My Best Meal in Barcelona in 2008
Even before La Crisis took hold, the smart chefs in Barcelona detected a growing fancy food fatigue in this trend-crazed city. Several of them set out to focus on toning down the tricks, emphasizing top-quality ingredients over knock-out design, and keeping prices within reach. Their “bistronomics” — economical bistros — are one of the best things to happen to good eating in Barcelona in a long time. (Lisa Abend wrote about the movement in the New York Times last July).
My best meal in Barcelona in 2008 was at one of these wise little places, Embat, where chef-owners Santi Rebés and Fidel Puig are doing their own fine thing with flavor lessons well-learned in the kitchen at Espai Sucre where they cooked before.
They have a swanky enough Eixample Dreta address, but occupy a narrow, white ground floor room decorated, well, with absolutely nothing. No matter, when you go in the place is filled with the sexy sound of lunchtime conversation (no annoying dependence on throbbing music here). If you don’t feel like waiting for a table, Sandra gives you a sweet welcome at the bar. And you forget your plain-jane surroundings when the handsome food arrives.
Work had me eating out too much, and I’d been missing vegetables, so I ordered first a warm salad that put roasted tomatoes and asparagus up against fresh mozarella on frisee and chives. Then a platillo (this name for old-fashioned Catalan comfort stews predates the concept of small plates) combining artichokes, potatoes, spinach, porcini, and a perfect poached egg in a rich broth. Cristina Torras at the front of the house poured me a delicious garnatxa from Perelada. My after lunch cafe sol was perfect. An extraordinarily fresh, restorative, and beautiful meal for about 18E.
A week later I returned to Embat for a special dinner with a big group. We had the place to ourselves, which made the surroundings seem all the more spare. But soon enough the flavors and textures they served up did their magic. We were in our own private paradise from our first bites of little cheese biscuits and potato foam with anchovy caviar to the mushroom salad, the single sweet scallop with pork and celery, and the truffle and duck canalons (I know this sounds Italian, but a rich liver-y version has been a classic Catalan special occasion food for generations). An aromatic fruity ending — lime basil soup with ginger and green apple — provided balance (and backed up by a nice little plate of petits-fours). Cristina paired up tasty wines: Finca Viladellops 2006, d.o. Penedes (xarel-lo grapes, en ses lies), then Acustic Celler 2007, d.o. Montsant (garnatxa i samso grapes, vinyes velles).
Dinner at Embat is a pricier proposition than lunch. You can be more frugal but if you go all out on two courses plus dessert and drink good wine expect to spend about 50E per person — a fair price for the quality of the food, and not a huge tab in 21st century Barcelona.
Restaurant Embat, C/Mallorca 304, Barcelona. Tel: 93-458-08-55. Hours: Mon-Friday lunch from 1:00 to 3:30pm, Saturday lunch from 2:00 to 3:30pm; Dinner Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 9:00 to 11:00pm.