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Food markets in Barcelona |
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Food markets of Barcelona
If you are looking for a bit of authentic "the way it was" culture in Barcelona, then head for the fresh food markets of Barcelona.
 Click here to visit all our listings for food markets in Barcelona
In Barcelona the star of the food markets is La Boqueria on the Rambla.
Even though it is a popular tourist attraction, there is still no better place in the city to get a sense of the authentic Barcelona.
Here things are still done the way they were before the tourist invasion. Now we tourists are here in droves and very welcome we are too.
But don’t think that just because we all came swaggering in from the el Prat airport, Hawaiian shorts bulging with cash, that La Boqueria will change anything for us. Not a thing, thank God. That is what makes it La Boqueria a unique spot in Barcelona. It hasn’t changed.
Sure. They could put up signs in 5 languages by the toilets. They could even clean the toilets! Now that would be progress!
Or here’s an idea? How about translations of the wares on display into English? Or maybe they could squeeze in a fancy franchise like Starbucks?
Somewhere discreet, like they did in China, when they proudly cut the ribbon of a new Starbucks shop actually inside the walls of the 600-year-old Imperial palace of the Forbidden City in Beijing? Click here for that story.
But thank God no! No new fangled concepts like change or progress in La Boqueria. Go peddle a bright new future in another part of town amigos! Aqui nada de eso! And why should they change?
La Boqueria market doesn’t need gimmicks, slogans or fancy logos to sell this kind of food or experience.
La Boqueria is already a live 3D, surround sound, Hi-definition wide screen experience for all the senses and stars the sights, sounds and smells of choosing, talking about, buying, tasting and just plain feasting your eyes on the incredible multi-coloured bonanza of exotic fruits, vegetables, fish, meat that is laid out before you.
It don’t get more authentic than this folks. Or does it? Some Barcelona residents say that the market at Sant Antoni is even livelier, fresher, and much more authentic than La Boqueria. And they have clothes stalls and a book market on Sundays..
Click here to find La Boqueria website, (which actually does have 4 langagues) where you can read all about the stalls, the history and see photos.
Click here to find Sant Antoni webpage
Progress and change for markets is not all bad news though.
For some markets in Barcelona change is badly needed. If you want to see how the future visions can breathe new life into an old food market, then it’s only a 15 minute stroll over to the Born area, where you can visit the newly open Santa Catarina market.
All that remains of the old Santa Catarina market are three facades of the original structure.
This is a popular trend in Barcelona at the moment. Leave the outside of an old building intact and rebuild everything inside. Some would argue that this is about as authentic as removing the contents of an egg, replacing it with a plastic yoke and then expecting a real chicken to hatch.
But fair enough. We can’t preserve everything from the past. La Boqueria does have the advantage of getting a lot of new custom from foreign residents and tourists.
Other more normal markets in town that aren’t on the most famous street in Spain aren’t that lucky. Markets in less touristy parts of town have more and more of their stalls closing the steel shutters permanently every year.
They need to attract the younger generation to their markets to replace the literally dying breed of old housewives, and to do that then they probably do have to jazz it up a bit.
A good example of this is the newly opened Santa Catarina in La Ribera, which took seven years to reinvent itself.
The re-birith of Santa Caterina food market in La Ribera shows the way forward.
The new star of this show is the flying carpet roof. A flamboyant masterpiece designed by Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue and a refreshing indication that not every architect in Barcelona since Gaudi has forgotten how nice a curved line really looks.
We can understand that architects in this city must be sicker than a flu virus with a runny nose of hearing about Gaudi this and Gaudi that, but curves are nice.
If they don’t want Gaudi to remind them of this fact, then there should be a huge poster of Sophia Loren in every architectural office in Barcelona (in our humble bumble opinion!) Inside the Santa Catarina market you can find over a hundred market stalls.
Many of them are way trendier than the old market ever was and they have up to the minute sales gimmicks like online ordering services. How you squeeze a avocado online is still creating some software problems, but I am sure these will be ironed out over time.
The magical roof also covers hip restaurants and other new neighbours like some low cost retirement homes (a ingenious ploy to ensure that some of the old customers will still be close by! in case the Pepsi generation did not like the idea of buying non-plastic wrapped food that still has eyes!)
An underground car park to get shoppers and wares to market and this also became the home of an all new organic rubbish disposal system, which is part of the grand plan to clean up Barcelona.
It is a praiseworthy result. If you have to replace a market because it was falling down anyway, then this is definitely the way to do it.
For more information about the re-birth of Santa Catarina market click below to read an excellent article in the Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/feature/0,1169,1544932,00.html
In the article the writer mentions that there are over 40 food markets in Barcelona with more that 10,000 market stalls all together, so they must be one near you!
Click here to find it.
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