Bar Jueves: rebellious Barcelona stands up with beans, fricandó and spills

BarcelonaFrom the Rosa de Fuego to the conscript revolts. Perhaps it's harder to see now, but Barcelona has always been a rebellious city. A place where not everything has to be the same. Where another way of doing things is possible. Even when the proposed changes are small, modest, but no less relevant for that. Today I'll tell you about an excellent bar-restaurant located on Consell de Cent. On a beautifully designed pedestrian street, filled with options dominated by restaurant chains. Here, in the middle of it all, like Thursday, Bar Jueves was born.

The project is run by a cooperative with about 25 members, opened a few weeks ago, and is already a phenomenon in the left side of the Eixample district. It all started with a conversation between Esteban and Albert. They prefer we don't use their surnames, because personal agendas have no place in a collective project. Esteban came from social movements; Albert, from the restaurant industry. They believed that one day they could open a good place for everyone. And when they learned that the Copérnico bar was up for sale, they knew it was the right time. There, thanks to a mutual friend and graphic illustrator, Joan Manel, they found the chef who would be perfectly aligned with their values: Joan Vallès.

We're using Vallès's surname because he designed the menu and because many readers might know him from his previous project, the Gigante restaurant in the Poblenou neighborhood. When Gigante closed, Vallès received several offers; he even considered opening a legume stall at a market. Ultimately, the Jueves newspaper and the person behind it encouraged him to join the project.

Vallès' love for legumes is evident in the fried egg (crispy and spherical like a fritter) with pork jowl and "crocheted" beans served for breakfast. A delight accompanied by bread with tomato. He tried three different types of water until he found the perfect balance for the beans. They are open from Wednesday to Sunday. Wednesday and Sunday they serve breakfast and lunch, and the rest of the week they are open all day. They aspire to be ambassadors of a proper breakfast, offering a wonderful selection of main dishes, such as capipota (a Catalan stew) and snails in sauce, as well as eggs, omelets, and grilled sandwiches. "Simple and well-made," says Vallès.

After 1 p.m., the eggs disappear, and you'll find starters, other dishes, and a fantastic set menu, where you can add extras to a main course for just a few euros. It's worth noting the consistency of their selection of natural wines, or those with abundant wine (red, white, and brioche), served in half-liter porróns for 7 euros.

A meeting place

Bar Jueves aims to be a meeting place, a social hub. They're already receiving many reservations, especially for dinner, but they always leave room for spontaneity. Esteve explains that Thursdays were historically the days when maids had their day off, and the day the markets had the best produce. Drawing on both of these ideas, Bar Jueves wants to be a place where working-class people eat as if the class system were more subverted than it actually is.

If you didn't know about the project and just walked by, you'd go in anyway. It's a pleasant place and the menu is excellent. The food is fantastic (I'm writing this while remembering the incredible cod, which they desalted to perfection). And you probably won't realize this restaurant operates differently until the bill arrives and you see that they don't charge for the filtered water (still or sparkling) they serve in glass bottles.

Otherwise, the focus is on what is familiar and commonplace. "We've opted for normality, which is perhaps lacking in this city," they say. "Let's make a fricandó, which has everything it should have: moixernons (a type of mushroom), picadura (a type of sausage), and all the trimmings..." explains Vallès. The aim is "to have on the table what we like when we get together with our friends." While this group advocates for excellence without innovation, the chef suggests that perhaps, with a good proposal, it would be possible "to generate a process that replaces the brunch "If we're ambitious." And why not? Small changes are powerful, and they can start revolutions.