Now, instead of slowing in the middle of an economic crisis, there is not one movement, but many. The brightest of the new is "bistronomic": restaurants that combine quality, creativity, and well-timed economy, often run by friends or couples, with Michelin-star-trained chefs in the kitchen.
I meet Luis Plamas, Juan Coma, and Josep Casas-Febrer for a crash course in bistronomics at Gresca, one of the movement's founding restaurants. The three men are all retired or semiretired locals who seem to devote most of their time to dining well. They belong to a Barcelona eating club called La Xefla de Gelida - 30 or so friends who meet once a month to cook a big dinner and tell tall tales.
"We like to eat, but we like to eat well," says Coma.
Get them talking about El Bulli and they start twitching and tipping their heads with excitement, yet the tiny Gresca is one of their favorite restaurants.
Why here?
"Hombre!" says Plamas. "This is sincere food."
"There's simplicity to what he does, but he also creates perfect combinations and not all chefs can do that," adds Coma, referring to chef Rafael Peña's efforts.
When the dishes arrive, the three take a closer look, using their forks to inspect what's in front of them. They had had a big lunch and asked for something lighter than the offerings on the dinner menu. Peña came up with a "salad" of thinly sliced raw artichoke, Iberian ham, Parmesan flakes, and paper-thin croutons under a drizzle of olive oil. Sweet and salty, fresh and crunchy, the flavors and textures play off each other.
"There are three keys to cooking," says Coma. "Product quality is most important. Segundo is the combinations, and third, the exact cooking temperatures. If you've got all of this, the food is perfect."
