Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Los Caracoles, the restaurant

The outdoor dining culture of Barcelona is vibrant and not easily outdone. The competition between food outlets is fierce and the variety of food offered in this city is staggering. People are spoiled for choice when it comes to eating out, and it would take more than a lifetimes’s living here to fully discover all interesting restaurants, tapas bars and cafés.

One interesting restaurant sits on Carrer Dels Escudellers, just off Barcelona’s most famous boulevard – La Rambla – in the Barri Gothic quarters of the city. Founded in the early 19th century by the Bofarull family, this interesting restaurant is serving authentic Catalonian cuisine.

At Table 2, Los Caracoles. The restaurant has split level floors for seating for more than a hundred persons, discovered only after you walk past the short and narrow bar at the front of the restaurant. The walls of the restaurant are lined with photographs of previous patrons of fame.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

There were many curiosities about this restaurant that caught our attention on our visit. Their signature dish of Snails, prepared quite differently from the French escargot, got the restaurant so locally renowned in the early 1900s that the owners threw out their own last names in favour of the name of the dish calling the restaurant eventually, Los Caracoles or “The Snails”.

Many regular patrons will also tell of how you can’t possibly mistake finding the place because they fry their chickens rotisserie style outdoors on the actual road crossing. The combined visual effect of dancing vermilion flames on the street corner licking at chicken that is gradually turning golden brown, and the enticing aroma of the gently spiced meat that greet you along this narrow street is in itself an overwhelming experience to those who pass by.

But the entire visit, from beginning to end made us raise our eyebrows, first in curiosity and then with awe, mounting up to an extraordinary dining experience!
Continue reading “Culinary Paradiso at Los Caracoles, Barcelona” →

The entrance to La Boqueria is about midway along the famous Catalonian Boulevard La Rambla in Barcelona. The Boqueria wet market opens up at a side road called Mercat de Sant Josep. This market, that has a history from the early 13th century, is today frequented as much by locals as by tourists alike.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

A lot of things in Barcelona are labelled “touristy” and as a result, sneered at even by the locals just because they are popular with the tourists. But Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria tells a different tale.

La Boqueria, as it has been known since the early 13th century when it was established here in the Old City district, began as a convenient network market located near the old city gate where traders from the nearby towns such as Les Corts and Sarrià (now only a 25 minute bus ride from La Boqueria itself) gathered to trade and sell their produce. The market remained here through the centuries, got a firmer structure in the early 19th century and in 1915, an iron roof with its inset stained, colored glass was added, giving the modernismo touch of the time to the place.
Continue reading “Creps at la Boqueria, Mercat de Sant Josep in Barcelona 2011” →

At Hotel Arts, Barcelona, the sundeck with rocking hammocks on the lawn.
Photo: JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

Barcelona proceeded to unveil its many faces as we continued to explore the New Barcelona, that in many respects was created thanks to the 1990s olympic sailing event. Barcelona had previously much of its focus directed towards harbour works and shipping, but is today opened up towards the sea and its possibilities as a conference, business hub and tourist resort. Here now, you’ll find a sprawling, fashionably back to back establishment of beautifully designed hotels, restaurants and bars that line the city’s beach and hot spots.

Futher up along the beach, when you hit La Rambla, political protests continues at the Catalunya Square. I was right at the square when a helicopter circled overhead and policemen surrounded the area, cutting off all traffic in an attempt to clear the square before the European World Cup that begins in Barcelona today.
Continue reading “The new Barcelona” →