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“Boqueria”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Spanish	Flatiron	Moderate	Great

MY DINNER AT BOQUERIA
About two years ago now, I spent a few weeks in Barcelona. I was there for the wedding of my freshman roommate from college, Caroline, whom I call Vern. (Long story.) Anyway, Vern was the most exquisite bride and she was married in the most exquisite setting—a century’s old church carved out of the side of a mountain range. And last year, Vern and her husband Oscar had a baby Vern, a little dumpling named Olivia, who is the most exquisite child.

In the days before her wedding, Vern and I spent time doing what most brides and their friends do—going to dress fittings, getting our nails done, talking late unto the evening, reminiscing, and, well, eating our way through the Boqueria. Yes, brides in Spain, well at least brides in Spain who I am friends with, go to the Boqueria—Barcelona’s famed food market that I think of as a football field of edible wonders —and fill up on tapas y mas—blistered padron peppers, pungent sardines wrapped around olives and skewered with toothpicks, fat dates filled with blue cheese, coins of spicy chorizo cooked in cazuelas with sherry, and flats of toasted bread rubbed with fleshy tomatoes and cloves of raw garlic. As I sit and write this, I am staring at a photo of Vern standing at a stall in the Boqueria a few days before her wedding, eating white cured anchovies with her hands. Gotta love that girl. We spent an afternoon strolling around the Boqueria, and what I remember most was walking through aisles with one of my oldest friends, happy as a clam buried deep under the sand, my mouth dropped into a state of awe, just repeating “Oh my god,” over and over again as I passed the magnificent displays of produce alternating with jam-packed tapas bars. I left the Boqueria, and knew I would never be the same again.

Apparently, Yann de Rochefort, a New York City restaurateur and owner of Suba, had a similar epiphany. The inspiration for his spirited regional Spanish restaurant is the Barcelona market and the tapas bars that he fell for while he and chef-partner Seamus Mullen were traveling through Spain.

His New York version of Boqueria is meant to evoke the convivial spirit of Spanish tapas bars, and it succeeds. He has created, with the help of Meyer-Davis Design, a stunning Spanish eatery that is warm and livel ... [more, click below]

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Posted: September 10, 2006

Other restaurants in Flatiron :
+ Suenos   + Amuse-- Closed   + Dos Caminos   + Lucy-- Closed   + Gramercy Taver   + Veritas   + Fleur De Sel   + Bolo -- CLosed   + City Bakery   + Shake Shack   + Kalustyan's Cafe   + Devi   + BLT Fish   + Sugarcane   + BLT Prime   + Barca 18-- CLOSED   + Beppe   + Barbounia   + Boqueria   + Eleven Madison   + Lonesome Dove-- CLOSED   + Hill Country   + Olana   + Wildwood   + Primehouse   + Allegretti   + Bar Breton   + Aldea   + SD26 by Bao Ong   + ABC Kitchen   + Ciano   + The NoMad   

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