All the best places, Gracia, Barcelona
Despite having nearly a full three days to explore the gastronomic flavours of Barcelona, I had somehow expended most of my pre-trip energy on pinning all of my hopes for the weekend on the first night going spectacularly well. I don’t know why this was. I think I just got caught up on the idea that eating grilled razor clams on the first night as the sun set would somehow set the tone for an epic weekend. And that if I somehow did not achieve this the whole project would have failed at the first hurdle and we may as well have turned round and gone home immediately. As the plane made its stomach-churning landing, at the second time of asking and a jaunty hour and a half late, and with the sun rapidly setting, my palms began to perspire as I realised the whole weekend might be a bust from the get go. Our AirBnB in the trendy Gracia neighbourhood was at least sixty minutes away and Google told me that the kitchens at Lluritu – my nominated razor clam eatery - shut in less than 90.
It was, like a sumo wrestler eyeing up a leotard, going to be tight.
Our bags came quickly and the passport line was manageable enough, but the cab situation was entirely sub-optimal. The only realistic option was a slightly mad dash to the bus terminal, at which point I basically entirely lost the plot, and along with it any hope of eating tasty grilled molluscs before the day was out. Buses, as we all know, are slow and sh*t. Thankfully for us, we found the one exception to this universal rule, and the bus hurtled down the motorway at alarming speeds for something without proper seatbelts. Seafood for dinner was back on. Maybe.
Happily, that maybe turned into a near certainty as we approached Lluritu 2 – the closer of the two Lluritu outposts – on foot a short time later, having ditched our bags and performed a Formula 1 speed pit stop at the accommodation. I think the first time I properly relaxed that day was as we slid into the last two spaces at the corner of the bar, and were told – god be praised! – that the kitchen was not yet shut.
Lluirtu 2
Aside from the slightly manic lead-in, it was, give or take, just as I had hoped. Reasonably priced grilled seafood began to pile up as quickly as my overzealous broken Spanish could order it. Prawns, sardines, clams and the weekend-defining razors were devoured in quick succession, along with a decent tortilla covered in a prawny sauce and the obligatory pan con tomate on the side. We left giddy at the experience, relived for having had it, and tantalisingly poised for the following days.
The high bar was set. Now all we had to do was live up to it.
Extra Bar
After such a spectacular opening salvo at Lluritu, the following night would be a challenging second act. It would be important to navigate the fine line between repetition and innovation. Trying to take the best of what had gone before and build on it, rather than simply rinse and repeat. A second stab at Lluritu (even though they had two branches) was, therefore, jettisoned in favour of a new adventure. First stop, Extra Bar.
You know it is one of those trips where the stars align when you get the last table on a Saturday night as a walk in at a popular place, which we duly did. And somehow they kept aligning. We raced our way through (more) razor clams in black garlic, a morcilla-based croquetta or two, a plate of beautifully cured anchovies and the obligatory pan con tomate to mop it all up. It was glorious. Perhaps our best meal of the trip in a trip of great meals. But, like a striker sitting pretty on a brace at the end of the first half against a weak defence, it was impossible to resist the urge to stay out on the field in search of more goals.
Bar But
Despite the greed in our eyes, leaving Extra Bar felt like an invitation for disappointment. The bar was too high and the pitfalls too many. A sad looking tapas bar cast a sideways eye at us as we walked past, daring us to lower our standards to its pitiful offerings. Full of hope and giddy on my own luck, I laughed in its face and continued on.
Bar But was our randomly chosen destination, and somehow, on this star-crossed evening, we struck gold once again. Left foot, right foot, header. Adding in Lluritu from the previous evening, this was basically the perfect hattrick.
From an unassuming façade, Bar But threw modern style tapas at us until our already sated tummies were basically gasping for a break. There were briny French oysters, steak tartare with truffled butter gently melting on top, garlicky mushrooms with egg yolk and, to top it all off, a beautiful chocolate ganache served on crispy bread with crunchy flakes of salt glistening on top. It was the perfect end to a perfect evening and – if you count the quite unbelievable lunch of goodies foraged from the market we had eaten a few hours before – the perfect day (of eating, anyway).
If this all sounds too perfect, you are right. It was. It was the perfect weekend of indulgent gourmet eating, sunshine basking, neighbourhood wandering, market roaming, trail walking, cathedral oggling, ham tasting, prawn frying, market-browsing, balcony sitting, beer sipping, finger licking bliss. With the exception of an oddly inhospitable experience at one sh*tty – and I think quite racist - bar, you couldn’t have written a script any better. Looking back, I begin to wonder if it all happened, or if I am just plugged into the matrix and am occasionally fed these glorious fever dreams to keep me happily sedated. If, however, these wonderous things actually did happen, then I couldn’t more highly recommend them. Stay in Gracia, eat the things, drink the drinks and have a bloody good time doing it.
