A walk through the Born.
This and more fits in our shopping list.
**1) THE APPETIZER: CASA GISPERT **
To open our mouths, we entered a colmado with a lot of flavor , literally and figuratively. Variegated, baroque, it still retains all the furniture of the time, the counters, the bar, the signs, from when it began selling colonial products imported from overseas, back in 1951. You won't know where to look. Your eyes will dance from one shelf to another, from one delicatessen to another: bulk oils, jams, honey, chocolate, coffee, legumes and spices (saffron is especially famous here, in fact you can still read “saffron deposit on one of the old shelves”).
They have everything you can think of, but what is truly unique are the nuts roasted in their own wood-fired oven: pistachios, macadamia nuts and especially almonds and hazelnuts , which are produced in an ecological way very close to Barcelona and are stored here in giant sacks of esparto where you want to put both hands or make a "traditional American Beauty". The oven (the only one in Europe of these characteristics) is fully operational right there, you can see it in the background on the left.
Casa Gispert: handmade roasted nuts
**2) THE MAIN COURSE: THE SANTA MARÍA BOTIFARRERÍA **
In this case we are not talking about a place with tradition, but about a shop that sells traditional products from the area... and that has given them an important twist. The place, in a stone building next to the church of Santa María, is tiny and, despite the theme, which does not leave many concessions to creative decoration, it looks modern and playful. In tune with what it sells: the craziest sausages you can imagine . So much so that its creative flavors (there are dozens of them, each one more fanciful) go through whiskey with tarragon, orange with onion, foie gras, trumpets of death or apple with curry. Even, to win over children's palates, they have dared with hits that never fail: pizza, chocolate... and an even more difficult one: Coca Cola, candied onion and soy. The shopping basket can be completed here with various sausages and cheeses from Catalonia.
The facade of Bubo Bar
**3) THE DESSERT: BUBÓ **
At first it will seem to you that more than eating a cupcake you are going in to buy a designer ring, because its shop windows, the lighting, the arrangement of the sweets (and savory ones, there are also cocas) in showcases and even Bubó's packaging they have much more to do with jewelry than with traditional pastry shops of neighborhood Everything that is exhibited in them deserves such a display, from croissants to orangents or limongets (chocolate-covered fruit sticks), macarons or chocofruits (tins with a mixture of chocolate, fruit and nuts) and, of course, , La Xabina, or what is the same: the best chocolate cake at the World Championship in Lyon in 2005. Although they opened their first store (this one) less than a decade ago, their success has been such that they already have three in Barcelona and one in Kuwait. Next door is the Bubó Bar that serves tapas, salads, croquettes or “Catalan cheese boards or sausages”.
One of Bubó's treats
**4) THE COFFEE: CAFÉS EL MAGNÍFICO **
As soon as you like coffee, you're sold. Its aroma that comes out of its interior in bursts like in cartoons will hypnotize you like a little mouse tricked by the flute of Hamelin. And you will enter. And you'll have an espresso. And possibly you will also take a bag home. From grandfather to father and from father to son, the coffee tradition of this shop dates back to 1919 . Here the coffee is brought from different parts of the world, roasted and ground: a total of 30 varieties, 100% Arabica and Premium, from Africa, America and the Pacific, whose plantations Salvador Sans personally visits to choose the flavor with which you will get up every morning.
His barista, Carolina Hernández, is a true champion. In fact, she is three champions: winner of the 2013 Spanish barista championship, the Best Espresso Award and the Best Creative Drink with Coffee. Here you will taste the best coffees in the world, we have already said it . Each day a different one, since the varieties are rotated in the espresso machine. And if light flavors are more your thing than powerful shoots, you can also choose the extraction method, in filter or piston coffee machines, more suitable for some coffees (in fact, many of the best in the world are tasted prepared with this procedure because respects the aroma very much).
Cafés El Magnifico: coffee tradition