I will not write (anymore) about the Haiti bar

The protectionists of Ciutat Vella (namely; that sect of co-neighbors who, tired of living in a neighborhood where any activity involves slaloming between tourists and who, due to such satiety, have also ended up detesting the presence of other Barcelonians) made me swear that I would not write any article about Bar Haití, aware that anything my pen touches turns into a place where everyone wants to stick their nose in. Until now I had listened to them, because I myself often have breakfast -sandwich or fork- in this affectionate establishment in Jaume I which, in turn, for a few months now has been serving an insultingly cheap menu that is already among the most decent in the neighborhood, along with that of Ca l'Agut and, if the wallet sounds enough, that of Estevet. Despite living a few meters from Haití, it took me a while to become a regular, as it turns out to be the usual place where city officials and politicians have breakfast and, as you will perfectly understand, there is nothing more terrifying than starting the day having to worry about whether a public worker will steal your table or whether you will have to insult some socialist...

I was saying that the natives had forbidden me to write about Haití to preserve its identity and to be able to chat there with a minimum of calm. Today I finally disobey, first of all because -due to the good work of its third-generation commander, Josep Servitje- Haití is already part of the imaginary of all Barcelona... and now we even have to put up with the fact that the fame of its splendid sandwiches has reached the cretins of the Gràcia neighborhood. Secondly, it also helps that, during the last Mercè, Haití celebrated a national-fascist culinary coven under the banner "Mori el brunch, visquin els esmorzars de forquilla!" (Death to brunch, long live fork breakfasts!), a slogan that seems to come from a song by one of those authentically nauseating groups that my dear Xavi Noriguis likes so much. Be that as it may, the resistance fighters of Ciutat Vella will have to accept that one more thing invades us, because it's not coming from here, and nothing will happen if those kinds of fools who discover (yuck) in groups carter's collations crowd our bar.

At home we love Haiti because Josep has the decency to buy the cut where we do, starting with Santa Caterina (a place where the stallholders have resisted the hustle much better than in the media-savvy neighbor...), Forn Vilamala and La Colmena. From all this come, every morning, the sandwiches that the beloved Íngrid Beser gives birth to, authentically pornographic sandwiches after which one would be tempted to go back to bed. I do not appeal to sexual enjoyment out of caprice, since the most suspicious customers intuit that there is a disturbing relationship between Íngrid's internal hot flashes and her extraordinary bikinis, where the cheese oozes out of the edges with a dizzying joy that has ended up staining all the lips of the Gothic Quarter. In fact, we don't know if it's better that our favorite sandwich maker has consummated the day before or that she has stayed at the gates of pleasure because, whether for enjoyment or for containment, a pepito de llomet can end up coming out that will send you directly to the Hospital del Mar...

If you have the misfortune of not craving sandwiches and opting for pintxos, chef Oriol Vilalta threatens you every day with an insulting selection of omelets. He also commands the menu, from which we must highlight the return of something as important as noodles in a casserole and the constant presence of "conseller's feet" (pigs' trotters). At lunchtime, Haiti's only problem is the reduced space, the dreadful resulting noise, and the high possibility of having to eat next to a convergent mayoral candidate or the communists. But all these are passable problems, because you will have the joy of being served by Clara Fanlo, whose semi-tattooed legs have half the neighborhood in love and with whom this server shares a certain tragic vision of life that can only be regenerated with a wild asparagus omelet. All this happens in the mornings in Haiti, where I arrive half asleep like a log and leave minimally hopeful. I only ask that, when you become customers, you perpetrate the invasion with a certain order and Insta at rest.

"Barcelonians, I insist: visit it in moderation and have mercy on its regulars"

I am half a son of America, because there I learned the ultimate meaning of individual freedom and the art of war, and it is for this reason that I firmly resist the death of something as civilized as brunch (which, unlike the expat cretins we have in Barcelona and their absurd kombuchas, should always be crowned with a Bloody Mary of those that destroy your stomach causing you a delicious vomit), but this is no impediment for me to defend to the death our fork and the sandwich loaded with waves of white sausage. From this trench, therefore, I praise the Haiti bar and wish it a very long life. Barcelonians, I insist: visit it in moderation and have pity on its regulars, a kind of people with good taste and surly, to whom you must forgive our stubborn will to be.