Author: nick

The best place to eat calçots in/near Barcelona is in my opinion Can Juaco.  Set in the heart of Collserola, this is a great place for roast meats, snails, roast aubergine and other traditional Catalan and Castillian-Burgos food.  In the evening you may be lucky to happen on boars on your drive up. Address: Horta road to…

I had a rather nice meal last week in Restaurante Kasbah, my favourite Arab restaurant in Barcelona. The decor is great fun with the usual tapestries, mosaics, low tables and stools, and a fountain tinkling away right in the middle of the dining room. Extensive menu with Maghrebi, Near Eastern and French food. Dishes: couscous…

This was possibly the last interview conducted with novelist and political commentator Manuel Vázquez Montalbán before he died of a heart attack in Bangkok att he age of 64. He had been on a book tour of Australia and had spoken to Australian crime fiction magazine, Crime Factory. Here’s was what he had to say…

I had a very enjoyable meal last week at Abissinia, Barcelona’s only Ethiopian restaurant last week. We sat on low wooden stools and were served selections of meat and vegetable dishes on hourglass-shaped straw tables called mesobs. The food is served directly on large pancake-like bread (injera), which you pull apart with you hands and…

Barcelona is to have 500 free WiFi points in municipal facilities (museums, civic centres, sports centres, etc) by 2010. There are currently only 50 free points. La Vanguardia

Stush and Teng claims to be the only Jamaican restaurant in Spain. Review in The Metropolitan Stush and Teng

If reggae’s your thing, check out Rimshot Records (Gignas, 30) the only specialist reggae store as far as I know in Barcelona. Good selection of new releases and back catalogue and info from the guy who runs the store on what’s going on in town reggae-wise and how to get there. Recommended here

Orange grove (Mallorca) Barcelona’s Caixaforum is hosting a new exhibition on Catalan landscape artist and modernist Joaquim Mir (1873-1940). He began his painting career with a group of artists (the so-called Colla del Safrà) who would head for the outskirts of Barcelona to paint in the open air. He then spent some time painting the…

By Lucy Brzoska The Agbar Tower opened in 2005 to controversy. Many people were affronted by its sheer size (only the Mapfre tower and Hotel Arts are higher), resenting it for dwarfing the nearby Sagrada Familia, or regarding it as overly phallic or reminiscent of a missile. Others admire it for its… read rest of…