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ALBERT ADRIÀ’S SET TO
PUT THE PIZZAZZ BACK INTO
THE PARAL•LEL WITH HIS
FIVE-RESTAURANT PLAN
THE
UN
•
PARAL
LELED
KING
Photography by
Carlos Hernandez
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On a rundown avenue
in Barcelona’s former
theatre district, culinary
maestro Albert Adrià is
building a mini foodie
empire. James Blick
joins him at the chef’s
table, and discovers there’s
a whole lot more cooking
along the Paral·lel
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lbert Adrià doesn’t own roller skates,
but his staff says he could do with
a pair. Every evening the über-chef
dashes between his clutch of
restaurants do"ed around Avinguda
del Paral·lel, a once fizzing, now
neglected Barcelona thoroughfare.
“I love the tranquillity I find here,”
says Albert, eyes closed. We’re si"ing
in Tickets, his flagship Michelin-star
eatery and part of his five-restaurant
plan, the 5.0 Project. Pin-sharp
Mediterranean light rinses the carnival
décor: coloured bulbs, Gaudi-esque bar
tops, a kitschy Virgin. At 44, Albert’s
face is so# and boyish. And his affable
manner seems at odds with his place as
one of the world’s most celebrated chefs
and sibling to the most celebrated. For
23 years Albert worked alongside older
brother Ferran at five-times-voted the
world’s best restaurant El Bulli. But
toiling in Ferran’s shadow meant Albert
never got much a"ention. Until now.
For the last three years he’s been
building a high-profile, high-class
restaurant empire along the Avinguda
del Paral·lel, which runs from the
passenger ship port up to the central
Plaça d’Espanya. Tickets serves playful
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EACH
RESTAURANT
HAS ITS OWN
LANGUAGE.
IN TICKETS
IT’S FUN
El Bulli-style tapas in a space that’s
part-dining room, part-three-ring
circus. Next door is his petite bar
41ºExperience, where diners embark
on 41-course, cocktail-soaked, Michelin
-star gastro-journeys (this will close
later this year and reopen as Enigma,
in a larger venue). Over the road, casual
Bodega 1900 is modelled on an old
Barcelona vermouth bar. And around
the corner, Pakta dishes up JapanesePeruvian cuisine. His fi#h restaurant,
a raucous Mexican cantina called Niño
Viejo, opens in June (its grown-up
gourmet sibling, Hoja Santa, launches
in September). “Each venue has its
own language,” Albert says. “In Tickets
it’s fun. In 41ºExperience it’s emotion.
In Pakta it’s discovery. In Bodega 1900
it’s memories, while at Niño Viejo and
Hoja Santa it’ll be viva la vida.” And the
BELOW: THE INTERIOR
OF TICKETS SPORTS
MANY QUIRKY
TOUCHES TO MATCH
ITS PLAYFUL TAPAS
restaurants’ proximity (they’re within
a block of each other) means Albert can
skate – metaphorically for the moment
– between establishments each night,
keeping an eye on the cooking.
But why here? With four lanes
of traffic, a hodgepodge of shops and
no tourists, Paral·lel seems a strange
slice of Barcelona for Albert to drive
his haute-cuisine stake in the ground.
Well, there’s history. Albert opened
Inopia tapas bar just off Paral·lel
in 2006 with friend Joan Martínez.
The bar made a killing, and four years
later, when a larger space opened up
one block away, Albert jumped on it.
He amicably parted ways with Joan
and used the space to launch Tickets
the following year.
But Albert’s decision is also
grounded in nostalgia. “As a child,
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I remember looking out the window
of my parents’ car at the cinemas, the
theatres… at all the lights here.” Paral·lel
was once the Broadway of Barcelona;
for much of the 20th century it was a
boisterous strip of bars and burlesque,
of cafés and cabaret that a"racted
the likes of Fellini, Dali and European
royalty. “This was the avenue with
the most theatres per square metre
in the world,” claims Elvira Vázquez,
director of the recently renovated,
iconic El Molino cabaret music hall,
and president of the El Molino
Foundation, an organisation tasked
with revitalising the avenue.
But policies from Franco’s 36-year
dictatorship hit the area hard and by
the late 1970s, Paral·lel’s party was over.
Albert longs for the avenue’s vanished
sense of wonder and clearly hopes his
restaurants might help recapture it.
And he is not the only one.
In 2009 the Barcelona city council
(in conjunction with the El Molino
Foundation) decided to revamp the
avenue, taming the traffic, expanding
pedestrian areas and introducing
dynamic street lighting. “This street
is culturally important – there are
fantastic theatres and, increasingly,
excellent restaurants,” says María
Sisternas, Barcelona’s urban planning
director. “We want to make Paral·lel
more inviting, so people flow into it.”
The timing of the two projects is
coincidental, but the council’s plans
tie in nicely with Albert’s growing
operation and he says the renovation,
which should be finished by mid 2015,
will “open up the city”; drawing locals
and tourists back to an area that’s only
ten minutes walk from La Rambla.
Other local businesses welcome
both the revamp and Albert’s presence:
“Albert Adrià is invigorating the area,
helping create a be"er future for
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THE PARAL•LEL PARTY,
WITH BUZZY BODEGA
1900 (BELOW) AND
41ºEXPERIENCE (BOTTOM)
ALBERT
HAS HELPED
PUT THIS
STREET
BACK ON
THE MAP
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THE OPEN KITCHEN
AT TICKETS (LEFT)
ADDS TO THE SENSE
OF PERFORMANCE
ADRIÀ'S LOVE OF
THE CINEMA INFORMS
TICKETS'S DESIGN, WITH
ITS BOX-OFFICE STYLE
ENTRANCE (BELOW)
Paral·lel. We need to take advantage
of his fame,” says Manel Tort, president
of the Poble-sec and Paral·lel Business
Owners Association. Gemma Hereter,
sales manager at the four-star Silken
Concordia Hotel on Paral·lel, agrees.
“Albert’s helped put this street,
which was somewhat forgo"en,
back on the map.” Last year, the hotel
opened its own restaurant Bistro
LG026_66-74_ADRIA_CC_EFV2_RS_c.indd 72
Triple Sec, which, Gemma explains,
is an effort to hook into the avenue’s
new gastronomic zeitgeist.
Such signs of rebirth are apparent
up and down the avenue. Ikibana, a hip
Japanese-Brazilian eatery with swish
interiors from Albert’s same design
crew, opened last year. Meanwhile,
El Molino, broke and closed in 1997,
re-opened in 2010, a#er a complete
makeover. What was a virtual ruin
is now an ultra-modern venue with
an eye-popping, neon-lit façade.
But for now, there’s dinner to serve.
Opening time at Tickets, Pakta and
41ºExperience is nearing and Albert’s
chefs appear with questions and titbits.
He taste-tests an experimental roll
cooked by Niño Viejo’s young Mexican
chef, Paco Méndez. “He lets us
experiment,” says Paco, “but he’s also
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PHOTO GETTY IMAGES
WITH ITS POSTMODERN IRONIC
INTERIOR (ABOVE),
TICKETS TEASES YOUR
FUNNY BONE AS WELL
AS YOUR TASTEBUDS.
RIGHT: THE REVAMPED
EL MOLINO THEATRE
demanding. Today something might
be black, tomorrow it’s white.”
If Albert expects a lot from his
chefs, diners expect wonders from
Albert. The waiting list for Tickets is two
months long. Reservation-less punters
o#en queue outside the restaurant,
hoping for a miracle. But tonight, I’m in
the books and I take my seat. Waiters
swarm, ferrying plates of startlingly
inventive food to wide-eyed diners.
Finally it all makes sense – the dangling
bulbs, the flashy signage, the waiters’
usher uniforms, the sketch of El Molino
on the menu. “This place wouldn’t be
called Tickets if it weren’t here,” smiles
Albert. He’s created a perky, Michelinstar homage to Paral·lel’s theatrical
heyday. Clearly he knows the good
times, and the bright lights, will return
to this mythic corner of Barcelona.
EAT
41°Experience
164 Avinguda
del Paral-lel,
tel: +34 696
592 571
es.bcn50.org
Tickets
164 Avinguda
del Paral-lel
es.bcn50.org
Pakta
5 Carrer de Lleida
es.bcn50.org
Hoja Santa
& Niño Viejo
45 Avenida Mistral
Bodega 1900
91 Carrer de
Tamarit, tel: +34
933 252 659
ca.bodega1900.
com
Ikibana
148 Avinguda
del Paral·lel
tel: +34 934
244 648
ikibana.com
SEE
El Molino
99 Calle Vila i Vilà
tel: +34 93 205 51 11
elmolinobcn.com
STAY
Silken Concordia
Hotel
115 Avinguda
del Paral-lel
tel: +34 933
249 180
hoteles-silken.com
doubles from €105
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