bacalao in a vac-pac bag and we try a few variations - one with tomatoes, one with truffle another with a type of mirepoix. Sweet and silky, the tomato preparation is the landslide winner.

The best dish, however, is carpaccio-style translucent bacalao rounds, each disc with a pea-sized dot of olive paste, the whole drizzled in healthy quantities olive oil, accompanied by a scattering of sofregit-esque fresh tomato sauce. The fish is the star, of course, but it gracefully shares the stage with its friends.

Aha!!!

Count on about 15€ for lunch, including beer from the neighbors.

Masclans - MAP
Mercat de Galvany
Santaló, 65
+34 93 200 99 27

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

ANCHOVIES IN THE CAVE

BARCELONA

By Joe Ray

 

Similar to the way he divulges his kitchen secrets, Toni’s stingy when it comes to sharing his favorite places to eat in Poble Sec - my favorite Barcelona barrio.

We were out picking up supplies for a soup he was making and as we walked down the street from La Cova, he casually mentioned how their anchovies were the neighborhood’s best. 

I did not fail to take note.

Ari and Diego (my hot-stuff Web designers), Meri, the queen of all wine, and I went up to check it out a few weeks back. Truthfully, I dragged them along, but nobody complained.

You’d walk past La Cova 1,000 times, but once you’re in, you never want to leave. Anchovies are served up six to a plate and there’s a fantastic bit of skin on the underside adding extra flavor and silky texture. Twice, my notes read “fleshy goodness” and they’re bathing in a tiny pool of house-blend olive oil, vinegar and secret spices - if you ask, the owner might divulge his secrets.

Ari will later refer to La Cova as "The place with the amazing anchovies." Toni would turn red. 

Four beers, two plates of anchovies and pa amb tomaquet (tomato bread) came to about 12 euros. 

Hard to beat.
 

La Cova MAP
Margarit, 52
Barcelona
+34 934 411 063

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

SNACKS: TONI ROSSINI

BARCELONA
By Joe Ray

 

While we’re prepping the calcot sauce in Toni’s kitchen, we get talking about our favorite artery-cloggers and I mention steak Rossini - a big steak with a slab of foie gras, preferably seared, melting over the top - at Le Tambour. 

Or, well, anywhere.

He grins and walks toward the fridge which, is a Pandora’s box of high-cal goodness and pulls out two steaks and a slab of foie gras.

Lunch is served.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

NEW FOUR YOU

BARCELONA
By Joe Ray

 

Hot off the press? Hot off the griddle? Who cares?

Located at the bottom of the culinary wasteland of Las Ramblas, Cuatro is new, very good and a solid value.

Reserve now - they may be working out the kinks, but it’s going to be full to the gills very soon.

Kinks? There’s a bit of a split personality - the sign on the door says “Bar Cuatro” giving the hurried and hungry every reason to walk past. There are noble G&Ts, good value wines, but it’s not a destination bar - it’s a destination restaurant.

The dining room is spread out, spacious and relaxed, making me wonder why they didn’t give themselves a little more room in the kitchen or if they’re planning on squeezing in a few more tables once they’ve hit stride.

Order à la carte if you will, but there’s a six-course degustation menu for two at 25€ a head and you get to choose which courses to try.

Our foursome, including my tipster, Barcelona food writer Carme Gasull, Edu and Meri, start with a duck crepe with red fruit chutney, which is like hot duck rillettes, minus some of the fat, rolled into a crepe, with a nice acidic bite from what’s really a drizzle of fruit reduction. It sets a nice tone for what’s to come. ‘Calamari strips with wasabi mayo’ are fried in a tempura-like batter, which would normally make me whine about needless poaching from other cultures if it wasn’t so good. 

My favorite main - which elicited bipolar responses from our group - is a poached egg over a cauliflower cream with a wiggle of truffle oil and a tiny slab of wonderfully fatty bacon, everything bathing in a spoonful of olive oil and (I think) meat jus. I’m also almost forgetting the side of vanilla-scented mashed potatoes that came with a braised veal cheek. Giving the spuds gentle sweet, savory and honey-like flavors, none of us could figure out the mystery ingredient, likely the fruit a clever collaboration between chef Aitor Bergaretxe and lauded pastry chef Vicente Carvalho.

The wines, sourced by sommelier Jaume Martorell are smart, unique and good values - we have a 2009 Tempestad, a Galician beauty made with the godello grape - and the peculiarly-named 2006 Squared Three (bzah! - the number on the label is three squared), a grenache, tempranillo and merlot blend from the Rioja that leaves us every bit as happy as the godello.

There’s a salty chocolate mousse for dessert, presented in a way only a Catalan could appreciate, but the superstar is a play on french toast with a Parmesan ‘cake’ and pear sorbet. This alone is worth the visit. 

Count on 25 euros, whether you order à la carte or the tasting menu, plus wine.

Cuatro
C/ Montserrat, 4 (a stone’s throw form the Drassanes Metro)
Barcelona
+34 93 301 43 24

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

COVERING MY CALCOTS*

BARCELONA
By Joe Ray

 

I met Toni this morning to learn salsa per calçots - the sauce for the celebrated spring onion that’s barbecued into a coma for the masses, dipped into the romesco-like sauce and eaten by the dozens in wonderfully-sloppy sword swallower style.

Trying to get an invite into his kitchen to help, he was reluctant to have me over. “You’re going to steal my secrets!” he bellowed.

When I get to his house, however, he asked if I was going to pull out my pen.

Around the kitchen, there are two hocks of jamón, at least three active bottles of wine, including one with the bottle neck cut off, a bag of bunyols - (seasonal Munchkin-like mini donut/fritters, often flavored with a bit of anise) and three different kinds of oranges.

For the sauce, he’s got separate trays of roasted tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onion ready and once those are done, it’s pretty simple.

“[The nearby Catalan towns of] Sitges and Villanova fight to see who makes the best,” he claims.

For his entry, he throws the following into the blender in batches:

- the flesh of a rehydrated ñora pepper in the blender (substitute, if you must, a sweet, mild dried red pepper) 

- a dangling handful of roasted red peppers 

- one roasted onion, skinned and chopped into rough chunks

- 10 roasted tomatoes

- 5 cloves of roasted garlic

- 2 cloves raw, peeled garlic

- 1 cup almonds

- ⅓ cup hazelnuts

- ½ cup bread crumbs

- two shakes of pepper

- 1 cup olive oil

- 2 cups water

- ¾ cup red wine vinegar

- 1 ½ tbsp salt

Run the blender slow for 5-10 seconds then fast for about 20. The sauce should be thick and still slightly chunky.

Salsa per calçots is also fantastic for making xató (pronounced “chateau”) - a salad made with curly endive, black olives tuna belly and/or bacalao.

*Admittedly, this is running a bit late, but, hey, I’m playing catchup after a month in India. Besides, if you’re in a cool climate and have access to spring onions to grill…they’d be wonderful doused in this sauce…

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. Twitter: @joe_diner.

HEN DON'T?

BARCELONA
By Joe Ray

I did something with this place I don’t usually do: I recommended a restaurant to a friend without having been there to eat in a long time. A friend from London was coming into town for what the Brits call a ‘hen do’ (a.k.a. a bachelorette party) right around the time another friend who runs Slow Food Barcelona was talking about a favorite restaurant: Mam i Teca. There seemed to be a bit of serendipity involved, so I went with the flow. Now that I’ve gone, I can’t decide if it was a good idea.

At first, I thought the tiny restaurant lacked a bit of soul, but I figured out that it feels like that you’re eating in the semi-industrial living room of the guys who run it, right down to the Johnny Hallyday on the radio and the waiting for the waiter/barman to finish up his conversation with the client/friends at the end of the bar before you can ask for another napkin.

If you like that sort of stuff - it can have its charms - you’re in for a treat. I love that feeling that the two guys who run the joint are clearly doing exactly what they want to be doing, but I wonder how many other people come out of there feeling a little weirded out by the experience. The cuisine is Catalan and you can understand the Slow Food connection; product is excellent. Xató - a salad of escarole with salt cod and olives with romesco sauce wasn’t much to write home about, but it was counterbalanced by a sweet and salty rabbit stew with apricots and prunes. Mmm!  Our favorite dish, a mix of just-cooked mushrooms, asparagus and garlic drizzled in olive oil was so good, we ordered it twice.

I can’t remember the last time I did that.

Maybe it was a good idea to send the hens here.

Mam i Teca - MAP
Carrer de la Lluna 4
Barcelona
+93 441 33 35

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. 

SAVED BY THE CUBANS

BARCELONA
By Joe Ray

  
 

Walking out of the flat with two visiting friends, I point out the Celler del Nou Priorat - a local favorite in the Sants neighborhood run by a trio of Cubans that’s exactly the kind of place you pray to find when you’re wandering around looking for a place for dinner.

Instead, my idea is to get out of the neighborhood and do a Poble Sec tapas crawl. I drag my pals around to find that the three places I want to go - Quimet & Quimet, the new bar at Xemei and inopia are, respectively, closed, full and full.

I put in a desperate call to the Cubans and we hop in the metro and head toward home.

Once I sit, it takes only a glass of Cava, some sweet potato chips and a plate of pimientos de padrón for me to go from feeling like I’ve lost my touch back into the Food Leprechaun.

Olives help, too. And maybe some mushrooms sautéed with little bits of jamon. And there’s an octopus dish that has a friend from Lisbon take a mental return trip home with one bite.

There’s a famous brownie for dessert, but we get perfect, sweet and minty mojitos instead. 

Cuban? Catalan? Spanish? Not really. More like fresh-from-the-Catalan-market inspired Cuban/Catalan/Spanish goodness. More like yes, yes and more please.

Count on 15-30 euros, redemption included.
 

Celler del Nou Priorat - MAP
Vallespir 19

Barcelona
+34 934 905 952

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. 

HAIL TO THE BEAN!

BARCELONA

By Joe Ray

 

Now, I understand.

For years, I’d tried the classic faves a la Catalana - a broad bean dish without ever understanding why dish makes up part of the Catalan canon. Wrong places? Bad luck? Who knows? It's all over now.

I’d wondered about the Sants’ neighborhood’s Can Manel - which typically has, say, a whole roast suckling pig and some grilled artichokes in the front window - looked like it could be great or a dud and the only way to know would be to try it.

I finally bit the other day - they have a menu del dia for 10 euros and I was hungry.

It was clear when the beans were set in front of me that I’d have a new outlook on things.

Sitting by myself, I must have said, “Man, these are good!” to myself 25 times. The beans are rich, hearty and buttery-textured, brought to life with small quantities of - get this - three kinds of pork products.

“Bacon, blood sausage and jamon,” explains the waiter.

While my main - slices of pork loin (more pork!) with fries - is admittedly less interesting, they use good product.

I’ll be back.

Restaurant Can Manel - MAP
Galileo, 85
Barcelona
+34 93 339 10 47

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the 2009 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year and author of the blog Eating The Motherland. 

ITALIAN CRESCENDO. WITH MOTORCYCLES.

BARCELONA

By Joe Ray

 

“It’s too expensive,” was the first thing out of a friend’s mouth when I mentioned we were heading to Xemei.

“But it’s goooood,” was the second.

“Best risotto of my life,” said another friend, “made with cod tripe!”

I was sold, plus there was serendipity involved. Food writer Carme Gasull proposed going at right around the same time.

On the weekend, Xemei is bustling with the open concept kitchen with the restaurant’s namesake Venetian twins running the show. It’s a loud, fun and casual atmosphere that stimulates the mind and the appetite.

We start, sharing a giant appetizer dish that’s an Italo-Catalan tapas with cod fritters, anchovies in vinegar on a fresh tomato salsa, a tender slab of mackerel. It’s all fine, but I’m thinking of the “expensive” comment more than the “good” one.

The waiter stops by, proposing a new bottle of wine and when I ask about the screw cap, he launches into a bizarre, five-minute explanation about screw caps, corks, evaporation and, to synthesize, how this case of special Italian wine, initially bound for America happened to end up in their restaurant.

It’s harmless fun, but I want to ask the guy if he actually believes what he’s saying.

“We’ve got a phrase here: he sold you a motorcycle,” says Edu. “He just wanted to sell you the bottle.”

The wine is peculiar but fine, but more important, the mains knock our socks off. All of them. The girls get mushroom risotto and Edu has spaghetti in squid ink that tickles our umami sensors and is served looking like cross between a Sicilian sfogliatelle pastry and a perfect beehive hairdo. I get a squid and artichoke dish - each element cooked separately and perfectly, the whole with fantastic textures.

Expensive? Well, motorcycles aren’t cheap, but it’s not that bad. Goooood? Yep.

We’ll be back.

Count on 40€, with wine.

Xemei - MAP
Passeig de l’Exposició, 85
+34 93 553 51 40

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting. 

MOVING THE ROCK

GIRONA, Spain

By Joe Ray

 

Living in Ferran Adrià’s shadow is not an enviable position. Or maybe it’s liberating. Or maybe it just is.

Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca is one of the greats in a region of greats like Santi Santamaria, Carme Ruscalleda and, of course senyor Adrià - and his style is closest to the latter.

Roca’s also got a ‘James Bond of the Catalan culinary set’ thing going. He’s a bit of a tough guy with some cool gadgets - he’s a big cheese in the world of sous vide cooking, for example, writing the book on the subject long before Thomas Keller did. After the service is finished, you can imagine Roca, standing by the entrance, smoking a cigarette and looking cool.

Every once in a while though, the Adrià comparison’s gotta drive him nuts. Early on in our meal, it seems as though most of the dishes in the ‘snacks’ catetgory (little <i>amuse gueules</i> that come out before the tasting menu really starts) could have been nicked from Adrià’s book - like little ‘caramelized olives’ which arrive dangling from a bonsai olive tree, little Campari ‘bonbon’ balloons served on a bed of crushed ice or Parmesan ‘tulips’ nesting in a rock - but then - poof! - it’s gone; you stop comparing and start enjoying.

This might have been about when the sea urchins arrived. On the menu, the dish is called “crustacean velouté with cauliflower toffee and tangerine,” but my notes read “little, edible sexual organs from the sea.” RRRRRRROW!

Soon after, there’s a plate called ‘artichoke with duck liver, eel and orange’ - that launches ‘brown food’ into the stratosphere, followed immediately by a single grilled sole filet flanked by individual dabs of olive oil, fennel, bergamot, orange, pine nut and green olive emulsions. The whole thing’s got a musical look to it, like a deconstructed music scale - and there’s Roca, standing by himself in the middle of a big field, smiling, waving.

When we try the cod pot-au-feu, which draws a direct line to some perfect chowder of my youth and I come to the realization I needed - I want Roca to teach.

“He does,” says my dining partner - most notably at Girona’s catering and tourism school.

Adrià has so much to teach, but it’s a specialized class - I don’t want 1,000 little Adrià copycats running around out there, but I want as many as possible with a foundation built by Roca.

Desserts, by brother Jordi Roca, are as good, complex and beautiful as the mains. Josep Roca’s wine list has wheels.

Tasting menus run from 90 to 135 euros. Spend as much as you like on wine.

El Celler de Can Roca - MAP
Can Sunyer, 48
Girona, Spain
+34 972 222 157
www.cellercanroca.com

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting. 

NEWS FLASH: BYE, BYE BULLI???

By Joe Ray



Ferran Adria's just announced that they're 'stopping' El Bulli - starting in 2012-2013, turning their Barcelona lab and Roses restaurant into 'research centers'.

Sounds like it'll be business as 'usual' in Roses through 2011 (two more seasons), though exactly what happens after that and what happens for the 2012-2013 season remain a bit vague. 2014 remains very mysterious. Return from a sort of sabbatical, perhaps in a different 'format'???

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

FLYING CANNELLONI

Carles Gaig is a chef and a businessman. The combination can make you cringe – it's hard to pull off and, truthfully, fewer chefs should try. Gaig, a Catalan cuisine legend, can be found anywhere from his high-end eponymous Barcelona restaurant to the sides of Barcelona's bus systems where he's currently hawking a set of cheap-looking knives.

Another Gaig newborn is promising. PortaGaig is in the Barcelona airport's new Terminal 1, hidden off to the right before you head through security. It being the 26th – St. Stephen's day – where you traditionally eat cannelloni stuffed with Christmas leftovers. Gaig being known for the little tubes of joy, we stopped in.

There are some great ideas at work here – get to the airport early enough and you can have a full-out meal with great wine in a beautiful space with a swarm of smart-dressed waiters at your disposal. Sometimes you want to swat them away, there's so many, other times, they're standing around, looking good and waiting for the restaurant's reputation to grow.

There's also a special bar menu with reasonable prices featuring items that are quicker to prepare. That said, it's hard to get out of there for less than 15 euros – made more annoying by the 2.50€ 'cover charge' for disappointing bread.

Best cannelloni I've ever had? Who knows, but, paired with a glass of Cava, they beat the pants off the plastic-boxed sandwiches on the other side of security. It costs a bit more, but it's a better value. Best airport food? (A question I'm posing from a chair on another flight at 38,000 feet.) Without a doubt.


Plan on anywhere from 15€ for drinks, snacks and (ugh) bread at the bar to a couple times that for a sit-down meal.


PortaGaig MAP
Barcelona. Terminal 1 - P3.
Departures Public Zone
+34 932 596 210

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

CATALAN CHRISTMAS WISHES, BY WAY OF SICILY

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

As a holiday card, I had this odd idea of setting the camera on the tripod and hefting the lit Christmas tree so all you'd see would be my arms and jeans, with Guido's painting in the background. Luckily, I remembered the Catalan Christmas connection with La Boqueria Market, which regularly graces the front page of many newspapers here on the 25th.

It also makes a much nicer photo.

Time for a Turkey.

(No, not me, the one in the oven.)

Ho, Ho!

Joe

P.S. - For a Christmas-esque message of peace from Guido, click here.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

WHO NEEDS TEETH IN A HALF-CELLAR OF GOODNESS?

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

I reconnect with the city a few steps below street level.

We share a little plate of artichokes hearts that are drizzled with olive oil and spritzed with fleur de sel. They’re so tender, you don’t need teeth.

There’s also a little wheel of oil-bathed goat cheese that’s somehow has the wonderful tang of cheddar. We get a bacalao-tomato dish with olives and a separate plate of olives that I’m supposed to share. Oops.

We wipe up our fingers with the ubiquitous useless napkins and wash it down with vermouth and seltzer water.
It’s good to be home.

Count on about 10-20€

La Bodegueta – MAP

Rambla de Catalunya 100

Barcelona

+34 932 154 894

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

COPPER TOP CHARGE

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

 

I always get stubborn when people suggest that I write about something, even on the rare occasion that it's a good idea. If I'm already working on it, don't push me in the way I'm already heading. Or, at least, that's how I justify it.

I recently shimmied my way into a Barcelona Slow Food dinner at Coure – Catalan for 'copper' another Barcelona bistronomic, located almost directly across the street from Hisop. The next day, the mails started coming in from my Slow Food friend – "you've gotta blog about this place."

I knew. I knew.

While I could see where Hisop was heading – but had trouble getting there – at Coure, even though I was at a table with 25 people, it's clear the chef's feet are more firmly on the right path. Coure is a restaurant confidently hitting the ball on the rise.

Case in point: a perfectly-cooked mackerel 'confit' served with spinach pesto dish that made my feet do their involuntary 'happy dance,' particularly as the dish centered around local and sustainable products. The chef fought an uphill battle against starch with puréed ratte potatoes that had a pudding-like sheen, but they supported a buttery-textured oxtail stuffed with local Perol sausage. We drooled with happiness.

When my Catalan sweetheart visits me in Paris, she always marvels at how poor the service is relative to the price paid and I do my best to defend France, but here there's no refuting – I know, I know – you'd have to pay two to three times this much in the City of Light for service this good. Our waiter shyly rushes through the presentation of a dish he's been asked to do, but the moment he's finished speaking, he takes advantage of being in front to everyone to scan every seat at the table and instantly knows better where we are than we do.

Bonus? The price – a 35 euro prix fixe dinner menu that includes water, wine (including the fantastic Vinya d'Irto Terra Alta '05) and coffee. There's also a 45 euro degustation menu and à la carte runs about 50-60 euros plus wine. 

Restaurant Coure MAP

Passatge Marimon, 20

Barcelona

+34 93 200 75 32

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.