He little cry, as the raor fish is popularly known (Xyrichtys novacula), has gone from being an unknown fish to arousing passion in season, which is right now in Catalonia, and also in August. "When we started working with it, more than fifteen years ago, no one knew it and we had to explain what it was like," recalls Pere Monje, director of the Via Veneto restaurant in Barcelona, who features it on the menu these days. "They come to us directly from the Maresme region, and the supplier, who fishes for them with a line, tells us daily how many he has," Monje continues. The day we interviewed Pere Monje and the chef David Andrés There was half a kilo. And what a half kilo! At the market, a kilo of parrots It can cost around sixty or more euros.

I interview Pere Monje one morning, hours before the first diners arrive at the restaurant. In the kitchen, suppliers are bringing in ingredients, and the cooks are busy preparing the various batches. Chef David Andrés is in his office, next to the kitchen, reviewing the recipes they'll be adding starting in April. The Via Veneto restaurant was opened by cultural promoter Oriol Regàs on April 9, 1967., two months after the Bocaccio nightclub had opened. This year, then, the restaurant on Ganduxer Street turns fifty-eight and, furthermore, celebrates having held a Michelin star for 50 years without interruption. For the Monje family, it is a reward for consistency in the profession, for their effort to ensure that every lunchtime and evening meal becomes the best possible experience for the diners who sit at the tables with salmon-colored tablecloths and napkins. Pedro is the restaurant's manager, but also maître and serves as a sommelier. He plays an active role in the dining room, often preparing steak tartare and, in particular, crepes Suzette.

A boy, Pedro, is playing football in the courtyard of his house. They live above a restaurant run by his father, Josep. In the courtyard there is a warehouse where the father keeps the restaurant's wines. The ball goes off course and, with a bang, hits a bottle of wine. In the blink of an eye it turns into a pile of glass shards, while the wine gushes out and makes a puddle on the floor. They know it, they are not allowed to play football. The father of the child is devastated. The wine he had broken was a Rioja from 1925, specifically a Castillo Ygay, from the Marqués de Murrieta winery. Pedro understands perfectly well that he has made a big mistake. But he will grow up and be able to buy a bottle to make up for the broken one. And not only that, but he will fall in love with wine and the restaurant that his father ran and that he now runs, Via Veneto, will have one of the best wine cellars in Spain (and probably the world).