Each time, it's less strange to accompany food with a good cocktail. And Barcelona is a good city to check it out.
If we understand pairing as the union and mixture between food and drinks in order to achieve a perfect union of the aromas and flavors that are combined, why leave it solely to the realm of wine and beer? In fact, for a few years now there has been a trend of pairing dinners or meals with cocktails, little by little, the number of restaurants that join in surprising their customers with this combination is increasing.Here are three proposals to enjoy a complete feast, both culinarily and mixologically speaking.
Shiko by Yamato
The Japanese BBQ restaurant, located at Balmes street number 73, proposes pairing its best specialties with a mixed drink ---with or without alcohol---. To pair, but also to whet the appetite or finish dinner or lunch. To do this, it has just launched a new menu of refreshing and suggestive cocktails for all tastes.The new cocktail menu at Shîko by Yamato features 12 proposals, two of them non-alcoholic: the Summer Sunset, with watermelon juice and jasmine tea, and the Early Summer, made with grapefruit and grape juice.
Long drinks like the First Crush, based on rum, Campari and lemon juice; the Cubata, with fruit juice and sake; the Orange Blossom, with vodka, jasmine tea and orange juice; or the Tipsy Night, a cocktail made with whiskey, plum liqueur, Cointreau and lemon juice. And for coffee lovers, the Lover Charming, a combination based on whiskey, Baileys and black coffee.
Cocktails that can be paired with their culinary specialties, especially the house stars, the Sukiyaki and the Shabu Shabu, but also the rest of the dishes and small plates with a more or less pronounced Japanese accent, from the fusion of Iberian rolls with cheese and edamame to the donburi which can be yakitori chicken with ginger, shikô beef, meatballs and curry, pork belly and kimchi, or volcanic beef.
C/ Balmes, 73
Muy Buenas
Located in one of the most emblematic establishments in Raval, Bar Muy Buenas ---inaugurated in 1896 as a codfish shop---, is one of those perfect places to combine small plates and good drinks.Its carefully curated modernist decoration serves as a setting for simple but sincere cuisine. Good Catalan cuisine, the kind for "knife and fork (or spoon)": meatballs with cuttlefish, cod with chanfaina, fricandó, cap i pota with chickpeas, trinxat con rosta.
And here, typical wines rival a good cocktail menu made with Catalan liqueurs, which can also be enjoyed in a cocktail bar on the upper floor.
Cocktails that nod to figures of Catalan and Barcelona culture and society, from Pere Gimferrer (gin, Montserrat aroma, blackcurrant liqueur, black cherry liqueur, tangerine and lemon), to Pepe Rubianes (mushroom aguardiente, homemade ginger beer, fig jam and lemon), or from a Mary Santpere (Torres 15 brandy, remedy flowers and house bitter) to a Juanola (Girona absinthe, Girona coffee liqueur, ratafia, honey syrup and lemon).
C/ Carme, 63
The Alchemix
For those seeking originality and creativity, The Alchemix. This "gastro-cocktail-bar" transports us to the "clandestinespeakeasy", those hidden and exclusive bars with good music and warm light. On this occasion, its founders, chef and maître d' Sergi Palacín and Ignacio Ussía (who met at the mythical Gaggan in Bangkok), propose fantastic cocktails and a gastronomic offer to match.A menu of culinary proposals not without creativity and originality, both in its recipes and its presentations, thanks also to some more than surprising tableware. A staging that aims to fascinate and surprise but also combine with long drinks. A proposal worthy of many awards, such as the Top Cocktail Bars 2024.
The most surprising thing is that the establishment "has created its own periodic table." Because at The Alchimix, research is valued. So, for the most curious, it is recommended to ask about prohibition and its cocktail: pure magic.
C/ València, 212