We’ve Run Out of Aubergines
June 29th, 2008 | Published in dispatch, food and music
Boy, what fun. (And what good food!) The man in that psychedelic Moritz beer jacket is the bouncer/announcer at Inopia. He goes to the corner of the stairs and shouts messages from the kitchen, like… we’ve run out of aubergines! People usually clap after every announcement. No idea why either, but it’s all good fun.
I moved to a new place today and — joy! — realized Bar Inopia was a few blocks down the road. For a bunch of reasons I went there stark raving hungry and thought I was going to die, standing in line for forty minutes. Be prepared to queue, though if your stomach hasn’t tuned itself to Spanish dinner times yet it could work in your favour this time: go before the crowd builds, at the unearthly hours between 7pm and 10pm, and you should be alright.
Once I got in I was still convinced I might die if I didn’t start eating immediately (first meal of the day, at 11pm), so I told the waiter to bring me whatever he felt like feeding me… and not to stop until I said so. Pork scratchings (always good!), croquetas (much tastier than the crap croquetas I’d been getting everywhere), cod and tomato salad (EXCELLENT), Russian salad (house specialty; really quite a standout), fried little fish (I like this, but there were enough to feed a flock of birds so that got tiring after a while). A seared tuna thing with some sauce; I was ambivalent about it, I come from the school of thought that believes tuna should preferably always be raw or seared for a maximum of… 2 seconds? An excellent chicken brochette. And other things I can’t remember; I was eating so quickly I can’t remember them all — I just remember being very, very happy. At every point the waiter kept asking if I wanted to stop, as though he thought I might topple over and die from eating. But I ate enough for several people.
The way it’s been written about in the international press you would expect the Adria-owned Bar Inopia to be one of those chi-chi tapas places… like Carles Abellan’s Comerc 24. But it’s not. Prices are cheap(ish), and the items listed on the menu are regular fare, just done very well. It looks like a regular local place, but for the queue. Fluorescent lights, loud Spaniards, untidy scribbles and Polaroids on the wall (but look closely and you find the Polaroids are of Pierre Gagnaire, Arzak, Heston Blumenthal and other culinary royalty). Excellent classic fare at prices that won’t hurt your pocket, and good fun (even for the solo diner!).
Bar Inopia
c/ Tamarit 104, Eixample Esquerra
Barcelona
Tel: 93 424 52 31
Open Tues-Fri, 19:00-23:00
Saturday 13:00-15:30 and 19:00-23:00
