Ninfa Burnham

With the snail season being in full swing, I thought it would be a good time to pay a visit to the famous Los Caracoles Restaurant in the Barrio Gótico neighbourhood of Barcelona.

To get to the Gothic quarter, I slipped off Las Ramblas down Calle Escudellers where the main red facade of the restaurant sits. Passing the restaurant's open-air rotisserie on the corner where one of the kitchen staff was tending to the chickens, I entered through the tiny brown door down the narrow side street Calle Nou de Sant Francesc.

There, I was warmly greeted by Aurora Bofarull, one of the four owners of the restaurant. Aurora, her brother Ramon and their two cousins Yolanda and Cristina are the 5th generation of the Bofarull family who have lived and breathed Los Caracoles (The Snails in Spanish).

It was a little after one o'clock in the afternoon. The restaurant was just starting to welcome its first lunching customers of the day and was humming with activity - sautéing and chopping in the kitchen, and the last of the tables being laid with their crisp, snail-embroidered white tablecloths.

The harmony of More
It's difficult not to be impressed by the inside of this place. The walls are busy - filled with photos of film stars, famous artists, musicians and high profile personalities who have eaten here. What isn't dedicated to photos, snail ornaments and painted kegs depicting butifarra (that is, Catalan sausages) and other classic dishes, is the restaurant's rich architectural decoration. Floral motifs of stained glass windows and doors jut up against patterned wall tiles that skirt around all of the rooms and stair wells. Food paintings, traditional musical instruments and farm tools hang on the textured stone walls.

Memories of its past cover every available space. The inky-dark wood of the balustrades, wall panels, doors and window frames add to the restaurant's atmosphere.

In one of the snug spaces she led me to, sitting in a niche, was one of her favourite features - a wooden linen cupboard detailed with brightly coloured floral glass…and right next to it, a very old rustic stone well including a bucket and a stone fountain carved into a lion's head spouting out water. It's all very eclectic here!

Aurora and I chatted as she showed me some of her favourite corners of the restaurant. The place is like a little labyrinth with warren-like staircases and passageways that open out into cosy, hidden dens. The children I know would love the adventure of its twists and turns, seeing what lies hidden around each corner (and how many snails they can find too).

As we talked, I kept stopping, drawn in by other things that caught my attention in this cabinet of curiosities. One of these was a tiny old marble sink. It was jutting out of a piece of wall that was not much wider than my hand span and was nestled between an iron downpipe and a window frame. Surrounded by a splashback of quirky tiles depicting a grape harvest, it's one of the original fixtures from the simple tavern days of the 1830s when the restaurant, then known as Casa Bofarull, sold wine and liqueurs, oil, soap and petrol.

Los Caracoles is one of the oldest restaurants in Barcelona, opened by Aurora's great great grandfather in 1835 (its second to Can Culleretes, which opened in 1786.)

In the early 1900s, the restaurant was renamed Los Caracoles in dedication to its most fashionable and popular dish.

It is well known and synonymous with the city of Barcelona. Aurora recounted a story of her father's experience on holiday in Thailand as an example of this fame. Apparently, when fellow travellers heard he was from Barcelona, they would often respond with Barcelona - ahh, Los Caracoles restaurant!' This, of course made him smile. The restaurant has built up a reputation based mostly on word of mouth - one that has lasted.

Rubbing shoulders with the stars
From the 1930s, Aurora's grandad and great uncle both steered the business and took it to a new level. They extended the premises, constructed a cooking plate on the street (which later evolved into the rotisserie we can see today), and put tables out onto the street so that their customers could eat al fresco. Her great uncle Antoni was really active in public relations for the restaurant. An actor and film producer himself, Antoni was well connected in the world of film and theatre. Like his father before him who would invite the actors from theLiceu Theatre to enjoy some snails after their performance (it's just around the corner), Antoni would invite his friends and acquaintances from the screen to eat at the restaurant - and Los Caracoles continued more and more to be known as the restaurant that fed the famous.

Aurora believes that remaining authentic through its 180 years has been crucial to the restaurant's success - serving traditional dishes and making a good job of it. Los Caracoles has not really been a victim to food trends either. She thinks that continuing to cook exclusively with charcoal in their cocina de carbón, when most other restaurants moved across to gas, gives their dishes a special flavour and sets them apart from others in a world where everything is becoming homogenised. The charcoal fuelled kitchen is apparently the only one of its kind left in Barcelona. In fact, one of my favourite details of the kitchen is the charcoal and spade sitting on standby in the corner.

In the Bofarull family, the children's baptism and communion celebrations are always in the restaurant. As they and are open for business every day of the year, these fiestas start after the last lunch is served - as do the family Christmas get-togethers.
I understand when Aurora says about the restaurant 'lo llevamos dentro' - its a part of them.

You may also be interested in visiting the platform rutadelsemblematics.cat
a project dedicated to preserving and promoting iconic establishments of Barcelona.

Snail Mail: Customers at the restaurant can have a Los Caracoles postcard to mail to any location in the world. They drop it into this charming mailbox and the Bofarull family do the rest...nice one Aurora!