Alboroque
C/Mallorca 304, (93 458 08 55). Metro Verdaguer.
Open 1-4pm Mon-Wed; 1-4pm, 8-11.30pm Thur-Sat. Closed
2wks Aug.
Classical music, tasteful decor and immaculate service
from an all-girl team accompany some of the best food
you’ll find in this price range. The cooking is
light and fresh, with starters such as camembert croquettes,
or a spinach and mushroom salad; main courses include
combinations such as sea bass with beetroot, or rabbit
in red wine.
Alkimia
C/Industria 70 (93 207 61 15). Metro Sagrada
Familia.
Open 1.30-3.30pm, 9-11pm Mon-Fri; 9-11pm Sat. Closed
2wks Aug.
An excellent wine cellar and richly diverse menu comprising
creative collages of taste and colour spun off from
Catalan and Provençal standards make this a restaurant
on the rise. Start with a salad of luxury lettuces,
beetroot purée and warm sliced squid, and then
expect main courses involving game, wild rice or baked
fish in unexpected combinations. A great way to explore
is the gourmet menu, with four savoury courses and a
couple of desserts.
Casa Calvet
C/Casp 48 (93 412 40 12). Metro Urquinaona.
Open 1-3.30pm, 8.30-11pm Mon-Sat. Closed Aug.
This elegant restaurant sits inside Gaudi´s Casa
Calvet, one of his more understated projects, with an
interior full of glorious detail in the carpentry, stained
glass and tiles. The food is also a delight; modern
Catalan dishes include pea soup with little chunks of
squid; smoked foie gras with mango sauce; succulent
pigeon with Szechuan pepper and roast fennel, and tasty
lamb meatballs with creamy risotto. Puddings are supremely
good - try the pine nut tart with foamed crema catalana
- and the wine list is encyclopaedic.
Cata 1.81
C/Valencia 181 (93 323 68 18). Metro Passeig
de Gràcia or Hospital Clinic. Open 6pm-midnight
Mon-Thur; 6pm-1am Fri, Sat. Closed last 3wks Aug.
Cata’ means tasting, and is the raison of this
brightly lit and slightly austere-looking little place.
Oenophiles flock to try 25cl decanters of whatever takes
their fancy from the impressive wine list, saucer-sized
portions of food: dinky little hamburgers with tiny
cones of chips, salted foie with strawberry sauce, and
miniature parcels of cheese and tomato; treacly pigs’
trotters with figs, walnuts and honey ice-cream. Hugely
popular among Catalan gastronomic luminaries, who, sadly,
get the best of the service.
El Asador de Burgos
C/Bruc 118 (93 207 31 60). Metro Verdaguer.
Open 1-4pm, 8.30-11pm Mon-Sat. Closed Aug.
A Romeo y Julieta Corona hangs heavy in the foyer, where
bejewelled and besuited barcelonins, some with their
moss green raglans hanging cape-like from their shoulders,
wait patiently with talk of skiing, schools and high
finance. This bastion of traditional Castilian cooking
is all about meat; tender racks of honey-sweet lamb
and suckling piggies hot from the huge wood-fired oven.
On the wine list, hefty gran reservas rule the roost,
but the good house red is more sensibly priced.
Semproniana
C/Rosselló 148 (93 453 18 20). Metro
Hospital Cl?c.
Open 1.30-4pm, 9-11.30pm Mon-Thur; 1.30-4pm, 9pm-midnight
Fri, Sat.
A colourful wonderland of floaty gauze drapes, twigs
glittering with glass pendants, dusty ancient books,
with coat hooks and napkin rings made from contorted
cutlery glinting in the candlelight. The capricious
wording of the menu makes roast pigeon ‘the bird
which flies on the ground’, and a dense chocolate
mousse ‘delirium tremens’. The food, which
might also include a creamy courgette soup or a hunk
of cod with calçots, is not at all bad, but rarely
a match for the atmosphere.
Tragaluz
Passatge de la Concepció 5 (93 487 01
96). Metro Diagonal.
Open 1.30-4pm, 8.30pm-midnight Mon-Wed, Sun; 1.30-4pm,
8.30pm-1am Thur- Sat.
Faultless in its design, presentation and culinary execution,
Tragaluz sets the standards for mid-range modern Mediterranean
cuisine. Try a warm duck salad to start, or a creamy
cauliflower soup with lychee granita and jamón
iberico, followed by tender, flaky sea bass with an
onion millefeuille and tomato marmalade. Puddings are
spectacularly good; try apricot and strawberry soup
with iced yoghurt and Szechuan pepper. Downstairs, lighter
meals are served all day, and the group also runs a
Japanese restaurant across the street.
Windsor
C/Còrsega 286 (93 415 84 83). Metro
Diagonal.
Open 1.15-4pm, 8.30-11pm Mon-Fri; 8.30-11pm Sat. Closed
Aug.
The dishes on offer here are unreconstructed Catalan,
consummately executed and wholly dependent on what’s
in season, from artichoke soup with cod mousse to venison
cannelloni with black truffle sauce or pigeon risotto.
The list of puddings, each accompanied by different
suggestions for dessert wines, is a real highlight.
La Selva Negra is a triumphant paean to current vogues
- Black Forest gateau presented as stacked slabs of
chocolate cake next to swirls of cherry sorbet and vanilla
cream foam. Very postmodern. Very good.
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