Of tantamount importance to Spanish cooking is the freshness of ingredients, and with markets dotted throughout Barcelona, it’s not tough to find produce that’s come straight from the ground into your basket.
But Cafe Kafka in the village-y Born district brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘flippin’ fresh’ by refusing to serve fish on a Sunday (when most stalls shutter). The reason? Because unless it’s swimming through the door, they ain’t touching it with a barge pole…
At the pass is chef Maykel Bustamante (of Hoffman and Escribà acclaim), whose season-driven standout plates include trad boar stew with pickled pineapple, sauteed wild mushrooms with a panco-dusted egg and romesco sauce, rosemary-n-honey-glazed rack of lamb, and hand-cut steak tartare, as well as a covetable array of surf-fresh seafood.
The pretty surrounds are not hard on the eye either, with plush red velvet banquettes, 50s sputnik lamps, Georgian-style panelling, and a tourist-free piazza overlooking the modernist Mercat del Born. As Kafka once said, ‘as long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being’. Indeed…
Cafe Kafka, Carrer de la Fusina, 7, Born, Barcelona, +34 93 315 1776, cafekafka.es
