I leave Tribut, the wine bar next to Catalunya Ràdio, where I often go to write while having a glass of bubbles, and I run into the couple formed by chef Carles Gaig and his partner, front-of-house manager Fina Navarro, entering. We have known each other for many years, at least twenty, because Carles, along with the late Jean-Luc Figueras, used to come to a radio program where I worked then, hosted by Esther Sardans, to do a cooking section. Carles helped the young Figueras make his way, with his usual simplicity. All of us who made that program were novices and they knew how to transmit two things that go together: passion for cooking and generosity.
Carles had his place in Horta then, and Jean-Luc had opened, with great effort, the one on Santa Teresa street, which bore his name. For the end-of-program dinner, Carles organized the menu for us in his restaurant and when we asked him for the price, with that unconsciousness of someone who has never set foot in a great restaurant, he told us a ridiculous price, which must have been equivalent to the amount left as a tip at other tables. I haven't had a conventional family and I don't have memories of homemade, traditional meals, like many people. That's why that night, at Can Gaig, changed me forever and I have always, always followed Carles Gaig wherever he has gone. That night I tried the pigeon rice for the first time. I have not known any other pedagogue of cooking like Carles Gaig. Cooking is culture. Traditional Catalan cuisine is heritage. We must thank chefs like Gaig for what they do for culture.
Fina bumps fists with me (that greeting we do because of the pandemic) while Carles talks on the phone. "We've come to buy a bottle, for a dinner," she tells me. And we laugh, because we hear Carles, who is closing the price of the prawns that will arrive at the restaurant tonight. "One day you should see how the prawns arrive," Fina tells me. And Carles nods. Once he hangs up, he tells me with a wide smile: "The arrival of the prawns is a festival." Since life is about this, about not letting any opportunity pass, I ask them when they arrive. "Now, at eight, in a little while," Carles says. "Oh, well, I'll come," I say.
So, at eight, I go to Petit Comitè, at Passatge de la Concepció, number 13. This restaurant was founded by Fermí Puig in 2008. Later, Nandu Jubany (who had worked at Gaig's restaurant in Horta) took over, and now it's Gaig who has taken the helm. They are three very important and beloved chefs. In Barcelona, a place like this is essential and, in fact, seeing it operate at full throttle is a pleasure only surpassed if you stay for dinner. Gaig, up and down, with his apron, and all the chefs, putting all five senses into each pot. And the soul of the place, Fina, who never stops (I'd like to know how many kilometers she walks during a service) with her notepad, advising, and, above all, smiling very frankly, unable to avoid it, when dishes are ordered, with a smile (I'm sure) that is the anticipation of the diners' pleasure. When someone who comes to the restaurant for the first time orders, for example, the croquette, she must think the same thing we think if someone is about to listen to a Beatles song for the first time.
The restaurant is full of very diverse people. Foreigners taking photos, but also business tables or a couple clearly celebrating a birthday. Here you come to enjoy tradition and, therefore, modernity. I enter the kitchen and see the wonderful wicker tray of prawns, which have just arrived. There is applause among the kitchen staff. What a marvel, what a joy that strange fruit of the sea, the product par excellence, which evokes celebration and luxury, but also simplicity. "I'll grill them, just with salt," he says. I swallow. My mouth is really watering. The activity in the kitchen doesn't stop. "Cardinal's macaroni, to the pass!" someone says.
They are one of the dishes that have accompanied Carles Gaig all his life and, if one day you go to the restaurant, you must order them, because they have all the flavors. Of course, you should also order the cannelloni. Carles started cooking seriously when he returned from the military service in the seventies, but he had always helped his mother make the cannelloni farsa (he comes from a family of cooks) and I am sure that it is this experience, transmitted, and that he will have transmitted to his daughter (now in Singapore) that makes his cannelloni unrivaled. I really like that the word farsa serves for two such connected things: theater and cooking. It means "filling," of course, and this shows us that the filling must always have all the importance. I see plates of fritters pass by, I see fricandó being ordered, and I smile, because a normal fricandó is not difficult to make, but an immortal fricandó is very difficult, and here the fricandó is immortal. Here and there I see small copper casseroles, with the rum baba, burning, with blue and festive flames. What a party, what a great party, this restaurant.
I look, again, at Fina, acting as front-of-house manager. Rock and roll plays in my head as I watch her work, having such a good time working. I guess that's why she's so beautiful. "Hey...", I stammer. "Wouldn't you have a table?". And since she tells me yes, I think that when she comes to take my order, I will tell her: "I will have whatever you order for me." And she will smile, anticipating the happiness that awaits me.