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THE

UNPARAL• LELEDKING

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

Photography by Carlos Hernandez

ALBERT ADRIÀ’S SET TO PUT THE PIZZAZZ BACK INTO

THE PARAL•LEL WITH HIS FIVE-RESTAURANT PLAN

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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 fi zzing, now neglected Barcelona thoroughfare.

“I love the tranquillity I fi nd here,” says Albert, eyes closed. We’re si" ing in Tickets, his fl agship Michelin-star eatery and part of his fi ve-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 aff able 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 fi ve-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-profi le, 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

El Bulli-style tapas in a space that’s part-dining room, part-three-ring circus. Next door is his petite bar41ºExperience, 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 Japanese-Peruvian 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

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 traffi c, 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,

BELOW: THE INTERIOR OF TICKETS SPORTS

MANY QUIRKY TOUCHES TO MATCH ITS PLAYFUL TAPAS

EACH RESTAURANT HAS ITS OWN LANGUAGE. IN TICKETS IT’S FUN

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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 traffi c, 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 fl ow 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 fi nished 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

ALBERT HAS HELPED PUT THIS STREET BACK ON THE MAP

THE PARAL•LEL PARTY, WITH BUZZY BODEGA

1900 (BELOW) AND 41ºEXPERIENCE (BOTTOM)

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ADRIÀ'S LOVE OF THE CINEMA INFORMS

TICKETS'S DESIGN, WITH ITS BOX-OFFICE STYLE

ENTRANCE (BELOW)

THE OPEN KITCHEN AT TICKETS (LEFT)

ADDS TO THE SENSE OF PERFORMANCE

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

Triple Sec, which, Gemma explains, is an eff ort 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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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 fl ashy 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, Michelin-star 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. Q

EAT41°Experience164 Avinguda del Paral-lel,tel: +34 696 592 571es.bcn50.org

Tickets164 Avinguda del Paral-leles.bcn50.org

Pakta5 Carrer de Lleidaes.bcn50.org

Hoja Santa & Niño Viejo45 Avenida Mistral

Bodega 190091 Carrer de Tamarit, tel: +34 933 252 659ca.bodega1900.com

Ikibana148 Avinguda del Paral·leltel: +34 934 244 648ikibana.com

SEEEl Molino99 Calle Vila i Vilàtel: +34 93 205 51 11elmolinobcn.com

STAYSilken Concordia Hotel 115 Avinguda del Paral-leltel: +34 933 249 180hoteles-silken.comdoubles from €105

WITH ITS POST-MODERN IRONIC INTERIOR (ABOVE), TICKETS TEASES YOUR FUNNY BONE AS WELL AS YOUR TASTEBUDS. RIGHT: THE REVAMPED EL MOLINO THEATRE

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