BARCELONA
Entering Bobby’s Free, I’m ushered into a
thick leather barber’s chair and spun round to face the mirror. Clippers, combs, shaving brushes and other props line the counter. The glint in the flat-capped hairdresser’s eye is the only sign that something might be afoot. He raises his eyebrows expectantly.
“Godfather,” I say, a touch hopefully. He nods his approval at the password, which I’d wrangled from my hotel concierge earlier, and reaches forward to activate a switch. The entire mirrored unit — draws, counter and all — swings open, and I step into the 1930s. A century ago, speakeasies emerged in
response to the vice-like grip of Prohibition in America, with both bar owners and patrons living in constant fear of detection. Today, the danger is long gone but the frisson of the illicit lingers. This ‘underground’ establishment is precisely that: a short flight of steps leading down to a low-lit bar that’s absolutely bouncing. Staff in red braces and trilbies glide between
tables, delivering G&Ts and customised cocktails, one of which is served, with splendid illogicality, in a portable safe. Ray Charles and his Wurlitzer electric piano ooze from hidden speakers. A young man with a can’t-believe- I’ve-found-this-place smile slaps along on his thigh, too caught up in the moment to worry about anything as trivial as rhythm. Behind the bar, Sofia D’Agnano is mixing
up a storm. A photographer by day, the young Italian is in her element, feeding off the energy in the room and creating plenty of her own. As the music ramps up, a fellow bartender charges the length of the bar, pushing each of its domed, pendulous lights, which strafe the room with milky light. All the illuminated faces are beaming. Shouting to be heard over the music, Sofia explains that what she loves about the bar is
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true of the wider city. “It’s all a question of good vibes.”
INTO THE LABYRINTH Allow gravity to coax you down towards the city’s coastal fringe and the order of New Barcelona quickly gives way to the agreeable tumult of the Ciutat Vella, or old town. Here in the labyrinthine streets of Barri Gòtic (the Gothic Quarter) and El Born, it’s not just light but progress that can be kept at bay. Dating from 1945, La Plata is a tiny corner
bar tucked just out of sight on the seaward edge of Barri Gòtic. Its hand-painted sign, silver on blue like a flash of mackerel in the shallows, contrasts with the weathered Montserrat stone of the building’s thick-set walls. Ornate blue tiles frame a broad L-shaped bar where Pepe Gómez is orchestrating proceedings — as he has for 52 of his 67 years. I arrive soon after opening to grab one of
the handful of tables. La Plata is the antidote to a choice-saturated world: just four simple tapas on the unchanging menu, breaded and fried whitebait (pescaditos) and Catalan-style butifarra sausage among them. Red, white and rosé are served in small tumblers from a trio of barrels fixed behind the bar. Nothing costs more than a few euros. As he serves a regular ensconced with her
tiny dog in a favourite spot at the bar, Pepe reviews the decades for me. In the 1970s and 1980s, the bar catered mostly to locals, but after the Olympics in 1992 — as with the wider city — visitors took on a more international flavour. Demand has never abated. “I think it’s the simplicity people love,” he says. “As we say, it’s a bar de toda la vida [for life]. Unchanging, traditional.” That’s certainly not a charge that could ever
be levelled at Paradiso, a few hundred yards away on the periphery of El Born. Since it
INS I D ER TI P S
Many of Barcelona’s top hotels have roof-terrace bars — and these are often open to non-residents, even if the pools aren’t. Arrive early to bag a table or cabana as not all offer pre-booking.
It’s good to pace yourself: nights are long, exuberant and convivial. Should you be in need of a time- out, most nightspots offer virgin cocktails every bit as complex and considered as their alcohol- infused variants.
Keep the drawn-out sit-down dinners for home: ‘eat, drink and move’ is the spirit of Barcelona nightlife, with tapas to the fore. The neighbourhood of Poble-sec, on the sloping streets beneath Montjuïc, is a great introduction to this peripatetic carousing.
Sad to say, but this remains a city with a black belt in pickpocketing. Stay one step ahead by keeping valuables out of sight and not walking around alone after dark.
Clockwise from top left: City views from the Gaudí House Museum in Park Güell; a shop selling lavender behind the cathedral; silent killer bourbon cocktails at The Alchemix bar; the Pont del Bisbe in the Gothic Quarter Previous pages: Modernista facades on Casa Amatller and Casa Batlló
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