It had been centuries since I last visited the Escribà pastry shop on La Rambla. At home, we are rarely tempted by sweets, but since we moved to the Call, we are surrounded by such a vast army of excellent pastry chefs that restraint becomes chimerical (in Ciutat Vella, the crown of sweetness goes to Brunells, an establishment whose European smoothness of its croissant we have already praised). So, I returned to Escribà by chance and a sense of justice, because if the natives of the neighborhood don't spend some money in the city's most emblematic (ugh) shops, we will end up with that very Barcelonian thing of crying when they finally pull down the shutters for good. Also, to reconquer La Rambla for a while, however naive the idea, given that our national glory will be destined to be an ocean of guiris no matter how many post-communist world urban planners reconceptualize it (ugh) and no matter how many tons of goodwill we conservation militants put in.
I had met Christian Escribà some night while on a route through the cocktail bars of the Eixample. We alcoholics (or ex-alcoholics, knock on wood) don't have very deep conversations, but anyone could intuit that, beyond the mad scientist's mane and the mischievous know-it-all's glasses, Escribà carried the melancholy of someone who, by choice or imposition, has not only commanded a business for four generations but has also managed to expand its reach and excel in communication with excellence. I am sure that, however much it pains him, Christian will understand this article from a Barcelonian who, as I said, burst back into Casa Figueras with all the joy in the world for breakfast and left there battered to hell due to appalling service that does not honor his surname or his history. Everyone can have a bad day, of course, but there are gestures and customs that can only be the result of crude neglect.
As in many establishments in the historic center of Barcelona, I would say that in Can Escribà the Catalan language is an endangered species. The survivors of the neighborhood know it: the temerity of ordering a "cafè amb gel" results in orders of unusual creativity (the bet is almost certain: you will end up drinking a coffee with milk). I can understand that Escribà has a multilingual staff because it is in a commercial place where English predominates, but ensuring that a group of workers understand Catalan in a universe like that of a pastry shop (where the plurality of orders is limited) does not seem like a galactic demand to me. Then there is the scarce rhythm in the service and that curious tendency of the waiters to walk around an establishment with notoriously unattended tables without working at all. We will pay what is necessary for the fritters, Christian, but we want to ingest them within a somewhat reasonable time.
We Barcelonans are tremendously unfair and cynical with most of the ancestral businesses that we would like to be eternal, but for which we are not willing to spend money. I have written it ad nauseam and try to consume in them almost every day; therefore, unlike most of my fellow citizens, I have every right in the world to publicize my amendments. I know that you have to pay many salaries and run your businesses in an economically very difficult time and I sense that you put more than just your skin into it every day, Christian. Believe me, I know. But, for goodness sake, if I ask for a coffee with ice, I never want to see again the grimace of a waiter who doesn't understand me and doesn't want to make any effort to do so in the future. And if I fancy an orange juice, I want it natural, not fotem. The fritters were quite good, it must be said, and given the appalling service, they were exempted from the bill. But that's not what's important.
We Barcelonans are tremendously unfair and cynical with most of the ancestral businesses that we would like to be eternal, but for which we are not willing to spend moneyTo shake off the bitterness, and in one of the few moments of leisure my tedious life allows me, that same night I returned to my beloved Ascensor bar on Bellafila street. I go to the place much less than I would like, because I no longer consume elixirs (I am very embarrassed to ask for a tonic in my old chair) and Àngel Juez, its ancestral owner and eternal conversation partner, retired a long time ago. Now the bar is run by Xavi Juez, who has learned with pain and patience the best of his titanic progenitor's wisdom, giving a very personal, sweeter and calmer breeze to one of the historic bars in this city. When I entered, Xavi was not there, but his presence and determination permeated the atmosphere. Had there been guiris at the place? Of course. But all the waiters understood me perfectly and, in less than two minutes, I already had my absurd non-alcoholic cocktail in my hands.
The reader (and the main affected party of the article) will tell me, with all the reason in the world, that one cannot compare the commercial treatment offered to a regular customer with a more occasional passerby. But I insist that there are basic gestures and categories that must be taken care of in an establishment at all costs. I will also insist as many times as necessary that the main source of salvation for our businesses will be our ability to dig into our pockets to keep them open. But our militancy also demands that their managers take care of the indigenous Barcelonans as if they were a species on the verge of extinction. Because if we continue with the paradigm I have seen at Escribà here, we will all end up leaving. If we follow that of El Ascensor, on the other hand, I sense a glimmer of hope. I wish a very long life to both establishments, of course, because if there is one thing I adore, it is the continuity of things well done.
Make him come back soon, Christian.