Pa de Kilo, my sin

Jesus Christ invented sin by sharing the bread of his body to see which disciple would dip their plate first, and this servant will not wait for the rooster to crow to tell you that my temptation and consequent guilt are found at number 12 Doctor Dou Street, in one of those civilized places where the Raval imitates the Eixample in the mathematical art of the grid. There is Pa de Kilo, the culinary oven conceived by two companions in hospitality battles: Oswaldo Brito (former chef at Mano Rota) and coffee maker Jordi Mestre (Nomad Café) who, in the midst of the pandemic, restored the unusable machinery of the old Barcelona-Reikiavik to devise a new way of making bread. Before perpetrating the crime, they needed a Mr. Wolf: he is the pastry consultant Nuño García, whom Brito had met at the Hofmann factory and who already has twelve Michelin stars under his arm and an Instagram account where each image is a top-notch sugar sculpture not suitable for diabetics.

The project was conceived in the summer of 2020 and presented in the neighborhood in November of the same year, and since then, Pa de Kilo has quickly become a reference in Ciutat Vella and the place where the best restaurants in the area (Baccaro, Dos Pebrots) go to buy crusts. The backbone of the menu has a line-up of a crusty loaf with 30% dough, a whole wheat, a ciabatta, and a baguette.

From here, the floodgates of gluttony open with olive bread, a special whole wheat that changes daily (walnuts, oats, pumpkin seeds) and with the four types of focaccia that sprout from the ciabatta; the classic rosemary and salt, leek and onion, cherry tomatoes, chili and capers, and one with green and black olives. The floury feast continues with sandwich bread, brioche, and rye bread (Pietri, a Venezuelan with twenty years in Barcelona, is a Cartesian man: on the blackboard at the entrance to the right you can see the weekly agenda with the bread of each day and thus you will know what good you will die from).

This was not enough for them. Once the initial project was consolidated, they added pastry chef Laura de la Fuente (Dos Cielos and Arola factory); what began with different lines of brownies and cookies has transformed into vegan options, pistachio rolls, and different daily cakes (do not buy the orange one with white chocolate and citrus sauce because you will end up devouring thirty-six of them).

To complement the delight, to the left of the customer service shelf there is a small deli-shop of artisan products and natural Catalan wines, a Kimchi from the maison, and a mango and passion fruit jam that at home we like to put on our lips mixed with gorgonzola to warm us up before making love. The creators of Pa de Kilo have achieved the extremely difficult simplicity: every new idea is an old way of doing things that we had forgotten. This is how they make bread, a bread like a host, a bread that has made most of the city's ovens look ridiculous.

The Pa de Kilo team starts working at six, finishes the food by mid-morning, and prepares the next day's feast in the fermentation chamber so that the doughs can rest for sixteen hours and the party doesn't stop the next day. It is worth having the privilege of jumping over the counter and watching Laura work alongside Juan Morales, Ethan, and Luis, shaping the hundred works of art that the oven will toast in just over a quarter of an hour. Some take care of the machine while others knead the dough as if it were a baby disoriented by its own crying that the cook places before the misfortunes of the world.

The local's integration with the neighborhood is not just commercial or the result of a moralistic washing: Brito and Mestre work with food collection associations where all leftover bread from the day is given away, and they consciously collaborate with social-labor reintegration institutions (Ibrahim, an original citizen of Ghana, is doing an internship in the workshop and seems to be happier than a clam). Very right.

Brito and Mestre work with food collection associations where all leftover bread from the day is given away, and they consciously collaborate with social-labor reintegration institutions

But all this is trifles, because the important thing about today's Saturday Punyalada is to remind you that a new sin is hidden in the Raval, that the invention is called Pa de Kilo and that, with an olive bread difficult to surpass and a ciabatta as weightless as pure air, Oswaldo and Jordi are screwing up my diet.