Pol López (Barcelona, 1984) has been Hamlet, Vladimir, Alceste and Raskolnikov. He also played Ivan in Suro (Mikel Gurea, 2022), a role that earned him the Gaudí for best male protagonist in 2023. And the endearing Os in La furgo (Eloy Calvo, 2025). He now has two fronts open: Mal de coraçon, at the Villarroel until June 21 – a play with which the Company Solitària says goodbye to the stage – and La desconocida (Gabe Ibáñez), which has just premiered on Netflix, in which López plays a Gaditan agent alongside Candela Peña.

We are in a 17th-century farmhouse belonging to the Torelló family. In 1983, the father ceded some land he owned to the Torrelles de Llobregat Town Hall to house the leisure space Catalunya en Miniatura. They were cherry orchards, which in the past had been vineyards. High-quality cherries are one of the aspects for which this town, located in the Ordal mountain range, stands out. If you have never been there, you can take advantage of this weekend when the 46th edition of the Cherry Festival is being celebrated.

It is Saturday morning, and L'Abricoc (c. de l'1 d'Octubre, 6, Fonteta) has organized a tasting of Empordà olive oils with cheeses, liver pâté, and sweet sausage. The village is pleasant to look at: stone houses, the Romanesque church of Santa Maria, two restaurants that everyone in the village recommends (El Magatzem and El Saó), and a cheesemaker that I will also visit (and about whom I will write) with a reputation throughout the country. L'Abricoc's display window, made of wood and glass, shows a summary of what is inside: chocolates, oils, wines, Pallarès knives, uniquely designed linen bags. Even the constant cyclists who pass by look at it. If you walk by, calmly, you enter without thinking about it after observing the good taste with which the products are displayed.

On the north coast of Formentera, in the center of the island, we find es Pujols. It is a tourist center, with a long beach and a promenade lined with small wooden boats and restaurants. The first of them all, located in a privileged corner spot, is called Fandango and today we will stop there.

The hosts that symbolize the body of Christ are made of wheat flour and water. And wheat has gluten. This means that a part of the population, coeliacs and those sensitive to gluten, cannot consume them. How do these people manage if they are devout? Well, the Church has not always made it easy for them.

The chef Rafa Zafra, from Seville and an adopted Barcelonian, has a pile of successful restaurants. But a few weeks ago he had to close the restaurant with his most popular cuisine located on Via Augusta in Barcelona. "Per Feina has been the most exciting project of my life. My mother used to punish me by sending me with my father on the truck. I didn't know that deep down I loved it. The truck bounced and then we stopped to eat a menu of three starters and three mains. And I was the happiest child. As an adult, I wanted to do the same, but updated," explains the chef on the day he presents another popular project: the Masia Tibidabo restaurant, at the top of the amusement park.The establishment was first located in Poblenou, on Ciutat de Granada street, but at the end of August last year it decided to move it to the upper part because it had many difficulties in making the nights profitable. In the new location, the restaurant gained a surname: "Per Feina / Per Plaer" (For Work / For Pleasure). In this case, in addition to an economical menu, a more substantial meal could also be had. Even so, it has not been enough to keep the business afloat. "I wanted to keep the prices, cheap, and the restaurant was working. We had two hundred people every day, but we invoiced 4,000 euros. And that's a table at Estimar. Or at Jondal [the restaurant Rafa Zafra has in Ibiza], I don't even need to say. We had a whole team working and running for that," explains the chef.

The Pope of Rome now knows a little more about traditional Spanish cuisine, at least that was the intention of the Royal Academy of Gastronomy of Madrid, which explained today what the dishes and products were that he chose for the dinner that took place last night at the Episcopal Palace of Madrid. The Lhardy restaurant, "one of the historic houses of Madrid gastronomy and a symbol of excellence and legacy", according to the Academy, was the one in charge of preparing the dinner.

I am interviewing Manel Batet, from Cafès Novell, from Vilafranca del Penedès, so that he can explain to me the history of the company where he works and about the coffee we drink every day. I noticed the Novell brand the day I checked that the Disfrutar restaurant was the brand it used to prepare coffees. As the great enthusiast that Manel is, he knows data, dates, stories, and the evolution that the drink has undergone, which is more fashionable than ever. And it is also sold at higher prices than ever, probably. Current geopolitical situations and climate change will not favor it in the coming years for the situation to change. We will continue to pay a very high price for a cup of coffee.

Extra virgin olive oil is the liquid gold of our kitchen. We revere it, respect it, and know that it is one of the healthiest fats, and probably the most studied. When From 180 degrees, extra virgin olive oil begins to oxidize, but it is also true that it will do so more or less depending on the amount of time it is kept at this temperature, and "it will also depend on what we cook in it," states dietitian-nutritionist Anna Grífols, who adds that despite this, "extra virgin olive oil is much more stable than is often believed thanks to its high content of two components: oleic acid and natural antioxidant compounds such as polyphenols and vitamin E". A maximum of two times

To the point: we can reuse extra virgin olive oil between one and two times, "as long as we have never taken it to high temperatures, as long as it has not reached the smoke point, if it does not contain burnt residues, if it has been filtered and if it has been stored correctly after use". On the other hand, "when extra virgin olive oil darkens, when it smells rancid, when it produces a lot of smoke or when its texture changes, it is a clear sign that the quality has been lost", says Grífols, who assures that this advice is general, the one that people can follow at home. "We could reuse it ten times if we did not heat the oil beyond 180°, if we fried vegetables in it, if we completely covered the food, if we filtered it after use and if we then stored it in a suitable place". Since meeting all these requirements is difficult, the recommendation is to reuse extra virgin olive oil a maximum of two times. A note on the idea that frying vegetables in it makes it more profitable: "It is not the same to fry vegetables in extra virgin olive oil as battered or protein-rich foods, because the organic and protein residues they leave behind accelerate the degradation of the oil and, moreover, increase the production of potentially toxic compounds", states Grífols, who underlines the idea that extra virgin olive oil should not smoke: "When it burns or is used too many times, it stops being a protective food and becomes a source of oxidized compounds that do not help our health".Finally, extra virgin olive oil can be solidified (not frozen) if you need to keep it for months with the same properties as when you bought it. "Below zero degrees, we manage to solidify the saturated fats in the oil, which are 15%," says dietitian-nutritionist Anna Costa, who suggests the idea of taking an ice cube tray and adding sauces that contain extra virgin olive oil (like a pesto sauce) and then using them according to the use we want to give to our dishes. The extra virgin olive oil will have been preserved intact with all its benefits, for health and for cooking.

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A dinner on the terrace of the Windsor restaurant in Barcelona (Còrsega street, 232) with live music on Fridays and Saturdays for fifty euros, all-inclusive, including desserts, coffees, and drinks. This is the proposal launched by the director and owner, Joan Junyent, who explains that the dishes follow the basic premises of the restaurant: Catalan and local cuisine.

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“Never leave us!”, a gentleman shouted. “Return!”, “Hospitality!”, “Main festival!”. The public shared what they thought of when they thought of Motel Empordà. We are at this pilgrimage site on its 65th anniversary. On June 4, 1961, Josep Mercader inaugurated this temple of good cuisine and culture just outside Figueres. Culture understood in a broad, generous, and deeply rooted way.

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The singer Maria Jaume (Lloret de Vistalegre, 1999) is one of the emerging voices in Catalan music, with a proposal that combines joy and rootedness: songs that draw from popular culture without losing sight of social concerns or giving up the freshness of pop. In her latest album, Sant Domingo forever, released in February, she pays a joyful and honest tribute to her town's main festival.Sant Domingo Forever is an album animated for such internationally turbulent months…

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The managers of BSM, the municipal company that manages the Tibidabo amusement park, have described it as a "crazy idea" and a "dream come true". The fact is that they have wanted to reinforce the gastronomic offer of this leisure space for some time. Enrique Tomàs and Christian Escribà are already present. Soon, it will be the turn of Albert Adrià, who cannot yet specify what, but they are already working on various proposals. In fact, it was Adrià himself who recommended Rafa Zafra to take charge of La Masia Tibidabo, the project that is starting this Friday and which they presented today to authorities and civil society.

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It is a spring Saturday, it is twelve o'clock noon sharp, and the chef Joan Roca sits at one of the tables at bar Normal, located in Plaça de l'Oli in Girona, opposite the Normal restaurant. Ten minutes later, all the tables are full. The bar Normal was inaugurated just a few weeks ago, and it is clear that they have succeeded again with an informal offering, which can serve for having a vermouth (they always open at twelve noon) as well as for all other meals of the day. Bar Normal has its own kitchen, but they share the wine and beer menu with the Normal restaurant, so you can have some fried potatoes with chipotle sauce, which are Joan Roca's favorites, with a good Catalan wine from Empordà, as is fitting where we are, or from Burgundy.

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Anabel and Vicente opened their little refuge in El Born eight years ago: Orvay. They weren't just looking to open a restaurant, but to give shape to a way of understanding the pleasure of eating and drinking, a space where gastronomy and wine would dialogue naturally, without artifice. This idea also runs through the premises. They decided to paint the walls as a journey through the colours and times of wine: at the entrance, the beige tones of the earth, the origin of everything; in the centre, the green of the living vineyard, still full of light, and in the background the deep purple, almost violet, that recalls the ripe fruit and the wine when it reaches its final destination.

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The Pedralbes Palace was dressed up to award the distinctions with which the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition (ACGN) each year rewards the talent of our land. More than 550 people gathered and enjoyed a dinner together offered by chefs Romain Fornell and Òscar Manresa.

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The Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition has recognized ARA journalist Trinitat Gilbert with the Néstor Luján prize for gastronomic journalism for her series of articles "The foods we eat, in detail". In these reports, Gilbert delves into lesser-known aspects of very common foods, such as cured meats, yogurts, fish, or olive oil. The jury has highlighted "its ability to combine rigorous dissemination, gastronomic culture and journalistic criteria, as well as a consolidated career in different formats and media". Two years ago, the prize also went to a collaborator of ARA, in this case to writer Empar Moliner and her eagerness to promote Catalan wine.

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“From the entrance, you can tell this restaurant wasn’t built to be a three-star Michelin”, says Disfrutar’s chef Oriol Castro with his usual honesty, and Eduard Xatruch adds: “We didn’t have a dime or an investment fund behind us, we had to trick the bank and the landlord”, he jokes, because among those listening to him is the owner of the premises, Sandra Mira, who explains that this place – before the restaurant opened in 2014 and forever changed the history of Catalan gastronomy – was a warehouse for La Casa de las Mantas. “Do you know how much space was needed to store duvets, blankets, pillows...?” She quickly saw that the chefs were honest people eager to work, so she rented them the space. Perhaps she believed more in Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas, and Eduard Xatruch than they did themselves, because in the original design, the bar at the entrance was meant to serve tapas. And in the basement below, they wanted to put a large room “for large groups and communions”, says Xatruch. They ran out of money, and they never built that room. Luckily. Because when they had to expand the cellar and build the kitchen to develop the creative part, they needed that space. “The clients wrapped us up”, they say. They explain that the first part is inspired by Miró’s mosaic; when you cross the kitchen, into the pottery kilns, and once in the large white room, in Cadaqués, where they opened their first restaurant together: Compartir.

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The winner of the competition for the best panettone in the world, Ton Cortés, has two new developments: the first is that he has teamed up with pastry chef Jon Cake to create an innovative cheesecake with panettone flavor. And the second is that he has just opened a new bakery in the Sant Andreu neighborhood (c. Sant Andreu, 232). As soon as you enter, your gaze is drawn to the counter, with all the breads and pastries, and also to the ceiling, from which hang three rows of nine panettones facing down. They are dissected, if the adjective can be used to explain that, on the inside, they are empty, and only the outer shell remains, brushed with varnish to keep them dry. "Jon Cake has kept the inside, which he uses to create the panettone-flavored cheesecakes," explains Ton Cortés one spring afternoon, just a few days after opening the shop. Each slice of the new cake sells for five euros.

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I interview the sisters Rosita (Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1943) and Nati Camps Franquesa (Santa Coloma, 1947) at the Hostal Colomí in Santa Coloma de Queralt after a meal in which they have shown me that, together with Pep (Santa Coloma, 1974), Rosita's son, they are unbeatable. The restaurant room, full, Nati, in front of the grill, Pep, carrying dishes up and down, and Rosita doing the numbers, who adds at a speed that the MareNostrum supercomputer would envy. "No calculator adds as quickly as my mother," Pep tells me, who calls out the dishes he has served at the tables for her to calculate. When I started writing about gastronomy, twenty-five years ago, the Camps sisters were a benchmark for well-made Catalan cuisine, for local produce, for the seasons. Today it is still like that, and they deserve to be recognized. Why is it so hard in this country to give deserved recognition?

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