Xavier Petràs: "I'm temporarily closing the Boquería mushroom stall to reinvent it."

BarcelonaThe Fruits del Bosc Petràs stall at Barcelona's Boquería market, popularly known as Setas Petràs, has closed "temporarily," explains Xavier Petràs, son of the renowned Llorenç Petràs, who retired 17 years ago and passed on the business of buying and selling mushrooms, vegetables, and quality produce to his three children. Since then, Xavier and his sister Mercè have run the stall at Barcelona's Rambla market and also the catering business, while their older brother, Isaac, handles the distribution to supermarkets.

"I want to emphasize that I have temporarily closed it, I haven't sold it, because I will reopen it, and I'm thinking about how to reinvent it when I do," explains Xavier when he finished work this Friday afternoon. "Yes, I haven't stopped working all day today, and I finished in the afternoon; I haven't raised the market's shutters, but I have been in the warehouse I opened today in Olesa de Montserrat, from where I will now distribute products to restaurants," he comments, adding that he doesn't want to reveal his plans for reopening the stall.

For Xavier, temporarily closing the historic Boqueria stall means having time to think and reflect on what he'll want to do when it reopens, but also being able to break away from the dynamic he was immersed in. "Every day I argue with tour operators who bring a group of tourists to the stall and begin to explain that the ingredients for the dishes were shipped from our stall to well-known chefs," says Xavier. He argues because, first, the group blocks his stall, and no one else can see what he's selling, and second, because Xavier maintains that he has never wanted to link his work with any chef to make a profit, "and then the tour operators do it without any permission." The fact is that in any given day, he can have up to 40 tour operators in front of his stall, each with dozens of tourists. These numbers must be added to the passing tourists who go on their own. "How can I work like this? How can I try to sell the delicious tomatoes I had this week?" says Xavier Petràs.

Smell of frying

There are other reasons why he has temporarily stopped his stall at La Boqueria. "The cooked food, ready to eat, is found at many stalls; so much so that when I get home, my clothes smell of frying." To continue, at the market, tourists touch everything and buy almost nothing. "This week, I say it again, I had some very large and good tomatoes. More than 25 times a day I had to tell tourists not to touch them, that tomatoes are for buying and not for touching," explains Petràs. And the fact is that while they are touching them, "they are eating fried food and drinking juice over food."

For all these reasons, Xavier Petràs maintains that the Boqueria market has evolved in a direction that is not its own, which is that of quality products. Times have also changed. "When my father worked, he only had one delivery person and that was it, because there were many cooks who came to the same stop to buy; now the cooks stop by to say hello, but we have already taken the products to the restaurant, so I must have three salespeople, three vans and every day I have to hunt for new sales in restaurants," says Xa.

These aren't easy times, but Xavier Petràs has plenty of ideas and a desire to keep fighting. "When I reopen, I'll have a line of quality products, and I'd like another one, though I don't want to reveal what it will be, but it will be unprecedented at his stall, because I've never done it before. He adds that he's not against tourism, but he is against overcrowding.

Finally, the temporary closure of Bolets Petràs is part of a crisis at the Boqueria market. the iconic Pinocho bar – which closed as a result of a family dispute– and also ofthe Direkte bar, by chef Arnau MuñíoWhile all this is happening at La Boqueria, at the nearby Santa Caterina market, residents and restaurateurs are making efforts to keep it as it should be: with stalls selling raw produce, which should be cooked at home, with traditional bars, such as the iconic Juanito bar, and with new establishments that have opened, such as that of the Italian brothers Colombo, who opened the Brutal. Both had NOW WE EAT who had chosen to set up in front of the Santa Caterina market to buy the product at the stalls.