Back street Barcelona

You can learn a lot about the food scene of a city from its back streets, its lanes and alleys.

Barcelona has a strong culture of traditional tapas bars, tascas (taverns) and llesquerias (a rustic bar serving slabs of toasted bread topped with anything from wedges of cheese and slivers of charcuterie to roasted red peppers and anchovies). Tapas, meaning something to top your glass, spawned patrons named tapears, meaning literally 'to hop from one tapas bar to another'.

And why not, when there is so much variety on offer?

In a recent issue Foods & Wines from Spain suggests visitors should check out these areas.

El Born is the chicest part of the old city, the place to head to stockpile fashionable clothes and trinkets from young Catalan designers boutiques, and, increasingly, a hub of newly opened, yet reassuringly old school tapas. Along the newly paved Plaça Comercial where the pristinely renovated Mercado de Born takes centre stage a cluster of new cafes and bars have sprouted.

Barri Gótic is home to one of Ferran Adrià’s favourite bars, La Plata (Carrer de la Mercé 28) hasn’t changed since it opened in the 1960s, colourful azulejos (glazed tiles) lining the walls and barrels of wine stacked behind the bar.

At Barceloneta, these days the beach is awash with hipster treats and craft beers made in-house at places like the Black Lab Brewhouse (Palau del Mar, Plaça Pau Vila). It’s sleek black tiles, steel vats, bunting and live weekend music give it an edge over lesser interpretations of the new wave, but the neighbourhood tapas bars that remain are resolutely old school. La Cova Fumada (Carrer del Baluart 56) is one of the few remaining fisherman’s bars from the old days,

Crossing into the west-side of the city, Raval, is where the biggest changes have taken place in terms of gastronomic provenance. The newly opened Ultramarinos (Les Rambles des Caputxins 31) at the bottom of the Ramblas with its flamboyantly splashy interior.

Quim is the third generation of his family to run old-timer Quimet I Quimet (Carrer del Poeta Cabanyes 25, ) in Poble Sec, though his legendary open-topped sandwiches and conserva platters evolve week by week

In Sant Antoni the inimitable Adrià brothers, Ferran and Albert who, since closing El Bulli, have opened no less than six (and counting) restaurants in this neighbourhood.

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