The pizzeria that started in a parking lot will open two new locations, in Barcelona and Madrid.

BarcelonaRestaurateur Berta Bernat has announced that she will open two new Parking Pizza locations next year, one in Barcelona and one in Madrid. The Barcelona location will be outside the Eixample and Ciutat Vella districts, where her current restaurants are located. "I've been thinking about Ciutat Vella, where we don't have any yet," explains Bernat, who has a total of five pizzerias in Barcelona and two in Madrid.

It all started ten years ago at number 98 on Londres Street in Barcelona. There, Berta Bernat and her partner, the much-missed Marcos Armenteras, opened the first Parking Pizza in a space that had previously been the garage of a building. It looked so much like a parking garage that the shop opened (and still opens today) with a roll-up security shutter. Armenteras, who passed away at the beginning of last year, was a great specialist in finding and locating special spaces for the brand. The second-to-last location, on València Street, is a spacious, elongated area where they decided to place a round table for the first time.

Door with roll-up security shutter

The name was easy, it had to be said parkingAnd the food, just as Bernat and Armenteras had dreamed: high-quality pizzas, with plenty of crust, served amidst an aesthetic they'd seen in restaurants in Northern Europe, with wooden tables for sharing, backless stools that open up to store coats and backpacks. "We'd seen the chairs in London restaurants, and we were convinced that there wasn't a single restaurant in Barcelona that had them," says Bernat. So they ordered them from Belgium, which is where they still buy them today.

Bernat maintains that ten years ago, you couldn't find good pizzas in Barcelona. "We were the first to think about it and to get started; then there was a boom," to the point that you could say "the city is in love with pizza." There are many high-quality pizzas available, but she points out: "The market has grown so much that the supply is now saturated in some neighborhoods but not in others, and that's why I want to open them in Ciutat Vella," Bernat explains. The restaurateur also runs Parking Sótano, located in the Marimon passage in Barcelona, ​​where the menu is based on meat, cooked over charcoal. "We are very happy with what Parking Sótano offers; I think the meat is very high quality, and we especially notice it in the large number of takeout orders," she says. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first Parking Pizza, the restaurateur has added a new pizza to the menu. This is a collaboration with the Petramora brand and the Rooftop Smokehouse, with whom she has designed a pizza featuring smoked beef, potato, cheese, and egg yolk. And here's an interesting tidbit: if anyone thinks pizzas are only eaten on weekends, Berta Bernat explains that's not the case. At least, that's what she's observed in her restaurants, because customers eat them every day of the week, both at lunchtime and in the evening. "I'd say the only day that might be a little slow is Monday." "We also offer a set menu for €18.50, which includes a small pizza, a drink, and ice cream for dessert," concludes Berta Bernat.