New opening of Grupo Tragaluz in Barcelona. After overcoming the tough crisis caused by the pandemic in the restaurant sector, the company controlled by the Miura Private Equity fund is once again expanding its presence in the Catalan capital, the city where it was born in 1987 at the hands of Rosa Esteva and her son, Tomás Tarruella. The group has just inaugurated the Bosco de Lobos restaurant, a concept developed in Madrid and now brought to Barcelona with the challenge of repeating the same success.
The new establishment, based on traditional Italian cuisine, is located on the ground floor of the Diagonal 605 office building, in the section between Maria Cristina and L'illa. Its opening has involved an investment of 1.4 million euros and has created 30 jobs. Bosco de Lobos raises the number of Grupo Tragaluz restaurants in Barcelona to 16, where it also owns the G-Spot Club nightclub.
The company, which also operates in Madrid and Mallorca, owns a total of 21 restaurants across the three cities, with brands such as Fiskebar, Gallito, Cuines de Santa Caterina, Negro, Pez Vela, Bar Lobo, Bar Tomate, Ana La Santa, and Luzi Bombón. The first Bosco de Lobos opened in Madrid in 2014, and now the proposal lands in Barcelona with a large establishment featuring a 600-square-meter terrace that allows dining under the trees. "Bosco de Lobos is an escape from the city, where eating in a forest is possible," say the group's chef, Alex Duran, and Tomás Tarruella, co-founder of Tragaluz.
Located in the heart of the city's financial district, the Diagonal 605 building is owned by Merlin Properties and houses the offices of companies such as Lacer and Levi's. It has a commercial space leased to Benetton on the building's facade facing Diagonal, but Bosco de Lobos has been located in the rear part of the building, which allows it to have a large terrace situated in a courtyard that landscape architects Pepote Comella and Mauricio Ramírez have transformed into a green forest.
With capacity for 160 diners, Bosco de Lobos also has a spacious porch and an interior restaurant with large windows and an open kitchen. The interior design studio Francesc Rifé has opted for a minimalist aesthetic where wood and pressed sand stand out.
At the head of the stoves are two young Italian chefs, Mateo Spinelli, originally from Cosenza, and Alex Kalanja, born in Rome, ready to offer "the true Italian cuisine to the city of Barcelona." With dishes ranging between 7 and 17 euros, the menu is composed of salads, carpaccios, pasta and pizzas, with proposals such as asparagus carpaccio with ricotta, lemon and watercress or the radicchio trevisano with pear, gorgonzola and hazelnuts. Other suggestions are the spaghetti alla carbonara with prawns; pappardelle alla Bolognese classico; calzone di Ricotta e pecorino with marinara; octopus carpaccio with fennel and peperoncino; and tagliolini with anchovies and lemon.
Practically a year before the pandemic, in June 2019, the Barcelona-based fund Miura, led by Luis Seguí, bought 67% of Grupo Tragaluz, in an operation that also included En Compañía de Lobos, a company that Tomás Tarruella had created in parallel to the one he shared with his mother. Tarruella kept 33% of the capital, while Rosa Esteve sold all her shares, but kept ownership of the iconic Mordisco. Of Miura's 67%, 5% was subscribed by the lawyer and investor Gonzalo Rodés, founding partner of Aldea Ventures.
A few months after the purchase, Victor Xampeny was appointed CEO of Grupo Tragaluz, after a long career of more than 20 years at Eat Out (Pans & Company), a company that belonged to the Agrolimen family holding and was acquired by the Portuguese company Ibersol.