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Saturday 22 November 2008

Cathedral city

John Torode seeks the best of Barcelona

The invitation to spend a few days at the swish, new, family-owned Grand Hotel Central included a ‘partner’. My son the photographer loves the city. And the Catalan capital sells itself as a youthful, arty-farty, fashionable, party sort of place, which can also pull in cultivated characters of a certain age. Why not anoint George my partner, and together test Barcelona’s boast?

So it was that we found ourselves in a ten-storey, l920s former office block, five minutes from the waterfront. It is now a starkly minimalist/modernist, 147-room boutique hotel, all grey, black and off-white, with seriously subdued lighting, and not a picture or a vase of flowers to be seen. The owners decreed that such frivolities would spoil the razor-sharp mood. As for curtains, no way José. Electronically controlled matt metal blinds did the business in my room. The staff drifted about in black suits, black shirts, a touch of designer stubble and — no ties. George was over the moon. I was, well, initially a bit taken aback.

Luckily, the Joe Cool image slipped, and the staff became our new best mates, in a manner that would not, alas, have been permitted in a smart British establishment. We both like our hotels to have a wow factor, and the Grand obliges with two. A dinky little roof terrace, complete with bar, provides stunning views across the flat-roofed city, and an infinity pool. There is an award-winning restaurant, the Actual, offering Catalan food with a twist. The team led by celebrity chef Ramón Freixa offers three simple but effective meat and fish dishes each evening. We created our own sampling menu: beef stewed in wine for 24 hours and served with cauliflower couscous; grilled chicken with green mustard mousse and caramelised onions; grilled cuttlefish with green beans and aioli; and a tomato salad with spring onions on a bed of cod purée. At around £10 a dish they went down a treat.

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