Although the Gothic neighborhood in Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella (“Old City”) district is supported by deep foundations – it’s the site of the former Roman village of Barcino – much of the quarter’s more recent history has been swept away by the rise of tourism. The few remaining old shops and businesses are often in a precarious position, exposed to the changing times, and yet they continue to stand strong. One such spot is Bodega La Palma, which dates back to at least 1909. Back then it was a shop that sold a little bit of everything as well as bulk wine; now it’s a tapas bar, one that serves as a multigenerational meeting point for locals and visitors (when they’re around).

Dust, sweat, rain, and severe sun – these were only a few of the many discomforts that travelers of yore suffered as they made the long journey in horse-drawn carriages from their home provinces to Barcelona. In those days – around a century or two ago – the city was protected by fortified walls; it was outside of those walls, in an area known as Hostafrancs, part of the Santa Maria de Sants village (today the neighborhood of Sants), that many travelers and merchants found a convenient refuge – a place to recover from the journey. Taverna La Parra was one of the several inns that dotted the area.

For thousands of years, snails have been an easy source of protein, particularly during lean times. But for the Romans, these slimy mollusks were more than just a back up – a meal of snails was considered an exquisite feast. The Romans were experts on the subject. They studied and classified snails; they knew where to find the edible species in the south of France, Greece, Italy and Spain, how to farm them, how to clean and prepare them and, of course, how to cook them. Records show that the snails were roasted with different seasonings, like garum, pepper or olive oil, or cooked in wine.

Bars, cafés, taverns and restaurants have historically functioned as meeting spots for all kinds of urban communities, from intellectuals to politicians and artists – revolutions have even been planned around the table. Nowadays in Barcelona, another community, one that has flourished in numerous cities around the world, has started gathering in these types of venues: cyclists. The number of cyclists in Barcelona has increased some 30 percent in recent years, according to the City Council – in 2017 alone, 38 percent of residents moved around the city on two wheels. With more than 230 km of cycling lanes and a fleet of 7,000 brand new municipal bikes, the city is still adjusting to coexisting with so many bikes and riders.

At 10 a.m., Juan Trenado, head of cheese production at Finca Subaida, and his team had already been toiling for several hours. They moved efficiently through each step of the artisanal process, expertly crafting block after block of the famous Queso de Mahón on the Mediterranean island of Menorca. “By law” – Mahón has a protected designation of origin (D.O.P.) – “the cheese could include a little sheep’s milk, but ours doesn’t,” Trenado told us, as he directed a gushing stream of watery cheese curds from a wide hose into a big, waist-high stainless steel vat. Slowly, the vat filled nearly to the brim, and Trenado, along with Mònica Mercadal, Head of Cheese Maturation, and Ramon Alonso, a new hire, carefully stirred the curds, breaking them into small chickpea-sized pieces.

It takes bravery and strength to swim against the flow, traits the Catalan sommelier Anna Pla and her partner, the Sicilian chef Nicola Drago, certainly do not lack. The duo opened Contracorrent (“Against the flow” in Catalan) Bar, a natural wine bar and restaurant, in November 2020, amidst a series of pandemic-induced openings and closings. In fact, it’s one of the few new culinary projects in Barcelona. But opening in these complicated times was in some ways easier for Anna and Nicola. They had been plotting this project for quite a while, but the pandemic created opportunities that had been hard to come by previously. “For us, not big business people with big fortunes, the pandemic made it possible to start something new, since more things were up for negotiation than before,” Nicola says.

Born right before the Covid-19 storm, Taberna Noroeste opened its doors in February 2020, mere weeks before the pandemic hit Spain and strict confinement forced them to close. It was a turn of events that spelled disaster for many established restaurants and food businesses, let alone one that was brand new. Yet this project from the chefs Javier San Vicente and David López has grown healthy and strong, despite the hardship, and emerged with a unique culinary identity, now known across the city for elevating the popular cuisines of Galicia and Castilla y León (Castile and León, in western Spain) while incorporating Catalan touches.

Some of my most powerful memories from 2020 are of the post-lockdown reunions with the owners of my favorite bodegas and grocery shops in Barcelona. After such a long period of confinement, it felt dizzying to move beyond the borders of my neighborhood and visit bars and restaurants again, which had newly reopened for takeaway. It was hard not to hug my friends – you know, we hug a lot in Spain. On one particularly ridiculous day in May, I remember sneaking a glass of vermut in a paper coffee cup at one of my local bodegas. The coffee cup was a disguise – any police patrolling the streets would think that I was just buying a takeaway coffee (permitted) and not having a drink inside a bar (forbidden).

In 1949, when the patisserie that Josep Cudié had been working at as head pastry chef for a decade closed, his wife, Antonia Salleras, encouraged him to stop working for others and start working for himself. “Since you’re the creator of all these chocolates,” she said, “why don’t you just open your own business, making the chocolates and selling them to other patisseries?” Fortunately, he took his wife’s advice. Today, Oriol Llopart Cudié, also a pastry chef, is the third generation to run the business and – more importantly – to produce Catànies, his grandfather’s invention. Candied almonds coated with a special praline and bitter cocoa powder, these brown pearls are now one of Catalonia’s most iconic candies.

Cava, the Spanish sparkling wine, is an indispensable part of celebrations in Barcelona – though we’re happy to find other reasons to raise a glass of the stuff any day of the week (particularly on a dreary Monday). It’s produced using the same méthode traditionnelle that is used for French champagne: after the base wine is fermented from the pressing, it’s bottled, usually with a mixture of sugar and yeast, to undergo a second fermentation to produce that ebullient fizz. While cava is produced in many areas of Spain, most production takes place in Catalonia, and especially Penedès, an area of historical importance for this type of wine.

Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia – one thing that unites this swathe of the Mediterranean is olive oil, whose use in the Fertile Crescent can be traced back to 6000 B.C.E. Olives arrived in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula around 9th century B.C.E. with the Phoenicians. Ancient Rome saw huge quantities of olive oil from Hispania Baetica (currently Andalucía) being transported throughout the Roman Empire in millions of amphorae (made in Baetica). Spain leads production of olive oil to this day, with 45 percent of the global total. The majority (65 percent) of Spanish olive oil production is sold to Italy, where this oil is mixed with others (normally of the same quality, but not always) and sold under an Italian label.

The scent of wood slowly burning is imbued with a sense of home and refuge: It calls to mind the fireplace around which people used to congregate at the end of the day, or the barbecues and grills that still commonly serve as gathering points. This feeling can also be concentrated in bites of food, like the almonds or hazelnuts that have been roasted in Casa Gispert’s wood-burning oven, a relic from 1851 that continues to roast to this day. The oldest food shop in Barcelona, Casa Gispert has both stayed stubbornly the same and slowly evolved. We’ll always remember how, 20 years ago, the beautiful shop was darker and more mysterious; locals used to line up around Christmas to buy their raw, roasted or caramelized nuts, dried fruits, spices and chocolates for their dinners and gifts.

The linguistic variations in Spain’s 17 autonomous communities are as diverse as the local culinary specialties. In Barcelona, we can find examples of both. Take La Esquinica (“The Little Corner”), an iconic tapas bar with a fantastic terrace in Nou Barris, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population. Here, many of the tapas’ names (as well as the name of the bar itself) end in -ica or -ico, a traditional suffix used in the Teruel province of the Aragon region that functions as a diminutive and has become emblematic of the area. Jose María Utrillas, who hails from Aragon, established the bar in 1972, on the corner of Montsant and Cadí, although his brother-in-law Paco managed the placed. But in 1997, after their building was plagued with structural issues, they moved the bar to its current location.

In Spain, the word chiringuito evokes fond memories of summers spent at the beach. While the country’s coastline is famous, chiringuito technically refers to something more beach-adjacent: the small, mostly permanent bars and restaurants that line the sandy shores. The term, which has post-colonial Caribbean roots, is relatively recent, having been used for the first time in 1949, as the name for a restaurant in Sitges, a village southwest of Barcelona (that restaurant, by the way, is still frying squid on La Ribera beach). But the tradition of eating and drinking by the beach in Spain goes back further than that. Covered wood terraces or open-air tables with fishermen grilling sardines and serving wine were widespread along the Andalucia Coast over the last couple of centuries.

While Barcelona has lots of green space – almost 3,000 hectares spread out over 34 parks and gardens – not all of it makes for good summer picnicking. What you need are those dark, open refuges under the treetops, where you can breathe and relax and your wine isn’t going to start boiling. And especially now, with everyone warily eyeing indoor seating and air conditioners due to Covid-19, taking shelter under some precious shade is even more appealing. In a previous piece on outdoor feasting in Barcelona, we extolled the virtues of the pine-shaded stretches of green grass alongside La Mar Bella beach in Poblenou as well as La Ciutadella, the most popular city park in central Barcelona, and offered tips on where to buy excellent food items in the nearby El Born neighborhood.