Category: General
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The Blog Awakens…
This blogging year has not gone to plan. Life, work and family have taken more time and energy than anticipated. Something had to go – and unfortunately it was updates to FoodBarcelona. But things will soon change. The blog is waking up again. Like a flower in spring (or perhaps a hibernating bear with a…
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Catalan Gastronomy Tour — Food Tours Barcelona
FoodTours Barcelona’s Catalan Gastronomy tour is an informative and well balanced intro to Barcelona’s local flavours. I’m reluctant to review Barcelona food tours on here. I’m simply not the target audience, which usually comprises tourists in search of an easily digestible, bite-sized intro to local flavours and food facts, not pseudo-know-it-all food writers. Nevertheless, food…
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New Guardian Article: Casa Vicens
My new article in The Guardian. Barcelona tourism is fighting back. The fistic flurry begins with a haymaker from heavy-hitter Gaudí in the form of Casa Vicens, the architect’s first major project. Casa Vicens will open permanently to the public for the first time in November 2018. Read all about it in my Guardian article here.…
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Da Michele: A Love Story With No Added Cheese
Not a review, not a rant. A love story from Naples. Pizza included. There’s been a superabundance of stories in Barcelona this week. The bad news dam has cracked; depressing updates of all kinds have spurted forth with increasing vigour, lightly dousing then drowning us in disingenuous statements and dubious opinions. In the deluge, a…
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The Guardian Travel – City Breaks With Kids: Barcelona
Read my latest article about Barcelona, City Breaks With Kids, in The Guardian travel section. The Guardian has just published an article I wrote about what to do in Barcelona with kids. It’s also in the 28/1/2017 print edition. If you live in Barcelona or if you’re planning a family holiday here, please check it…
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Barcelona Boat Trip
“Fancy a boat trip and a few beers?” It was my friend Rob, of the redoubtable Homage to BCN blog, asking a stupid question. Of course I did. And so we met at Barnabier in Barcelona’s Port Olimpic, to be joined by other friends old and new, including Ben Holbrook (who has written a better…
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Drive Me Barcelona
In a one-time-only unscheduled change to my usual posts, I’m going to talk about Ferraris instead of food. As regular readers will know, when I’m not eating I am a self-employed copywriter. This is less glamourous than writing about restaurants but has the upside of actually earning me some money. Drive Me Barcelona recently contacted…
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Eat Street
Photos from the first Eat Street Barcelona food truck event of 2016. Click on arrows or swipe to see gallery. I should have posted these photos earlier, but better late than never. Eat Street (which I’ve covered before) and written about for the FT, is one of the pioneers of Barcelona’s street food scene. In…
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Barcelona Craft Beer Tasting Tour
This tasting tour around Barcelona’s booming craft beer scene, led by an expert Catalan brewer, is an edifying ale adventure. Beer in Barcelona has undergone a transformation in recent years thanks to the global trend for craft beer. Local breweries and bars have sprung up like welcome geysers of foaming refreshment in what was once…
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Spanish Civil War Tours in Barcelona
Nick Lloyd’s captivating ‘walking history lessons’ about the Spanish Civil War are one of the best ways to spend a morning in Barcelona. The Spanish Civil War isn’t a common topic for a food blog, I admit, but we’ll categorize it as ‘food for thought’ and move onto what’s important: praising Nick Lloyd’s tours in…
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Food Lovers Company Tapas Tour
Click on the arrows to view gallery Food Lovers Company Barcelona Tapas Tour I met Nuria and Margherita, readers of this blog and owners of Food Lovers Company, last week. They kindly invited me to join them on one of their Barcelona tapas tours around the Ciutat Vella (old town). Their walking tours take in…
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Devour Barcelona (Gràcia Food Tour)
Click on the arrows to view gallery In May I was invited to join the Devour Barcelona team on their four-hour food tour. Devour began in Madrid and has since expanded to other cities in Spain and Catalonia. Their Barcelona tour sensibly eschews the tourist-dense city center and instead takes visitors around Gràcia, a former…
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Fodor’s Travel BARCELONA
The bestselling Barcelona travel guide book now features a chapter on ‘Where to Eat’ by the author of this blog. As regular readers may know, I recently wrote and edited reviews of hundreds of restaurant reviews plus features on Catalan food and wine for the 5th edition of Fodor’s Barcelona. It’s now on-sale in both…
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Eat Street #4
Click on the arrow keys to see the whole gallery. The fourth Eat Street food fair was a massive success thanks to the hard work of the BCN Mès newspaper team who organized it and the cooks who slaved for hours on a scorching afternoon to feed everyone. I was covering the event for the…
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Manlleu Pork and Beer Festival 2014
This year’s meat feast in Manlleu, some 80 km north of Barcelona, was a perfect platform for the new generation of Catalan craft beer brewers and a testament to the lasting appeal of traditional gastronomy. After having thoroughly enjoyed last year’s Festa del Porc i de la Cervesa I wasn’t going to miss a second helping. Unfortunately, the…
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Enoteca
The 2-Michelin-star Enoteca at the Hotel Arts is one of the jewels in Barcelona’s culinary crown and its executive chef, Paco Perez, is one of Catalan cuisine’s biggest talents. I recently enjoyed my second meal there in 12 months and wrote about my experiences for the Travel Channel’s ‘FoodTripper’. Check out the article here. I’ll…
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Making bread in Barcelona
I don’t eat much bread. I love it, but it’s something I reserve for weekends and special occasions. When I do eat it, I want something as healthy and tasty as possible. Bread quality in Barcelona is on the up but the typical barra is tasteless stodge and pa de pages can be a hit-or-miss affair.…
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I hope you’re hungry…
…because there will be FOOD coming to this blog again in the next few weeks. After a hectic few months of professional reviewing for Fodor’s Travel I can now share with you some of my favourite new discoveries… and a few old favourites that I’ve revisited. Obviously posting will be sporadic because, well, that’s how…
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A Stairway to Hog Heaven: Manlleu ‘Pork and Beer’ Festival
The blizzard of conceptual marketing, ‘quirky’ logos and bizarre brand identities that sweeps endlessly from the offices of advertising agencies has left many of us yearning for a simpler age. Credit, then, to the good people of Manlleu, a small town an hour north of Barcelona. Tasked with naming their local fair, they put their collective…
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Animal welfare: a new priority for Spanish shoppers?
Animal welfare in food production’s a difficult subject for me. On one hand it’s something I feel quite strongly about (it’s the reason I was a vegetarian for 4 years) but on the other I know it can make me a ponficating bore, and a hypocritical one at that. I’m guilty of not asking questions…
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Adéu a Núvola Cafe
I learned yesterday that one of the establishments featured in this blog, Núvola Cafe, has recently closed its doors for good. This is a great pity. I was last there in early December and I know from the feedback I’ve received through this site that plenty of you went there and enjoyed it. If you…
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Spain and Fish: A Fatal Love Affair
One of the best things about living in Barcelona is the variety of fish and seafood available. The glistening, fresh bounty that is stacked onto stalls in every market and supermarket in the country is an impressive sight. Go to the Boqueria market on the Rambles early in the morning and you’ll find fierce old…
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De Tapes per Barcelona
This is the second year that Estrella Damm (Barcelona’s inexplicably popular, over-gassy, favourite beer) have promoted a tapas competition together with the city’s association of bars and restaurants. The website can be found here. The idea’s simple: each participating bar offers a small glass of Estrella beer alongside a tapa of their own creation, all for…
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Reserva Ibérica — bargain breakfast
UPDATE: Reserva Iberica has now MOVED. It can be found nearby at Rambla de Catalunya, 61. As this was thedoughball’s last day in Barcelona and she’d missed the escudella party on Saturday, we all met for a late breakfast/early lunch at Reserva Ibérica (C/ Aragó 242, www.reservaiberica.com). Reserva Ibérica’s a great little ham shop with…
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Puff pastry — masa de hojaldre
Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to make it. Flaky pastry’s about as close as I come when home cooking. No, this is more of a request for advice. Which brand should I buy? I like to keep some puff pastry in the fridge or freezer for impromptu meals. At a push you can…
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Embutido…
…and lentejas Or embutits and llenties if we’re staying all Catalan, but spiced sausages and lentil stew are such pan-iberian staples that it seems best to stick to the more familiar terms. This is comfort food and convenience food both. Lentils offer all the wonderful, winter-warming goodness of other legumes but without the need to be…
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Mangled menus
Note: this was originally posted on my work website www.bcnfreelance.com but it’s probably more at home here. It’s a truism that we eat with our eyes. The appearance of food is inseparable from how it tastes; indeed, experiments have shown that even skilled chefs are sometimes unable to identify flavours if presented to them in…