Carme Ruscalleda: “I can still feel that commitment, that nervousness of starting a new business.”

Barcelona"Things always happen in July," says Carme Ruscalleda. It was on July 1, 1988, 37 years ago, that she crossed Nou Street in Sant Pol de Mar, from her home to the opposite sidewalk, to start her own business with her husband, Toni Balam. The result was Sant Pau, the three-star restaurant that marked a turning point in Catalan gastronomy. "I can still feel that commitment, that nervousness of starting a new business," she says, because neither of them had previously considered opening a restaurant as a possibility. "When they told us we had to open a restaurant, I said no way, and look how crazy I am," she quips. They took the plunge thanks to her parents' store, a supermarket that was already modern and creative at the time. They wanted to "put a table inside the store," but then the opportunity arose to buy the premises where Sant Pau is located, and they took the plunge.

There's no ocean, no afternoons lying on a towel, no parties with friends in Ruscalleda's memory. This summer memory of hers is made of great effort and sacrifice. "Laziness had no place. I was left skin and bones. I couldn't sleep. It was extremely hard," admits Ruscalleda, who at the time had two children, ages six and twelve. She still remembers how they would wander home and how she would ask her mother for help taking care of them. "But we did it with great enthusiasm and accepting where we were born and who we are," she points out happily. In fact, summers are always busy for her and her family. She had already said this at the beginning of the call: "They must think I work in the summer." "It's always been a busy time for work, for taking care of the vacations of others who move to our town," she adds now. And she lives it with optimism. For her, tourism is welcome, as long as it respects the balance.

From that summer he remembers one of the first dishes they served at the restaurant, a tribute to the store's origins. It was an appetizer named after cold cuts and which included dishes such as two-colored sausage, truffled chicken, and pork loin with bacon and olives. In 2018, Ruscalleda was revived that summer, when she had to leave the restaurant to pursue other things because she believes that "before a downturn comes, you have to leave": "We are made of flesh and blood." But her daughter, Mercè Balam, opened the bar El Jardí del Sant Pau, and her son, Raül Balam, reopened Sant Pau as a bistro. This also happened in July: "Summer is an economic engine."