Fonda Pepa Restaurant: two friends, one inn

It's been eighteen years since Paco arrived in Catalonia. He came from Mexico on an exchange program at the Sant Pol cooking school and, unplanned, stayed there. It was at that school in the Maresme region where he met Pedro, a teacher.

Fate played an important role in their lives: it led them to work together at Caelis at the Ritz Hotel and then separated them. Pedro Baño continued as a teacher at the prestigious Hofmann School. Paco Benítez became the father of a daughter and sought stability working in hotel kitchens, balancing his new family life as best he could. But there was something written between them, an invisible line that would bring them back together. During the pandemic, amidst the silence of the world, Fonda Pepa was born. Walking through the Gràcia neighborhood, they found a place with more than thirty years of history, whose owners were about to retire. Bingo. "We wanted exactly that. A place with soul, with these marble tables, with its traditional terrace," explains Paco.

They opened in 2020 and did everything themselves: chefs, head waiters, waiters, whatever was necessary. They have a well-defined menu: locally sourced cuisine, a delicate fusion of Catalan and Mexican cuisine, and a nod to French gastronomy. "That's the basis of everything," he says. The day of our visit, they debuted a new menu. We started with their roast beef and Iberian ham croquettes: golden on the outside, creamy on the inside, and filling, as the "croquette" canons dictate. As we toast with the first glass of La Planella, a black wine from the DO Montsant produced by the Bodega Joan d'Anguera, Anna, who now expertly manages the Fonda's dining room, serves us the organic carrot with butter-kombu sauce, a laborious and subtle preparation. "It comes to us from Molins de Rei and first we make juice and cook the carrot in a vacuum and then on the grill, and with the suquet that everything gives off we cook everything together." The potato gnocchi and white butter (a butter sauce). "The secret is the yeast; it gives it that lactic touch that everyone loves." Squid with polenta, ink, and pesto is a simple and honest dish. "The squid sloshes and sloshes for a minute. We cook a Biscayan sauce with the squid ink and add pesto," they summarize. A dish that tastes of the sea and childhood. With the lamb neck with guajillo chili sauce, chickpeas, and romesco, Paco breaks into a knowing smile. "In Mexico, there's a broth called birria, which we cook with chickpeas. Here we add a Catalan sauce, romesco." He doesn't say it, but it shows: this dish is also a way of returning to his mother, to his homeland, without leaving Gràcia.

We finish with dessert: flan and cheesecake. his second restaurant in Gràcia. A more streamlined offering, but Fonda Pepe remains the heart. Amid the bustle of the restaurant that continues to grow, and word of mouth filling the marble tables, there's something you can't see on the menu: the nostalgia of everything they left behind, and how, with the effort of both of them, this corner of Gràcia, this inn with its own name, is the home they didn't know they were looking for.