Shopping Heaven: Barcelona's La Boqueria

La Boqueria, the oldest mercat in the city, is one of Barcelona’s gems and one of its greatest tourist attractions.  While a municipal market is about the practical matter of buying food, the Boqueria is an aesthetic and sensual pleasure as well. 

A 19^th century iron and glass modernista structure, the Boqueria is located on La Rambla in the heart of the city.  In its early days, it was an open market outside the city walls (which ended at what is now La Rambla), making it easier for the farmers to bring their goods and not have to encounter officials at the city gates nor pay the taxes required to enter the city with their goods.  When the city expanded, the market remained where it was, eventually becoming a central location.  It was porticoed in 1840 and covered in 1865.  It now has 300 stalls and is the biggest mercat in Spain. 

The food on display throughout the market is laid out beautifully.  When you walk up and down the aisles, the stacks of fruit and vegetables become colorful geometrical abstractions -- patches of pink, yellow, brown, or green.  Bring them into focus and they're pomegranates, lemons, kiwis, and artichokes.   

The tremendous variety of food includes all the summer fruits and vegetables that we're used to in California plus a few I've never seen before.  There are stalls selling meat, others with sausages, or poultry, or cheese, eggs (where you can buy even just one egg if that's how many you want), bread, olives, every imaginable cut of salted cod, and of course fresh fish and seafood which makes up a big part of the Catalan diet.  Unfortunately fish is whole and intact, but they will clean it and even debone it if you ask.  But if you ask to have the heads removed they’ll look at you funny.  Here the smaller fish like sardines and trout are served with heads on.  But if you don’t like that, you should at least save the heads to make a fish broth.

To be honest, some of the displays of meat -- particularly those of hanging dead rabbits or little skinned dead piglets with their heads still on -- are far less appealing than the peaches, oranges, and green beans.  Meat is simply more appetizing when it doesn't look like what it really is.

For the six months each year when Ferran Adria (one of the world’s greatest chefs, who of course buys only the best ingredients) was not making culinary magic at El Bulli on the Costa Brava, he was shopping every morning at the Boqueria to conjure up culinary alchemy at his nearby laboratory on Carrer Portaferrissa in the Barri Gotic.  Shopping every morning is typical here.

Every mercat has one or more bars that serve food and drink.  They tend to buy their supplies fresh from their neighbors who then come to eat what they’ve cooked.  The food is always very fresh and often wonderfully good.

Pinotxo (Pinocchio), a tiny bar just to the right of the main entrance, is one of several bars where you can eat in the Boqueria.  It is owned and run by Joan, a middle-aged man who wears a crisply ironed shirt, a bow tie, and a smile no matter how oppressive the summer heat and humidity.   Joan works with two nephews and two other helpers.  There are five of them working behind the twelve-foot counter with stools for ten in front.  The food is fresh, homemade, and delicious.  If you want to know what they have today, you ask, there being no carte (menu). 

When I lived in Barcelona, the Boqueria was my main place to shop and I visited Pinotxo as often as I could, mainly for morning coffee and pastry – lunch being a bit pricey for my budget.  Once when I came for breakfast and asked for a café amb llet (coffee with milk) and a croissant, they had me wait a minute while someone went to a neighboring bar to buy the croissant for me because they had run out.  This kind of care and service ensures a devoted following. 

The food at Pinoxto is excellent typical Catalan fare and there is even a book about it titled Pinotxo: La Vida i la Cuina.  Unfortunately, it is in Catalan and not available from Amazon.  On the other hand, Colman Andrews’ Catalan Cuisine, the definitive Catalan cookbook is in English and is available.  Andrews gives you suggestions for the best substitutions of American ingredients for any Spanish ones that are not easily available in the U.S. as well as background to the recipes, making this a very useful and readable cookbook that allows you to conjure up your own Catalan dishes, wherever you happen to be, and even if you couldn’t buy the ingredients at the Boqueria. 

Onions. Lots and Lots of Onions.

The Catalans have a unique onion that they eat voraciously every winter and spring. The white part of this very special onion is extra long, making it look a little like a leek. It is especially tended to grow that way, with the farmers heaping dirt around it, so that it ends up with more edible, sweet, white flesh. This outstanding onion has the legal agricultural protection of a D.O. like wine and olive oil. The only area that can produce an official version of this nonpareil onion is Valls, in the Baix Camp, a little west of Tarragona.


The onion is called a calçot. Calçots are not simply eaten, they are celebrated, and the resulting event is called a calçotada. As the people of Valls say themselves, La calçotada ja no és només un àpat, sinó que també és una festa (the calçotada isn’t just a meal, it’s a party).

On the last Sunday of every January, the town of Valls holds a festival – their famous calçotada – that attracts thousands of people from all over Catalunya who come to gorge on the local delicacy. But don’t think that people are just standing around at this festival eating onions. They do stand, the tables are laid out in various public squares throughout the old part of town and you eat standing up. But you don’t eat calçots plain. There is no such thing as a calçotada without romesco sauce.

Romesco sauce can be made from peppers, almonds, hazelnuts, tomatoes, garlic, salt, and oil, but that is just a generalization. There are probably as many variations of romesco as there are cooks. The most typical pepper used is the medium-mild nyora pepper, but since you can only find it here, Colman Andrews, author of Catalan Cuisine, says a substitute could be the ancho pepper.

So, the calçots are roasted over a fire made from vine cuttings, then put into a container (wrapping in several sheets of newspaper works well) and set for an hour to steam. They are then brought to the table laid out on a ceramic roof tile. One takes a calçot, blackened from the grill, pulls down the burnt green part, dips the white into the romesco, and voilà! Onion heaven.

One doesn’t have to go to the festival in Valls to enjoy a calçotada. Many restaurants around Valls and throughout Catalunya offer calçotades during the season that goes from November through April. At a calçotada, the first course will be the calçots, of which you will be expected to eat at least a dozen. They are served with romesco and farmer’s bread, for sopping up any leftover sauce.

Next comes grilled meat, usually lamb and sausage, sometimes chicken and rabbit as well. This is accompanied by grilled artichokes, blood sausage, and cooked and then refried white canellini-type beans. All this is washed down with red wine drunk from a porró and cava. The porró is a decanter with a long spout from which you pour wine directly into your waiting, open mouth. The spout never touches your mouth, so one porró can be shared around a table. Your head must be tilted back and the porró well aimed. Starting and stopping are the most challenging parts. Best to either be born Catalan or spend considerable time practicing, preferably in private, before attempting this intricate drinking maneuver. Dessert is usually crema catalana, (crème brûlée) followed by a fresh orange.

Even in restaurants, the groups for calçotades are usually large, often a dozen or more people. But we went just the two of us the other day. I had made a reservation at a restaurant called Cal Ganxo in Masmolets, just outside of Valls, that had been recommended by Julian, our friend Trini’s brother. He is a regular there and insisted that there was no better place. I think he may have been right.

Cal Ganxo was once a masia (a Catalan farmhouse) that has been converted, with its outbuildings, into a very charming, rustic, multi-room restaurant. We sat in the celler, as instructed by Julian. The porró filled with red wine was already there waiting for us when we were seated. I opted to drink from a glass. It’s safer. Manel, who is a bona fide Catalan and a porró expert, managed to spill a good amount of wine on the table, so I’m glad I didn’t even try. From that ignominious start we went on to have the best calçotada ever.

Calçots may look a little bit like leeks, but they have little else in common. Their taste is mild, almost sweet, and their texture is silky. They may not look too appealing when they arrive at the table all charred, but they are wonderfully tasty and these had the best flavor and silky texture of any I’ve eaten. The meat that followed was juicy and tender, the blood sausage was delicious, the beans were perfect, the wine was good, and I never even tried the cava since I would be driving. I thought maybe my tummy would object later to having been fed lots and lots of onions, but no, tummy was happy and made no sign of protest as we drove home through the winter vineyards.