december-2010

Want to know
Barcelona’s latest
culinary secret?
Sant Antoni is not in most
tourist guides. It’s a largely
residential neighbourhood, 20
minutes’ walk from downtown
and 10 from the city’s Fira convention
centre. You’ll fi nd lovely
1930s architecture and curving
balconies, but at fi rst glance,
nothing that really sets it apart.
Look closer, however, and
you’ll fi nd the area is emerging
as one of the Catalan capital’s
culinary hubs with a handful
of small bars, concentrated in
four blocks around the local
promenade, off ering some of
Barcelona’s very best tapas.
Two years ago, childhood
friends Joan Martínez and
Albert Adrià opened Inopia
here. It began as what Martínez
calls a “classic tapas bar”, serving
small sharing plates in an
unremarkable storefront beside
a grocery store. Far from the
beach city’s tourist spots, the
long, narrow space came cheap.
“Costs are aff ordable here,” he
explains, “it’s not like renting in
Passeig de Gràcia.”
A few kilometres away
from today’s tourist hotspots,
Sant Antoni was once part of a
thriving entertainment district.
“People would come here
and have a vermouth before
they went to the theatre,” says
82—GW
F O O D
RAISING THE BAR
Looking for Barcelona’s best tapas?
Meet the culinary pioneers of once littleknown
but now on-the-rise Sant Antoni
Martínez. As word spread of a
restaurant reviving that tradition,
Inopia took off .
The place also had the
advantage that Adrià was the
pastry chef at El Bulli, widely
regarded as among the best
restaurants in the world. Joan’s
brother Txema Martínez, who
had cooked at El Bulli, also
came on board, and Inopia
really started to fl y.
Meanwhile, a block away,
Ana Arsenio had just bought
the innocuously named Bodega
Avenida (“Avenue Wine Store”),
a 50-year-old booze shop
hardly larger than most restaurant’s
freezers. Arsenio, who
had left a career in marketing,
kept the shop mostly as it was,
but began advertising a twotable
tasting spot. She posted
her menu: nine photos tacked to
an old wooden cooler.
Two years later, La Bodega
is now packed at lunchtimes
and weekends, and Arsenio
is the unoffi cial sommelier,
whose recommendations are
drawn from the shelves that
climb the tiny shop’s walls.
Beside the entrance, three
enormous 1950s wine barrels
hang over the cash register,
from which she sells clients
table wine by the litre – they
bring their own jugs.
The menu, mostly cured
fi sh and meat, changes often,
Knoblauch Gambas, Brot und
marinierte Paprikaschoten
Garlic prawns, toasted bread
and marinated sweet peppers
Stockfood