Our most beloved terraces are opening again, and it is now, precisely now that we are enjoying them again like a baby with Christmas gifts, that we must praise the resilience of our restaurateurs to the ravages of the pandemic and their marble-like militancy in maintaining terraces for which the municipal administration has been frying them with taxes for years with a Stalinist avidity. It is worth telling the story of the mess, I insist, now that covid-19 has forced us to understand that our mental health also depends on a hospitality industry that we always speak of with pride, but which costs us a great deal to keep afloat.
In the 2019-20 budgets, the City Council increased the fees that our baristas paid for having a terrace (in some areas of the city it rose by up to 1,400%) based on a 2016 report that studied the average price of similar facilities in five Italian cities. Determining a fee by looking at a country where taxation differs from ours was already a significant absurdity (Barcelona should have been compared with the rest of the cities in the state) but, even before this increase, our restaurateurs already bore a greater expense than in most Spanish cities. Currently, when compared to similar streets in Madrid, the Colau administration forces our long-suffering baristas to pay a total of five times more than the fees in the libertarian capital.
After much effort, during the state of alarm, the Gremi de Restauració de Barcelona achieved a 75% reduction in 2020 fees and, by imposition of the General Tax Law, that bars not be charged taxes for infrastructures that closed during the first state of alarm and the subsequent autumn closure. What restaurateurs demand, in short, is something as natural as the administration not taking advantage of a service that they have not been allowed to offer (which, I insist, was already disproportionate!) and, while we're at it, that the City Council anticipate the situation of radical emergency that the Barcelona hospitality industry is experiencing and redirect taxes proportionally.
Colau's government, and it's not the first, has always looked at the restaurant sector with a certain distrust, as if it were made up of large economic groups with predatory and dark interests. In the case of Barcelona, where the majority of our baristas are small and medium-sized entrepreneurs (many of them have survived the pandemic because they have family businesses, with the consequent flexibility of schedules and shifts), the prejudice is not only false but extremely unfair. In our city, everyone mourns the closure of Can Lluís or Romesco, but no one dedicates five minutes to elucidating why almost century-old businesses have ended up closing their doors due to an emergency situation that predated the outbreak of the coronavirus.
Colau's government, and it's not the first, has always looked at the restaurant sector with a certain distrust, as if it were made up of large economic groups with predatory and dark interestsThe City Council would do well to set aside its absurd prejudices and treat the hospitality industry as one of the country's first and most important industries and heritage sources.The disconnection of our politicians with the restoration is evident, and it doesn't exist only because we've been paying for the stop and lodging of many of our leaders for too long, but becausethey have not understood that the closure of some emblematic restaurants in the city is only the tip of the iceberg of a crisis that everyone whines about and no one moves their neurons. Now that many businesses in the city have expanded terraces with the simple spirit of survival, it should be the administration that makes the gesture to safeguard their resistance.
I write the notes for this Saturday's Punyalada of mine on the terrace of Els Pescadors, in the delightful Plaza Prim of Poble Nou. At home, we have always believed that militancy is demonstrated by reserving and consuming, and this is how we claim the terrace by planting ourselves at the entrance of the Maulini-Duran family's restaurant, in this small grid of the city that is one of the most tranquil and beautiful places in the world. Following the canonical Empordà style of Josep Mercadé and Jaume Subirós, Marc Maulini sharpens our appetite with a dish of fried anchovy bones, a fishermen's delicacy of intoxicating simplicity, while showing us a tray full of baby squid, prawns, and a piece of red mullet that hides the Mediterranean's phone book.
I have returned to the terrace of Els Pescadors because eating next to the bellasombra that accompanies it with the loyalty of an old dog is perhaps where I have been happiest in the world. In fact, when it comes to claiming militant terraces, there is no better place, and since we are at it, let the Roses baby squid and the shrimp ajada parade. Every new friend who bursts into Plaza Prim is a hallelujah of existence that finds calm in the ingestion of some of our best aquatic friends: first the Roses Turbot, then the Sant Pere from Ametlla de Mar, baked with potatoes, tomato, and onion, just as we have eaten it since childhood without any variation. I tempt fate, a capricious slacker, with a rice with carts and broad beans that has been conceived to plot siestas.
This is my favorite terrace, along with that of the Belvedere (which is ground zero of the Eixample and of the entire universe) and I am sure the reader will want to challenge my criterion with their favorite corner of the city where theirs is located. I ask you to go back there, as you will have already done, but first have the kindness to thank your barista or restaurateur for the persistent militancy of a profession constantly mistreated by a court of ineptocrat rulers who, when they travel the world, are always accompanied by chefs and sommeliers claiming an industry that they then have no problem mistreating out of simple prejudice, and all this to end up stealing money from it that has no impact on the wealth of the council.
Have the kindness to thank your barista or restaurateur for the persistent militancy of a profession constantly mistreated by a court of ineptocrat rulers who, when they travel the world, are always accompanied by chefs and sommeliers claiming an industry that they then have no problem mistreating out of simple prejudiceI like to go back to the terraces, and specifically to that of Els Pescadors, because among its tables one usually finds one of those communists who enjoys frying our industry with taxes and bothering us with class speeches while he, to eat, lives very happily devouring a turbot from Llançà in Plaza Prim (this afternoon the tradition has been maintained, and the communist-unionist in question is still subsidized with a splendid official car). Really, the job of being Catalans requires enormous effort and patience. But we, of course, have paid and will continue to pay for the joy of living, even if a part of our wages is kept by the Spanish Marxists.
If you return to Plaza Prim, save room for dessert, because for decades the Maulinis have had the good fortune of featuring some masterpieces from Lis de Pere Camps pastry shop on their menu. Their cream "brazo de gitano," oh my god please, is something that should be forbidden and for which we would sell our meager patrimony. As I savor the last bite, Pep Maulini approaches our table and, happy to see us satisfied, reminds us how a very refined Italian client of the restaurant, upon arriving for the first time on the terrace of Els Pescadors, stated: "ecco, finalmente, il Mediterraneo". We celebrate the luck of being Barcelonans, and we beg the communists to let us live as they do when the television is not focused on them.
Return to your favorite terraces, let's love the militancy of their architects, let's praise them for resisting with so much love... and let's pray that the members of the komintern are as generous as their restaurateurs have been in filling their stomachs for decades. Amen.