Barcelona bites

Have you ever felt like you're missing something? Like you're one of the courtiers in the tale of the emperor's new clothes - frightened to say what you're thinking because everybody just might turn around and look at you like you're mad?

As I dutifully filed through Barcelona's famed Sagrada Familia cathedral, that's exactly how I felt. I know that this is a minority opinion and, believe me, my face is reddening as I write, but I really don't like Gaudi. No, I'm not referring to the London restaurant (last time I went there it was brilliant) or even the long-deceased Catalan architect himself - I'm sure he was a great guy to chat with over a bottle of Rioja - it's his architecture that leaves me cold.

When Gaudi died in 1926, the Sagrada Familia was in the early stages of construction, and they're still building it now - it's a painstakingly slow process and, no doubt, very expensive. My advice to the city is: give yourself a break and stop right now. It already looks like a badly iced cake, and adding yet more bits and pieces can only make it worse.

There, I've said it, and if that makes me look stupid in more learned eyes, so be it - I'll just have to live with the fact that I won't be getting any writing commissions from Architectural Digest in the near future.

I've had that feeling in restaurants, too. You visit some revered culinary temple for the first time, and you sit there secretly wondering what all the fuss is about. There you are, privileged enough to be sampling the cooking of the great whoever, and you know in your heart that it just isn't that good. The first couple of times that happened to me, I admit, I kept quiet; I didn't want to look silly, and who was I to challenge the orthodoxy? On one occasion I lay awake for most of the night worrying about a particular long-celebrated London hotel restaurant - I knew the food was seriously overrated and I just wasn't relishing the prospect of bringing that to anyone's attention. In the morning, I took a deep breath and told them what I felt.

Nothing happened. It was like they were expecting it and were almost relieved to admit it. Everybody I spoke to pretty much agreed. I never really lost much sleep over that kind of thing again.

The prevailing wisdom about Barcelona is that it is currently one of the best places to eat in the world. I'm happy to say that I'm not about to disagree on that one. The city's most famous architect may be known for his elaborate, multi-layered style, but the cuisine is all about a sharp simplicity that ranges from rough-hewn Catalan stews and ripe-tomato smeared bread to the devastatingly intense flavours and deconstructed dishes of Ferran Adrià's El Bulli.

Actually, that last bit is a little fraudulent - I haven't actually been to El Bulli. By a brilliant piece of planning I was in Barcelona in October, just as the place closes for seven months, and Adrià's restaurant isn't even in Barcelona but about two hours away in some inaccessible country hideaway.

But you don't have to go to El Bulli to taste the spirit of Adrià's cooking. He may not actually have a restaurant in the city - although he does have a "workshop" there - but Adrià is unquestionably the most influential chef in Barcelona. The characteristic savoury ice-creams, flavoured foams and deconstructed classics that mix wit, science and gastronomy can be found dotted around in kitchens that are run either by direct protégés of Adrià or by those greatly influenced by him.

Which is how I came to be at the Santa Maria restaurant in the Born area of the city. I could have chosen a number of similarly styled places, such as Commerc 24, which was just up the road from Santa Maria, the intensely fashionable Ot in Gracia or Arrel in La Ribera, but Santa Maria was the first of these that I came across and, well, sometimes you just get lucky, I guess.

My effort to book was swiftly rebuffed - you can't - but I was told that if we turned up at the absurdly early (by Spanish standards) opening time of 8.30pm there was a good chance of getting a table. I took the advice and we did get in, just. The restaurant is tiny, dimly lit, cramped and designed in that rough industrial style where bare wires, preformed-concrete panels and exposed ventilation ducts are all de rigueur. The kitchen is small, too. I know this because it is in full view of the dining room and sits at the end of the open bar, which is lined with waiting clientele, who are either a mix of artists, writers and existentialist philosophers or extras in a film about the same. Smoking is clearly encouraged.

Perfectly formed titbits
Head chef Paco Guzman is a young disciple of Adrià. He and his small team seemed to be having an excellent time, smiling and joking their way through service, all the while passing out the stream of perfectly formed titbits and mini-dishes that characterise the menu. I'd like to pretend that choosing the degustaciòn was simply a strategy to try as many dishes as possible. The less impressive reality is that it was the only way I could sensibly order, as all the dish descriptions were in Catalan - difficult for someone who finds plain Spanish a challenge. But, tasting menu or not, the effect is much the same. The rigid hierarchy of starter, main course, dessert has been dispensed with, and the idea is that you just pick a list of dishes you fancy and they arrive in succession.

The kitchen team had good reason to look pleased with themselves: the food was nothing short of brilliant. It must also be a joy to produce, partly because it is so well conceived and delicious and partly because it is delivered at a pace the kitchen, rather than the customer, prefers - a practice that is fairly common in more prosaic Catalan restaurants. If that means timing as perfect as this, then I'm not about to complain. This was some of the most exciting food that I had experienced in recent years, and yet it wasn't what I had expected at all.

There was little in the way of trickery and weirdness until dessert, where a cube of what looked convincingly like Roquefort turned out to be a spearmint-infused piece of marshmallow. The real revelation was the blinding intensity of taste. Catalan black sausages with orange and anise, a simple but dazzling salad with pomegranate, pumpkin and sherry vinegar - it was as if someone had taken a magnifying glass to the flavours. Unbelievably, you can eat the tasting menu, indulge in a couple of bottles from the short but inspired wine list, and still come out with change from £60 for two. If you're going to Barcelona, visit Santa Maria; if you're not going to Barcelona, consider making a special trip.

Although tapas are not really that big in the city, places such as Santa Maria are certainly in that vein. There are also a number of more faithful examples of tapas bars in the city, the most notable being the wonderful Cal Pep. A place at the long, bustling bar is highly sought-after and, if you want to claim a place, it's wise to get there soon after the opening times of 1.15pm at lunch and 8pm in the evening. The simply treated fish and seafood are exceptional, the prawns are the stuff of myth, and the atmosphere is loud, irreverent and welcoming. Great food, great fun.

More typically Catalan is Senyor Parellada. Here, too, the familiar concept of starters, mains and desserts is eschewed in favour of a long list of platillos. Although the place has had a fairly recent makeover that, while appealing, gives it the look of many a London brasserie, the cooking is distinctively regional, with some fiery shellfish dishes such as brilliantly simple razor clams with herbs and chillies, or sumptuous lamb braised with a ridiculous amount of garlic.

It's worth stressing at this point that it's not difficult to eat badly in Barcelona, too. All the places featured here have been garnered from guidebooks. If you take a more random approach to selecting somewhere to eat, the outcome is much less certain. I visited a couple of seafront bars where the food was pretty reminiscent of the Costa del Sol in terms of quality. The areas where the tourists tend to gather are the obvious places to avoid. Placa Reial, just off the Ramblas, is a case in point.

Allegedly, Taxidermista has changed all that with its menu of pretty, classic dishes with something of a Gallic tinge. Nevertheless, with queues at the door, it still has the air of a place that sees turning over the maximum number of covers as the sole priority. Some of the dishes were, well, OK, others careless and a little tired. There is free entertainment, though, in the form of waiters performing an elaborate tango between the terrace tables, trying to ward off a stream of persistent hawkers. Maybe I'd have felt a little more benevolent towards them if they'd not been so precious about the menus, which they refused to let me take away even when I pretended I was from The Times (I might be wrong, but I judged they probably weren't subscribers to Caterer).

Understated blend
Wherever you eat in Barcelona, it's unlikely to be the price that upsets you. Ruccula is situated in the World Trade Centre with views across the harbour. It has a studied coolness about the design that is perhaps a little too contrived and pan-European, but the service is as good as any, in that nicely balanced, professional but easy-going way, and the food is a beautifully understated blend of Catalan and classic French. In other words, although I hate using the term, it's damn good fine dining that would stand comparison with some of the best in London. Wonderfully precise dishes such as pig's trotter with oysters, casserole of turbot with confit tomatoes, and wild mushrooms or black noodles with cuttlefish will set you back all of £25 for an average three courses - a price that has caused little short of a scandal in the city. "A restaurant fit exclusively for those on expense accounts," howled one magazine review. I suppose it's all relative, but I wouldn't be complaining.

On the plane back to the UK I picked up the in-flight magazine and flicked to an article on Barcelona, accompanied by the ubiquitous picture of the Sagrada Familia. Underneath was a quote from George Orwell: "The most hideous building I have ever seen." It's not just me, then.

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