C I TY LI F E BARCELONA


Venture down labyrinthine streets in the Catalan capital to discover a world of secret bars, where creative cocktails and traditional tapas are treated with such passion, they’re practically an art form


WORDS: DUNCAN CR AIG. PHOTOGR APHS: MARGARET ST E P I EN


Along the Passeig de Gràcia the tour groups flow, guidebooks in hand, smartphone cameras poised. The masters of modernista architecture crafted some of their greatest works on this elegant, tree-lined thoroughfare, which a century and a half ago led Barcelona from its congested medieval core into a new era of space, order and creativity. Antoni Gaudí’s wonderfully elaborate Casa


Batlló, with its iridescent glass-mosaic facade, and sprawling, limestone-hewn Casa Milà are two of the biggest prizes. The properties stand out, as indeed they were intended to, commissioned by wealthy families in fits of early 20th-century one-upmanship. I’m in this affluent corner of the Eixample


neighbourhood in search of artistry of a different sort. Away from the hedonism of some of its more downmarket spots, Barcelona takes its bar culture very seriously indeed. With its strident innovation, non-conformity and profusion of detail, it could be said to be keeping the spirit of modernisme alive. But there’s a crucial difference: this is a world that prizes the clandestine over the conspicuous. Three blocks west of Passeig de Gràcia,


hidden by day behind a graffitied steel shutter and on a bland residential street, is The Alchemix. The last rays of sunlight are filtering through the silver maples outside as I arrive, and there’s already a small queue of people. They’re smartly dressed, patient, as if waiting outside a theatre. In a sense they are. Inside, owner Ignacio Ussía and his


Estonian barman Erik Bagmet are concocting elaborate creations: spinning cocktail shakers,


long-pouring, mixing, performing. A row of appreciative customers sits at the polished, spot-lit bar, entranced. Nearly a dozen customised cocktails are on


offer. Dressed in a smart khaki apron, with a powerful build and piratical beard, Ignacio asks me for a “frame of reference” before guiding me towards the white truffle pisco sour: a richly aromatic, creamy-yet-sweet blend of pisco quebranta, lemon juice, white truffle honey, Amargo Chuncho bitters and white chocolate served in a broad, stemmed glass. Opened in March 2018, The Alchemix


had a turbulent birth. Provoked by Madrid’s rejection of the result of the Catalonia secession referendum, pro-independence activists were in an incendiary mood. “Bins and cars were set alight. I remember opening at 7.30pm and having to close almost immediately,” recalls Ignacio. He won’t be drawn on the question of independence, but clearly enjoys that of his bar; it’s set apart, under-the-radar, easy to walk past. Visits, he says, are “intentional” — and that certainly needs to be the case with my next target. When Catalan visionary Ildefons Cerdà


drew up his masterplan for the grid-based district of Eixample (literally ‘Expansion’) in the mid-19th century, he devised an ingenious way to increase the visibility and sense of space at street level: he cleaved off the corners of all the blocks, so they become octagonal rather than square. It’s adjacent to one of these ‘chamfers’, tucked behind Passeig de Gràcia, that you’ll find another of the city’s best bars — or worst barbers, depending on your intent.


JUL/AUG 2024 143


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