Barcelona has thousands of restaurants and tapa bars.
But there is one place that stands out above all the rest, Los Caracoles, the oldest continuously
family operated restaurant in Barcelona in existence since 1835, now operated by the
fifth generation of the family that started it.
It's one of the most famous restaurants in town, great food, a historic atmosphere with
a traditional Catalan - Mediterranean cuisine.
The waiters carry many plates at a time to deliver the goods.
Although it's a large restaurant, the service is extremely efficient.
Coming up in a moment we'll take you on a tour of the restaurant with Aurora, one of
the fifth-generation family members who are operating the restaurant today.
We'll show you the dining rooms, the kitchen, the foods and take you behind the scenes.
You enter the restaurant through the open kitchen.
It's been like this for over a century, way ahead of the new trend of open kitchens that
you can see from the dining room.
At dinner, it's very busy place, and now let's have Aurora tell you all about it
We are in the Old Town near the Rambla.
This is a street, the name is Escudellers.
And on the right, the Plaza Reial, very famous also.
Aha, Los Caracoles.
When you first walk in the restaurant it looks very small.
When you came to the restaurant, it looks like a bar and nothing more.
But if you come inside you see the kitchen, after you see all the dining rooms, and next
you know it's very big, and the people didn't know.
They think that it's a tavern.
(Laughs) We have 250 seats, it's very big.
What kind of food you have?
Okay, we have a Catalan and Mediterranean food.
We have paella, lobster paella.
Not just paella, but four kinds of paella.
Cod and rice?
Rice.
Paella.
-Paella.
This is paella?
Paella with muscles.
Exactly.
We have cod, we have also fish, seafood and meat, suckling pig, roast pig.
And you have the grilled chicken outside, you have the chicken rotisserie?
You can see behind me the chicken, roast chicken, the famous roast chicken.
He puts oil on the top, uh-huh, and nobody in Barcelona does the chicken like that.
Oh.
And so the people come here to see the chicken.
See the chicken, yeah.
And it is very famous, this chicken.
That's all I needed to see for my choice of dinner.
It's got a be the rotisserie chicken and it was perfect.
We have also, very famous, the bouillabaisse.
Oh yeah.
Bouillabaisse soup.
Bouillabaisse, uhm, lobster.
Lobster, prawns, monkfish, bread with aioli, It's a sauce with garlic.
Lobster, yes and fish, muscles with sauce.
Beautiful, very beautiful.
It's cuttlefish.
Oh, wow.
Wow, how many plates do you carry?
Four, five, six!
These waiters are incredible and half the tables are upstairs, there's no dumbwaiter,
it's all food runners.
They bring them right up direct from the kitchen to your table.
Not wasting time.
This is an old restaurant as Aurora fills us in on a little bit of the history.
The restaurant was born in 1835.
The restaurant is very very old.
I am the fifth generation from the restaurant, and it is always the same family.
You are five generations?
Yes.
Great-great-grandfather?
Yes.
My grandfather liked to cook, and he was always in the kitchen.
My father is on the right.
We have an open kitchen, two centuries this kitchen..
(Laughs) He has a big sirloin steak, very big.
Charcoal grill.
Now he's been 41 years here.
41 years, wow.
He's worked here at Caracoles for 41 years.
He's a very, very good chef.
Fantastico.
(Laughs).
Beautiful (Laughs).
He worked with my father (Laughs).
Oh boy.
In the evening people come streaming in continuously.
We will give you some tips in a moment about how to get reservations.
They serve up beer the old-fashioned way with a hand pump.
Old old pump.
Yeah.
(Indistinct chatter) We are open all the day non-stop.
We begin at 1 o'clock and we finish at twelve at night.
Wow (Laughs) a long day.
Yes, and never a holiday.
For lunch time we are not very busy and it's possible to come here without reservations.
Walk in.
It's not busy.
But for dinner we have always a lot of reservations, and we have big groups also.
It would be better to have a reservation, a reservation.
Okay.
Show me the pages, all these reservations, every night very busy (Laughs).
That's amazing.
(Speaking in Spanish) Locals and some famous personalities eat in
this restaurant, but it's mostly tourist, which proves that some restaurants that are
so-called touristic can be fantastic.
It is the perennial challenge for the tourist to find an authentic local restaurant, but
at Los Caracoles you have got the real thing.
More foods – salad with sardines.
The foods are coming fast and furious out of the kitchen and I'm there for you to describe
what's happening and keep up with this dynamic action of the cooks and the waiters bringing
the food out to the customers.
Next up we've got some chicken croquettes.
And prawns, oysters.
Oysters!
What is that?
Chicken with garlic A signature dish, special snails, because
the name of the restaurant, Caracoles, means snails.
The food is delivered directly from the kitchen to the table by these fast-working waiters,
its express service here at Caracoles.
Gazpacho.
Gazpacho with langoustines.
Wow, so you pour that inside?
Yes.
Cod with vegetables.
Wow.
One of the favorite warm starters is sautéed vegetables.
Romesco sauce.
Romesco is a traditional Catalan sauce made with roasted tomatoes, garlic, Nora peppers,
almonds and hazelnuts.
Cannelloni?
Cannelloni.
Garlic shrimp.
Escalivada.
They've developed a very efficient system of sending orders from the table to the waiter
to the kitchen, which can be a challenge on a night with a couple hundred customers ordering
several courses and wanting quick service.
Aurora, tell me, what are you doing now?
Okay, the waiter takes the order from the client and this order begins here, and I speak
with the voice (speaking Spanish).
I speak with the kitchen and I ask for the dishes that the client ordered.
(Speaking Spanish).
So it's all wireless, direct from the table to you, instant.
Okay.
Wow.
Aurora plays many roles at the restaurant: she's part owner with her family and she's
the hostess, she takes reservations, gives tours of the restaurant, manages public relations,
and she has lots of help from her excellent staff.
There's a dozen cooks in the kitchen at all times.
As you might expect in a five generation restaurant, the employees are loyal.
They've been here for a long time working very efficiently together.
The restaurant is proud of the many famous people who have eaten here over the years,
stars of all kinds.
And we have had very famous people coming here – Picasso, the painter, Dali, and I
show you if you want, the pictures.
President of the United States, Jimmy Carter comes here with his family, and he eats chicken
(laughter).
And he likes it a lot.
Hundreds of pictures on the wall remind you that you are dining in a historic site.
It's the second oldest restaurant in Barcelona.
But it's the oldest continuously family operated restaurant in the city.
From 1835.
Various private rooms can handle large groups who can dine in comfort and carry on conversations
in a more sheltered environment.
As you've seen the restaurant is quite large but most of the dining rooms are smaller,
creating a casual and cozy atmosphere, enhancing the feeling of personal attention that you'll
be getting from the waiters.
In business nearly 200 years, they've really figured out how to keep the customer happy.
You'll find the menu has a nice variety of traditional dishes, many of which you have
just seen, and the price is quite reasonable for the quality that you're getting.
Easy to find.
It's right in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, a block from the Plaza Reial and La Rambla,
and not far from the Cathedral.
Maybe a five or ten minute walk anywhere in the Gothic Quarter will get you to Los Caracoles.
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