Boro bar, Eixample, Barcelona

Boro Bar Barcelona

The other day an old pine tree was cut down next to my house. Following that, there was a raucous of confused tweets and flutters as displaced birds rehomed—a metaphor for Barcelona lately. Rents have come down. More importantly, so have traspasos or key money. The bar and restaurant landscape is changing.

Boro Bar in Eixample illustrates this trend. The owners, Argentinian Camila Matarazzo front of house and Catalan chef/husband Ramón Miracle, opened the brunch focused Elsa y Fred in El Born. They sold it and opened this concept instead.

It has a distinctive interior that calls me in without even glancing at the menu. Polished parquet floors, a velvet bench against one wall, beautiful light fixtures and arched windows. There are some spikey red flowers in a thick green bottle that, when seen from a certain angle, against the plush velvet seats in the background, give me a tingle of aesthetic pleasure.

The menu is made up of sandwiches, tapas and a weekly lunch menu for 14.50€. Hovering around 11€, the sandwiches/burgers arrive with a scrunch of salad, spiky with curly endive. Each one is matched with its own bespoke bread. The shredded oxtail comes in a pretzel style bun, while the vegan mushroom in a soft milk one. When I ask Camila if they bake it themselves, she tells me that she has various bakers who supply them with bread baked to their specifications.

This is not the only professional move I spot. As I am poking around next to the kitchen, deciding what to order. I see some food on the pass that doesn’t correspond to what I’ve read on the menu—a salad of speckled tomatoes with shards of onion glistening in olive oil. Catching me lingering, Ramón explains the food is for the staff meal. And sure enough, the young server with pink hair and red trainers sits down two tables down from me and tucks in.

Seeing what they serve for staff lunch and even offering a staff lunch seals my positive feeling about Boro bar. Famous talk show host Graham Norton said recently in an interview: forget the army everyone should work in a restaurant, it would make them better humans. Taking care of your staff, treating them well is the ultimate pro move.

Boro Bar is a new opening but it comes from a couple who have previously made a successful enough restaurant that someone wanted to buy it. A huge feat in Barcelona. This new one, only two weeks opened when I visit, already feels established. Confident and well thought out in every aspect. A great new addition to this corner of Eixample.

Boro Bar Barcelona 
C/ de la Diputació
www.borobar.es
facebook.com/borobarbcn/
instagram.com/borobarbcn/