The Teatro restaurant opens in the former Tickets premises in Paral·lel

Said and done. Businessman Manuel Lao has met the deadlines he set for himself and just three months after being awarded the emblematic Tickets restaurant in Barcelona in court, he has reopened it under a new brand, Teatro Kitchen & Bar. This Tuesday, March 15, the renovated establishment on Paral·lel has welcomed its first diners and has also premiered the new Backstage cocktail bar.

The establishment opens from Tuesday to Saturday, both at lunchtime and in the evening, with a team of 30 professionals led by chef Gabriel Suñer, former head chef of the Cocina Hermanos Torres restaurant and the former Dos Cielos. For this initial phase, for a period of two or three months, Suñer will have the support of Oliver Peña, executive chef of Albert Adrià's Enigma restaurant, which, for now, remains closed. Peña worked for more than ten years in the now-defunct elBarri group, of which Tickets was a part, so he knows very well the concept and philosophy of the establishment that now reborn as Teatro, as advanced by The New Barcelona Post.

The Iglesias brothers, former partners of Albert Adrià in Tickets and elBarri, have taken over the management and day-to-day operations of Teatro and also of the other three restaurants that had been their property, Rías de Galicia, Espai Kru and Cañota, and which have now also passed into the hands of the former owner of the Cirsa gaming and leisure group. The package rescued in court by Manuel Lao also includes the Pakta restaurant, which remains closed and which will probably end up being transferred to one of the professionals who worked in the establishment, according to Borja Iglesias.

Of the 30 employees with whom the Teatro restaurant starts, ten worked at Tickets when it was forced to close due to the pandemic and another ten had worked at the establishment in the past and have now returned. The rest are new hires, as most of the waiters and cooks from the previous stage had already been relocated to other establishments.

Teatro's menu recovers some characteristic creations from Tickets' beginnings and, in addition to tapas, includes grilled dishes and stews, with an average ticket of 60 euros per person. After two years closed, the venue has undergone a facelift, but it has practically not changed, preserving the decoration and furniture that Tickets sported. What has changed is the dessert space known as La Dolça, which has now been transformed into the Backstage cocktail bar, which has its own access from Paral·lel. The venue thus recovers the spirit of the old 41ºExperience cocktail bar that accompanied Tickets in its beginnings; it will open between six in the afternoon and two in the morning.

Although the decoration is essentially the same, Teatro does incorporate a novelty: one of the establishment's showcases is now dedicated to giving visibility to the olive oil brand Dehesa El Molinillo, also owned by Manuel Lao, a businessman from Terrassa who manages his fortune and investments in multiple sectors through the business holding Nortia.