It’s the late 2000s, and some friends and I have saved up for a trip backpacking around various parts of Europe for a month of our summer break. We’ve just arrived in Barcelona, checked into our hostel, it’s getting late, so we decide to see where there is to eat that’s within walking distance.
I should note, two of us speak Spanish, two don’t.
We find our way to a hole-in-the-wall place advertising tapas and wine and decide to poke our heads in and look at a menu, but we immediately have to leave – it’s FILLED with smoke, and one of my friends has asthma.
Some regular steps out into the road to ask us what’s wrong, and the two of us who know Spanish explain about the asthma problem and he says:
Regular: “Oh, but I come here all the time and know the owners – I bet they’d let you eat in the back room, let me ask!”
The “back room” quickly proves to be a living room, belonging to the family that owns the place. It is, indeed, smoke-free, so we sit down and ask for a menu. One of the owners says with a smile:
Owner: “There’s no menu. We just have things.”
We order a bottle of the house wine, and they proceed to show us a sequence of tapas and serve us whichever ones we like, and go out into the main area with whichever ones we decline. The wine arrives, and one of my friends, who’s just completed a wine certification course back home in the States, says:
Friend: “This is the best sparkling wine I’ve ever had.”
At that, two people drop their forks. One says:
Other Friend: “Guys, I think this is a scam where they charge you some inordinate amount, and we need to get out now before the bill gets any worse.”
On the next round, they top us up with some sausage we had enjoyed earlier, and I flag them down and ask about the bill.
Staff Member: “Oh, don’t worry!”
He hurriedly leaves. Now we’re worrying even more, frankly.
The next time she enters, I explain:
Me: “We are students, we don’t have a lot of money; we will happily pay what we need to pay, but it would help us be less worried if we can see the prices.”
Staff Member: “Thirty euros.”
That one didn’t need translating.
Other Friend: “Thirty euros each?”
Staff Member: “No. Thirty euros, total.”
The other Spanish speaker at the table, the one who had taken the wine class, says”
Friend: “Good, and how much for the wine?”
Staff Member: “Thirty euros… for the food and the wine.”
Then she served us the next course of tapas.
And that is the finest hospitality I’ve enjoyed anywhere on the planet.
In the years since then, we’ve all racked our brains and searched Google Maps to try to find exactly where that place is, so we might recommend it to others. Unfortunately, we have never been able to. I hope they’re still around after all this time.
