I’m sorry that tonight’s dinner is out of focus, but I think if you take a good look, you will understand why. Xesca was my saucy backdrop at D.O. in Barcelona’s Gràcia neighborhood. Here is her decolletage behind a superb platillo of escarxofa confitada amb botifarra negra. A neatly trimmed artichoke heart, gone tender in an olive oil bath, but with its flat top caramelized, the whole thing settled into a dab of pureed potatoes and topped with a few slices of blood sausage, also slightly crisped on the edges.

Then, Gambes amb favetes i menta, seared red shrimp, that special breed from Palamós (head-on, how else around here?), with a scattering of ingredients from a classic Catalan spring salad: fresh favas, mint, and lemon zest. Nice, though we felt funny about the little coral-colored eggs that filled each shell and asked for an opinion from the kitchen. Answer: “Those are considered a good thing.” Which is indeed a good thing, because by the time we got that report we had eaten them all.

See, we started down this path to a few platillos thinking we’d eat light. But these are the pig’s feet that threw us giddily off course. Canelons de peus de porc amb salsa de vi negre that were pure unctuous pigginess, wrapped in a thin sheet of pasta (after mingling heavily with the Italians in the middle ages, the Catalans came away in posession of the cannolo form); around them, a thin drizzle of fruity red wine sauce. (This is what platillos are all about, by the way––a Catalan small plates tradition that goes back to the days before “small plates” were actually small.)

Here is the cleverest idea yet regarding the problem of calçots for city folks: roast them en papillotte. Though these were a little underdone, the fiber involved, we figured, was an excellent counterbalance to the pig’s feet.

Dessert. Just one, and really good: a sliver of genoise formed a base for a Canut de Formatge Idiazabal amb Codony. It was a lovely little cannolo, wrapped in thin slices of quince paste and filled with Idiazabal cheese-spiked cream.

D.O. Carrer Verdi, 36, Barcelona. Tel: +93-218-96-73. Open Mon-Sun from 8pm to 1am. Closed Tuesdays.

I take back all those unflattering things I’ve said in the past about Bilbao. That stuff about how it’s the “the Pittsburgh of Spain.” Yes, it’s an iron city. Yes, the Ría that runs through it is brown. And yes, it’s annoying, if not panic-inducing, that the Guggenheim Bilbao is now listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die. But the city that inspired a planning cliché, “the Bilbao effect” (build a Big-Name-Architect museum and you’ll soon be polishing up your rusting economy with wads of tourist dollars), is more than all that.

A month ago, we set out on the Camino de Santiago from here. There are historical arguments for starting in Bilbao – the city has figured on Camino trail maps since the 1300s – but I chose it for practical reasons: You can get to Bilbao from just about anywhere. And yes, there’s Gehry’s museum.

But while the Guggenheim lends this departure point an Oz-like glow, for me the real Bilbao effects, the things I want to go back for, are these:

Its green, green heart. You fly into Bilbao over rounded hills. “It’s like a fairytale,” said Ed, looking out the window at forests, meadows, and farmhouses coming into view through a mist. The Guggenheim is famously sited up against the city’s industrial edge, but here’s what nobody tells you: it looks pretty swell against that green farmland too.

Its good, good eats. The market has a whole floor, icy and sweet-smelling, dedicated to fish. An encouraging first stop. Afterwards, my Bilbaina colleague, Carmen, pointed us to her favorite bar on the Plaza Nueva for a pintxo (peppers and tuna and cod and countless other little bar bites) and a zurito (a little beer). The tap is a bronze hand by Lorenzo Quinn. And the fluffy scrambled eggs they fed us as a vehicle for buttery sautéed cèpes, well those cured our jet-lag, I swear.

Big colorful windows. It rained a few times on our first day here. Then again, the sun came out a few times, too. The Basques track it all from their pretty enclosed balconies, sometimes painted bright colors.

The Euskotran. The walks from old city to new couldn’t be better: fifteen minutes along pretty 19^th century boulevards and grandly gardened roundabouts or an equally easy stroll via the promenade along the river (and you get to cross Calatrava’s glass bridge). But it’s just so sweet the way this little tram zips quietly along the grass.

Bilbao’s big girl. You gotta love her. And also the shop selling boinas, those huge rain-worthy Basque berets. And the windows full of hiking gear including stuff for the people who are into ropes. Bilbao is just that kind of hearty, practical place.

Ongi etorri! Actually, nobody welcomed us with this greeting when we touched down in Euskal Herria (that’s the Basque Country, to you). But, with our comfort in mind, the airport did offer this helpful invitation to the komunak. Just the fact that the Basques have Euskara, their very own language that no one else can figure out, makes me want to write them a love letter in lemon juice.

In all, the plan was to land in Bilbao and get on the Camino without looking back. But that’s not the way it went.

For one thing, there was that last lunch at another of Carmen’s favorite places, a restaurant whose name I cannot bring myself to reveal (except to my clients): beautiful ham, and a “Rioja with Ribera tendencies” (my god, what was that?), a luscious stew of garbanzos with lobster, tiny squid with slow-cooked onions, a delicate shell of a cream puff, coffee on the terrace overlooking the city.

As I was leaving, the gracious owner-maitre, Patricio Valiño, discreetly handed me something. “Oh madam, I believe you dropped this…” It was the button from my pants which had, it seems, miraculously shrunk during our Camino journey.

Those Michelin star folks are troublemakers, if you ask me. A couple of years ago, their meddling came between me and my favorite Barcelona lunch date:  Restaurant Saüc. It’s not that Saüc’s star wasn’t well-deserved, it’s just that it brought lots of new suitors to the table. Prices went up and our lunchtime thing had to end.

We have “La Crisis” to thank for a recent e-mail from the restaurant, wooing with a 27 Euro prix fixe lunch special. The note also mentions a pumpkin salad, beef cheeks with wild mushrooms, almond and pear tart with sheeps’ milk ice cream.  You better believe I’ll go running back for more.

Chef Xavier Franco cooked in some of the best kitchens in Catalonia, including El Racó de Can Fabes, before he and his wife, Anna Doñate opened Saüc (she’s at the front of the house). The restaurant’s name is an homage to La Cerdanya, the inland mountain region they come from, where saüc – elderberry bush, grows wild.

The place is small and simple, almost austere.  Franco’s cooking is restrained, too.  He likes to combine no more than three or four flavors on the plate, and doesn’t let them get muddled.  He’s appealingly brave about putting un-stylish Catalan classics like trinxat (a sort of Catalan bubble and squeak) on the menu.

The lunch special is available Tuesdays through Fridays and includes bread, water, coffee, and taxes.  The menu changes every two weeks.

Saüc, Passatge Lluís Pellicer 12, tel: 93-321-01-89, www.saucrestaurant.com.

Trinxat Saüc

I asked Xavier Franco for a recipe and was a little taken aback when he offered trinxat.  Trinxat has got to be the comfiest winter dish in Catalonia:  cabbage and mashed potatoes, flavored with a little garlic and onion and studded with crunchy bits of salty cured tocino (like pancetta).  It is something grandmothers make, not chefs.  But there’s genius in what Franco’s does here, making the dish more delicate and refined without selling its soul.

In his version, the chopped cabbage is replaced by green beans.  Sweetbreads rather than bacon provide the meatiness; the onions become a caramelized sauce; a few greens set off the richness of it all.  Franco uses lamb sweetbreads, but says veal is fine, too. You do have to think ahead when you make sweetbreads because you may need to get your butcher to order them for you, and because they need to be soaked for a couple of days before they’re cooked.  Otherwise, there’s nothing complicated about this dish except the way it conveys rustic satisfaction and luxury at the same time.

For 6 people:

the sweetbreads
1 lb. lamb or veal sweetbreads
flour for dredging
salt and pepper
1/4 C olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. minced chives

the “trinxat”
3 lbs. red potatoes (or other lower starch potato such as yukon gold), peeled
1 lb. green beans, preferably Italian or Roma, the flatter beans)
salt
1/2 C olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled and gently smashed

the caramelized onion sauce
3 lbs. sweet onions, julienned
1/3 C olive oil
2/3 C beef stock

the salad-garnish
3 oz. purslane (or other tart salad greens, such as watercress)
3 Tbsp. almond oil
1 Tbsp. raw almonds (I think toasted and/or sliced would be good, too)

prep the sweetbreads
Purchase fresh sweetbreads two days ahead of time, cover them in cold water and allow to soak in the refrigerator, changing the water several times (about every 12 hours). Poach gently in salted water for about 8 minutes, until just set, rinse to cool, drain, peel off any excess membrane or fat, and set aside on paper towels until the trinxat is made and you’re ready to finish the dish. (Sweetbreads can be prepped to this point a day ahead and held in the refrigerator).

make the “trinxat”
Place the peeled potatoes in a pot, cover with cold water, and simmer until tender.  Drain and mash potatoes with a fork, leaving them a bit chunky; set aside.  Meanwhile, blanch the beans in boiling salted water until just tender, drain and plunge in cold water, then slice crosswise into thin rounds and stir into the smashed potatoes.  Heat the 1/2 cup olive oil in a roomy skillet, sizzle the garlic cloves in the oil until they are golden, then remove the garlic and add the potato-bean mixture; without over-blending, let it sizzle, cook off its moisture, and develop brown and crunchy bits.  Remove trinxat to a bowl and cool  (reserve and strain the oil and use it for making the onion sauce).  Trinxat may be made ahead and held in the fridge for a day.

make the onion glaze
Heat the 1/3 cup olive oil in a large skillet, add sliced onions, and allow to caramelize slowly but thoroughly, stirring occasionally.  Keep it slow, tending it while you do other things for at least an hour (Catalan tradition demands nurturing sauce bases like this all damn day).  Add the beef stock and simmer to reduce by half.  Pour into a strainer and press solids to collect all the onion and beef juices, then discard the solids and return the juices to the pan.  Whisk for a glossy sauce consistency. (May also be made ahead and held in the fridge for a day.)

finish the dish
Have sweetbreads and trinxat at room temperature and warm the onion glaze.  Make squared-off rectangular logs of the trinxat (about 6 inches long, 2 inches wide) and brown them lightly on all sides, heating them through.  In another skillet, heat butter and oil, slice sweetbreads 1/2 inch thick, dust them with flour, salt and pepper, and fry lightly for just about 2 minutes per side (so they’re crunchy on the outside and creamy in the middle).  Wipe out the pan and add about 3/4 of the glaze to coat the sweetbreads. Sprinkle on the minced chives.  Dress the purslane with almond oil and toss in the almonds. Plate the browned trinxat with the purslane alongside or on top, then arrange the glazed sweetbreads on the greens and add the almonds.  Drizzle each plate with a little of the remaining onion sauce.

I don’t really know Alberto Romero but thanks to the Internet, I have seen what he has for breakfast and I love him for his dedication to one of Spain’s perfect meals: a little crema-topped café with a glass of water back, olive-oily bites of crunchy fried dough in the form of a churro (or a puffier porra, since he’s in Madrid), and that excellent newspaper, El País.  Thanks, Alberto, for the photo above.

I rejoice when I hear that Starbucks has overextended itself and may have to close a few stores. As if that sameness they bring to city streetscapes weren’t tiresome enough, the coffee — ordinary beans, overroasted — just isn’t that good. And it gets my goat that the megachain has made inroads in Spain, where a well-priced, very good cup of coffee, served up quickly enough to make takeout seem like a waste of effort, is a long-established tradition.

Walk into any decent bar here and order a café con leche.  You get a nice, dark, crema-covered shot with freshly steamed milk for maybe a Euro twenty-five. If, like Alberto, you are not late for work, throw in a slice of toast with tomato (una tostada con tomate), a bite of omelet (un pincho de tortilla), or that porra, and linger for a whole five minutes. The point is, in the same time it takes you to get your “to go” order at Starbucks, you can stand at the counter and have your coffee made-to-order, spend a moment savoring it and reviewing news headlines, and be on your way.

Then there’s this:  if you buck Starbucks, you get to drink your coffee out of a real cup instead of paper.  Unless of course you’re one of those people who insist on having their coffee served in a glass (en un vaso, por favor).  Alberto drinks his coffee solo but his girlfriend, a café con leche woman, explains the glass permits the addition of a little extra milk.

In Spain, your coffee need not match some pre-programmed corporate coffee drink profile.  Ask for your coffee shorter and stronger (corto), or longer (largo) and while you’re at it, say whether you want your milk heated very hot and frothy (muy caliente) or just lukewarm (templada) or, maybe because you’re late for work, cold (fría).  Coffee with just a little milk foam is un cortado. A plain old espresso is un café solo, though you are welcome to get your hit of coffee spiked with a shot of brandy (un carajillo — for which you may also specify whisky or anís).  If you must have something like a drip brew, long and watery, order an americano.  Decaffeinated beans brewed properly in an espresso machine (un descafeinado de máquina) have, in swankier bars, replaced the dreaded envelopes of instant coffee decaf drinkers were once given.  A glass of water alongside your Joe is customary, but as Alberto points out, it is also customary for waiters to forget to serve it, so if you want water, ask:  y un vasito de agua también, por favor.

Have it your way, with one exception.  Do not order a milky coffee after mid-day, and most especially not after a big lunch or dinner.  If you order a café con leche after, say, 11:00am, a seasoned barman will serve your coffee in a cup, knowing you won’t want to fill up on milk so close to the lunch hour (which comes around 2:00pm).  This has to do with the Spaniards’ ceaseless worry about things that will give you a corte de digestión.  They care about this the way the French care about their livers.  And maybe they’re right.  You wouldn’t want your digestion cut off, would you?

More musings on a proper breakfast, on why waiters forget to bring water, and how that relates to what we get and pay for in the online realm can be found on Alberto’s blog.

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.

Fina Puigdevall is probably the most committed locavore among her fellow Michelin star-winning Catalan chefs.  Her restaurant, Les Cols (“the cabbages”), occupies a family masía (Catalan country house) in Olot that dates back to the 15th century, though she hasn’t shied away from a few modern improvements–like the dramatic glass wall separating one of the dining rooms from the chicken yard.

The design is radical, the chef says, “but the most radical thing I’m doing right now is this:  I’m not serving fish anymore, even though we can get fresh fish from the coast of our own province. It’s only an hour away, you know. But we’re gradually retiring it from the menu because it’s not part of our local cuisine, our landscape.”

We rolled into Les Cols this fall, a group of food-loving American travelers who had just spent a couple of days at another masía, Mas Garganta, the farmhouse inn run by Fina’s sister Inés. (I’ve mentioned it here.)  The contrast between the two places–the inn humble, comfortably showing its age; the restaurant extravagantly embellished in cutting-edge design–is weird.  But gradually the similarities in these two sisters’ ways become clear. Together they reveal a contradictory but defining Catalan sensibility that reveres everything traditional and close to home and at the same time embraces innovation and craves worldly adventure.

Both women are deeply in love with the Garrotxa, the Pyrenees foothills west of Girona, where they were born.  Inés has replanted the old kitchen garden, trying to recover the self-sufficiency of the farmhouse as it might have been when her grandfather lived there. And even though Fina has made more radical amendments to her masía, she says, “There’s no place I’d rather be than this.  There’s no landscape I long for more than the Garrotxa.  Don’t get me wrong, I do go away sometimes, and I think it’s important to have the chance to miss this place.  But I think we are in a world in which people move around way too much.  What I am trying to do is somehow transmit this whole place to people.”

Both sisters have an artful eye for spaces.  The table in Inés’s pantry is a tableau for silent still lifes that she quietly arranges every day– pumpkins and squashes, a bunch of celery in a bucket, a braid of tomatoes.  A hedge of red roses stands at cooks’ eye view outside a long window in Fina’s kitchen.

But Inés flees when I pick up my camera.  And Fina won’t visit our table until we insist.  “I don’t want the restaurant to be about me,” she says, “I want it to be about the place.  When we’re all here in the kitchen, I like to imagine I can go unnoticed.”

“What our two places have in common,” Fina says, “is that they are both very real.  We both believe there is an important feeling that comes through when a place is real and in that sense we are doing exactly the same thing.”

Well, not exactly.  If you’ve eaten on Inés’s terrace, you’ve shared a stretch of mismatched wooden tables with other travelers; Fina’s shared table is a single sleek curve of gold-colored steel.

At Inés’s, you slice your own local sausage with crusty bread and humble jug wine; at Fina’s the sausage is served on a platter alongside a poem and a cold glass of reserve Cava.  If you’ve had one of Inés’s hearthside suppers, you know the white beans from Santa Pau that are the pride of the region; at Fina’s, they are rendered as “caviar” in delicate spheres atop a tiny “blini” made from local buckwheat–a traditional crop in these parts that is undergoing a quiet renaissance here.

The stew of chicken, pork, and wild mushrooms we had at Inés’s was real.  Our 14-course tasting menu at Les Cols might be described more properly as surreal–in the best sense of the word.

Here’s the menu from our feast at Les Cols.  I’ve added the wines we drank in italics and a few explanatory notes in brackets:

Autumn & Nature

Cava Raventós i Blanc reserva 2006

The land, the water, the cereal, the essentiality of primary food:
Homemade sausage from Olot with buckwheat crust
[the “crust” was a big paper-thin crisp we broke in pieces to eat with the sausage and Cava]

Caviar from La Garrotxa:
Buckwheat blini and Santa Pau beans
[no fish involved--instead, tiny spheres of bean paste]

Finca Viladellops, Viladellops 2007 (xarel-lo) d.o. Penedés

Autumn tastes and colours:
Beetroot roll, del ciri apple, goat cheese, oil, salt

With the texture and scent of this mushroom:
Mushroom salad, pine nuts, beet leaves, tortell d’Olot
[tortell is a traditional pastry; this was a slim biscotto-like serving]

To eat with fingers:
Cornbread sandwich, cereals bread from Els Hostalets d’en Bas, crumbs, olives
[baked in a nearby town famous for its wood oven and made into a little sandwich]

A vegetable of the season:
Pumpkin, eucalyptus oil, garlic flower
[a soup]

Celler Capçanes, Mas Collet 2006 (garnatxa, cabernet sauvignon, syrah) d.o. Montsant

A hostel dish:
Rice with squids, sausage, peppers, citrus fruits in batter
[traditional “black” rice, served to travelers who lodged in the hostels on their way to market, garnished with thin slices of lemon and orange in tempura]

A salted fish always present in mountain cuisine:
Cod, pil-pil, raisins, grapes, walnuts, hazelnuts
[the fruits and nuts make this a Catalan riff on Basque salt cod pil-pil with olive oil and a bit of hot red pepper]

With a traditional preservation process:
Pickled pork ribs, banana, honey, coffee
[a sweet and earthy version of excabetx, the Catalan pickling technique; the new world additions gave this a lot in common with a Southern barbecued spare rib]

With the contrast of jams made here:
Catalan cheeses, right to the point
[watermelon jam and orange-carrot jam with three Catalan cheeses: Tou de Tillers--soft cows’ milk cheese from the Pyrenees; Garrotxa--firm sheep’s milk cheese from a farm near Inés’s; Borredà Carrat Cendrat--fresh goats’milk cheese from Bergueda, rolled in ash]

The nostalgic taste of whole milk:
Croquette, bread, milk, caramel spread, nutmeg
[a bread pudding]

A holiday dessert:
Pastry, egg sweetmeat, truffle, baba au rhum & chestnuts, pomegranate & tangerine lollipop
[petits fours; the egg sweet is known as a yema, which amounts to an ultra-condensed tiny flan]

To share:
Chocolate bar, an evocation to the restaurant space
[a riff on the traditional children’s after-school treat--waiters carved off dark chocolate bars and slices of coca, a sweet, simple Catalan pastry]

With the typical liquor from la Garrotxa:
Ratafia ice lolly
[this liqueur is like nocino, made from green walnuts and 40 herbs]

Rotllan Torra, Mistela (garnatxa, nv solera method) d.o.q. Priorat

Les Cols, 14 October 2008

Walking down Carrer Parlament in Barcelona’s Raval one day in June, I came across a place that brought back sweet memories of summers in that city. The neighborhood has become trendy, but Horchatería Sirvent is still there, righteously unhip.

Sirvent is an old school place that holds firm to the Spanish belief that icy sweets are strictly warm weather treats. In high summer, the shop expands its hours, and crowds fill the neighborhood sidewalks, sipping peacefully until the store closes at 1:30 a.m.

One of the specialties at Sirvent is horchata de chufa, a nutty-milky drink made from ground tiger nuts. But my favorite is helado de leche merengada—literally “meringued milk.”

This dessert is part granita, flavored with a light zest of lemon rind and a warm dash of cinnamon, and part milk shake, made frothy with a quick meringue. The traditional version is served in a tall narrow glass with a dash of cinnamon on top, a spoon, and a straw. There’s also a fabulous ice cream version on a cone.

Neither leche merengada nor horchata are purely Catalan treats—they’re Valencian,
from a little further down the Mediterranean coast. But Sirvent’s recipes have been Barcelona favorites for more than 80 years.

Tomás Sirvent Planelles first opened his horchatería in the Barri Gótic in 1920. His son Tomás Sirvent Plá moved the operation to its current location in 1943, and now his sons Marc and Tomás Sirvent Juncos, grandsons of the founder, are learning the business, with plans to continue the family tradition.

In the winter, the Sirvents close up shop and head to Valencia to tend to a related business: making turrons, Spain’s almond nougat candy. The Sirvent reputation rides on their dedication to excellent ingredients; they are picky about the tiger nuts, marcona almonds, and rosemary honey that go into their artisanal versions of the traditional winter sweet. Most everything they use comes from Xixona, their hometown and Spain’s turron capital.

The shop displays a sign warning that, though there may be imitators, “this store has no other branch.” The sign stayed in place even after the Sirvents opened a second shop on Carrer Balmes a few years ago. Confusingly, the store on Balmes is called “Parlament, 56.”

“We didn’t want to be mistaken for the other Sirvents,” says Marc, revealing the family’s thinking on what New Yorkers will recognize as the “Ray’s Pizza” problem. “There are so many Sirvents that, instead of naming our second store after ourselves, we named it after our other store’s address, which everybody knows is ours.” What the fresh flavors here confirm is that this is no chain operation.

Sirvent is a worthy destination on a walk into a less tourist-clogged corner of downtown Barcelona. It is at the edge of the Raval, the neighborhood to the right of the Ramblas as you face the sea, in what was always a working class district, dotted with some medieval treasures and worried by a few rough spots. Lately it’s been discovered by the arty—the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) is here. Fashionable shops and the halal markets of North African immigrants are interspersed with vestiges of the old neighborhood.

The location also borders Poble Sec, where a walk seaward along the Ronda Sant Pau and on down the Paral-lel takes you to the Drassanes Reials, the medieval shipyards, and a remarkable intact section of the city’s 14th century walls.

“Our neighborhood? Sant Antoni, of course,” says Marc, reminding me that since the store sits just outside the old city walls it is officially part of the Eixample. While tourists flock to Gaudí’s houses in the swanky middle of the district, this left-hand side is defined by another moderniste delight, perhaps equally interesting to food lovers: the Mercat de Sant Antoni. Designed by Rovira y Trias and finished in 1882, this beautiful ironwork market is actually bigger than the famous Boquería—and, with nary a tourist roaming the stalls, maybe better.

The Sirvents become tight-lipped if you press them to reveal what makes their leche merengada so good. As I review the recipe I’ve worked out at home for the ice cream version, Marc’s brother-in-law José Antonio says, “The flavors are simple—milk, lemon peel, cinnamon. The secret is in the proportions,” which, he quickly adds, “we are not going to tell you.”

What makes this dessert such a hit is that it is ethereal on every dimension. The milk makes it crystallize into a less shardy texture than a granita, but leche merengada is still much less rich than ice cream. Whipped egg whites make it light as air. The lemon and cinnamon are refreshing but so subtle you’re not sure they’re there.

“You want it to be just scented with lemon, but you don’t actually want it to taste lemony,” says Jose Antonio. “That’s it. Now I really can’t tell you anything more.”

Horchatería Torronería Sirvent, Carrer Parlament, 56; open 7 days, hours and products vary by season: April-November, cold treats until 1:30am; November-January, turrons until 9pm. Closed February and March. Telephone: 93-441-27-20.

Helado de Leche Merengada

This is the easiest of frozen desserts imaginable: it has few ingredients and does not call for an ice-cream freezer. But it does require a little attention to timing. The milk base must be heated and then chilled, so it’s best made the night before you plan to serve the dessert; then you’ll check and stir the mixture a few times over the course of an hour, as it freezes. (If you have an ice-cream freezer, you can use it—mine worked great when I didn’t get the base ice-cold enough ahead of time for the granita method to freeze it in time for dessert.)

For 4 servings:

1 quart whole or 2% milk
1 cup sugar, plus 2 Tbsp. more for the meringue
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 vanilla bean, optional, or 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Rind of one lemon, the yellow skin pared off in strips
4 egg whites
Sprinkling of ground cinnamon as a garnish

For the milk base: Pour the milk into a saucepan and add one cup of sugar, the cinnamon stick, vanilla bean, and lemon rind. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally, and then lower the heat to simmer for three minutes. Remove from heat to cool, and pour the milk through a fine strainer into a wide, shallow metal bowl or baking dish (you want the base to be only about one inch deep so it will freeze easily). Discard the rind and cinnamon stick and scrape the soft inner flesh of the vanilla bean into the milk before discarding the pod. Refrigerate overnight or all day until well chilled.

Freeze, fluff, and finish: About an hour before you plan to serve it, place the milk mixture in the freezer. After about a half hour it should begin to set up. Stir it well with a fork and put it back in the freezer for another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, beat the egg whites with the remaining 2 Tbsp. of sugar until the meringue holds shiny firm peaks. By now the milk mixture will be further frozen. Stir it well with a fork again, fold in the meringue, and put it back in the freezer for another 15 minutes. (Alternatively, pour the base into your ice-cream freezer and churn for about a half hour or until it sets up like a sorbet, then fold in the meringue.)

Serve in a tall slim glass with a straw and a spoon and dust the top with a pinch of ground cinnamon. (A squat glass and spoon will do, too.)

The polyester patchwork jacket on their man at the front of the house says it all: “this place is so cool it hurts.” It also says, “Moritz.” Turns out the jacket is a fashionably-placed ad for the recently resuscitated Moritz brewery whose roots are right here in this Poble Sec neighborhood. Pondering this marketing stunt we browsed the tapas list where we ran into the Moritz logo again, this time amongst other companies’ calling cards printed on the back of the menu. The bar man confirmed without so much as an eye-roll that these are Inopia’s corporate sponsors.

A restaurant owned by Albert Adrià, semi-famous brother of the outrageously famous Ferran, sometime El Bulli pastry chef, and force behind the success that is Cacao Sampaka needs sponsors? Memo to Bud: send them one of those back-lit revolving Clydesdale lamps — it’d be perfect with Inopia’s retro-ugly-chic decor (early Almodóvar tile walls, shrill florescents, and posters depicting tapas in the manner of those IKEA Swedish meatball come-ons).

What really hurts here is what matters most: the food. Inopia serves up old-school tapas at modern-day prices, riding on the latest wave in Barcelona eating. Everywhere we went we encountered the “bomba,” a breaded and fried meatball reincarnated from back-in-the day — a big fat poke in the eye to molecular gastronomy. The twist here at Inopia is supposed to be top-quality ingredients that take barfly fare to new heights. We believed Matt Gross and Mark Bittman’s praiseful reviews in the New York Times, but should have had a look at Verema where locals griped until they stopped caring altogether. Our disappointments included Inopia’s too-mayonaise-y ensaladilla rusa (potato salad with tuna) and greasy alcachofas (fried artichokes, served too cold). And though we approved of Inopia’s decent ham croqueta, nothing left us with the will to forge ahead with pinchos morunos (little kebabs) and other yawners on the menu. Brushing bits of wool from our eyes, we moved on — there are plenty of real classic bars left in this town for good eats without the weird ads, bad lights, and hype.

Inopia Classic Bar, C/Tamarit, 104; Tel: (+34) 93-424-5231. Open Tu-Fri 7-11pm, Sat 1-3:30pm and 7-11pm, Closed Sundays and Mondays.

As you drive into La Bisbal d’Empordà, your romantic image of what a historic pottery-making town ought to look like (quaint cottage workshops complete with artisans at the wheel) takes a withering blow. The place is dusty, for one thing — sitting on a great big expanse of clay since the dawn of time will do that do a town. But take it slow here and you will find enough artisanal pottery and good eats to make you forget the scruffiness and want to come back for more.

They’ve been busy churning out clay roofing and downspouts, bathroom tiles and kitchen crockery here for 300 years and have the factories to prove it. L’Aigueta, the old highway through the center of town, is lined with ceramics shops, some of them featuring wares more dubious than garden gnomes.

But, as I was saying, good things come to those who can resist the donkey’s gaze. For a look at traditional shapes and colors, I like El Rissec (C/L’Aigueta, 92-102). They’ve got some over-the-top flouncy stuff and odd imported goods, but they’ve also got everyday country pottery — pitchers, coffee cups, tagines, casseroles — in Catalonia’s traditional earthy golds and greens, creams and blues, and unadorned terracotta.

Vila Clara is the place to go for gorgeous unconventional colors. The gray-blue pieces at the top of this post are from there, as are the bright glazes in the photo below. Vila Clara has two shops, one with platters and bowls (C/ L’Aigueta, 56), the other at the other end of town (C/ Sis d’Octubre, 27) with dinnerware collections.

Rogenca d’Ullastret is my favorite. Proprietress Antonia Roig works in an open studio near the center of town (C/ Hospital, 2) most mornings, and is in her shop at no. 112 on L’Aigueta most afternoons. I go back for her Japanese-like tea sets, simple fountains, rock-shaped boxes — these are not traditional pieces but her forms are very organic and tactile, her colors more delicious than this picture conveys.

Walk across the bridge over the dry riverbed at the center of town and head into the old city on C/Cavallers for lunch. Two excellent places for a reasonable menú del día: Els Fogons (C/Cavallers, 22, tel: 972-645-165) and just across from it and a bit more stylish, La Cantonada (C/Bisbe, 6, tel: 972-643-413). Both are on the way to the Castle — oh, yeah, there’s an eleventh century castle on a square here, especially worth strolling through on a Friday, market day.

If you’re serious about your shopping, Artesans Ceramistes website offers glimpses (and whereabouts) of many local producers. If you want to go beyond shopping, there is an interesting Terracotta Museu in town, housed at a defunct tilemaking factory. Though it is currently closed for renovations, once it reopens tours will include a visit to Terrisseria Salamó, which still produces very traditional pieces. For the crafty, La Bisbal also has a well-regarded Escola de Ceràmica that offers short courses in summer for serious amateur artisans — ceramics, as well as sculpture, drawing, glass-blowing, and furniture making.

Barcelona chefs Jordi Butrón and Xano Saguer caused a commotion when they opened their restaurant, Espai Sucre back in 2000. This was before New York City’s Chickalicious and other experiments in dessert-only menus were on the scene. They came out swinging with philosophical fervor about pastry chefs being chefs, not just twinkie-headed extras. Desserts, they argued, needn’t always be sugary afterthoughts. And now, with a little forethought, visitors to Barcelona can get a taste of their techniques . Alongside the Escola’s 11-month course for would-be pastry chefs, is an array of “monographic” or short courses in everything from getting over your fear of working with chocolate or spun sugar or those crazy new flavor products to employing all five senses in composing desserts, making confections that incorporate flowers and spices, or perfecting a collection of petits-fours. They’ve just posted the June through December course schedule on their website.

The courses on offer reflect the founders’ commitment to creating “a new understanding of dessert that is at once experimental and respectful of tradition,” and their propensity for applying “technique and experience to blur the boundaries between sweet and savory.” Bringing flavors like green olive oil, smoke, tomatoes, and truffles into superb and beautiful confections is their holy grail, and they’ve pretty much found it.

While traveling cooks seek out the masterminds at Espai Sucre’s Escola, serious eaters might just want to try the restaurant itself. Amanda Hesser loved the place, mostly, when she went in 2002: here’s her review. Their approach doesn’t seem so suprising anymore because others now share their philosophy, but this is still a place full of good ideas and flavors (it’s small and popular, so call ahead to reserve for dinner).

Restaurant Espai Sucre C/Princesa, 53 Tel: 93-268-16-30 and Escola Espai Sucre C/ Sant Pere Mes Alt, 72 Tel: 93-315-10-22.