Two Tapas Taverns

Two places of the tapas bar style restaurants I went to were a little away from the centre of town and in more residential areas, but deserve a special mention. The first of these is Alta Taberna Paco Meralgo.

One of the signs of a restaurant with great food is how many locals eat there and this place is full of them. By full I mean there is a queue of people waiting for tables. I wanted to sit at the bar, so I passed on the first seat that became available, but soon enough there was a place at the bar.

Sitting in front of a small ice bar with fresh shellfish is always a good way to generate an appetite, but instead of shellfish I spotted the foie gras on the menu.


Served on toasted bread, the foie just starting to melt over it, this is a great way to start a meal of tapas. I also got some tomato bread.


This is a fairly common dish, but in this case has exceptional flavour and is certainly one of the better versions. Toasted bread with tomato rubbed into it and olive oil poured over. Crunchy, chewy and tomatoey, delicious.

Next I chose the plate of jamon bellota.

Sliced paper thin so you can almost see through it. You can clearly see the marbling in the meat. The taste is slightly salty and the meat almost disolves as I start to chew.

After this, I asked the waiter what he recommended and he suggested the steak which comes still sizzling in oil.

The meat is tender and the oil which is flavoured with garlic and chilli gives a lot of this flavour to the meat.

He also recommended some grilled porcini mushrooms.


These are very simply grilled in oil allowing the natural, mild flavour of the mushrooms to stand out.

The final dish for the night was another recommendation - cuttlefish with chickpeas.


Another of those savoury dishes which I am seeing on menus all over this city and is the hearty, earthy type dish that I am starting to crave. This was a great meal and I would eat here again if there weren't so many other places to try out.

Speaking of other places, the second restaurant I thought deserved a special mention was Inopia. Also in a residential area, this place has a bit more of a reputation due to it's owner - Albert Adria. Albert is the brother of Ferran Adria who is the name behind El Bulli, which is consistently rated as the best restaurant in the world. Although Albert works with Ferran to create some of the worlds most innovative and exciting ideas in food, you wont see that at Inopia.

What Inopia does is tapas with beautiful, fresh ingredients. Many dishes also have an asian influence, which is a nice change from most of the tapas bars.

Arriving at Inopia, I was greeted with the sight of about 20 people waiting outside to get a table.

After looking around for the end of the queue, I relaised that I had to get my name in the board and they would call out my name when they had a seat for me.

There is my name at the bottom of a very long list.....well almost my name anyway.

After getting a seat (which didn't take as long as I thought it might), I looked at the many, many options available and gave up on trying to choose anything. Doing the usual trick of asking the waiter to bring out what he recommended worked well and I started off with their Russian Salad.

This was really nice and even though it had plenty of mayonnaise it wasn't heavy or overpowering. Next was the tuna.

Grilled perfectly, this is served cold with a sauce that is made from soy and dashi and while not the amazing taste explosion that it might be, is still quite a nice dish.After the tuna, I was served the fried eggplant.

Lightly battered and deep fried, drizzled with a molasses sauce, this was my favourite dish of the night. The eggplant itself was perfectly cooked, the batter a very thin layer of crispness on the outside, but the inside is light and fluffy and exploding with flavour. Next came patatas bravas, one of the most common dishes on a tapas menu.

This looks a lot like simple potato chips covered with ketchup and sour cream, but after one mouthful those ideas were gone from my head. The potatoes are full of garlic flavour and the red sauce is a hot, spicy and rich and is cooled by the cream.

To finish off I was given the fried prawns.

Both deep fried, the prawns in a light tempura batter and the calamari (or maybe octopus) was in a thicker batter crusted with what looked like potato flakes and were served with a dijon mustard and mayonnaise combination. These were not the best dishes of the night and I only ate about half of each, although the sauce was very nice the rest was kind of plain and had too much on the plate for a single diner. Also quite pricey, but that's the risk you take letting the waiter choose your food.

Barcelona rewards people that are willing to explore a little futher than the main tourist areas and is well worth looking around for something a little different.