Gastronomy & Wine

If the red shrimp is the “superstar” in Palamos, then in L’Escala this position belongs to the anchovies.
La Escala, a village on the Costa Brava 50 km north of our hotel, where the anchovy business flourished for centuries. In fact, the Greeks brought this ancient form of fish preservation here. Today, at least ten anchovy companies coexist in the city. Some of them date back to the 18th century, such as Anchoves Fill, owned by J. Callol i Serrats.
You can visit the company’s website to learn more about the fishery and the different fishing methods. It turns out there are more than a hundred of them.

ANXOVES FILL DE J. CALLOL I SERRATS

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

There are many products that Catalonia can boast of. Cheese is definitely one of them.
Small home-made dairies are numerous here. For some people, the pleasure of tasting cheese is greater than that of tasting wines and spirits. But why compare when you can combine?
La Xiquella Cheese Farm in Val d’en Basse was started by Oriole Rizo in 2015. He produces incredible artisanal cheeses from raw cow and sheep milk. Cheese is Auriol’s passion and many of its products have the Girona Excellent Agrifood Quality Seal, among other distinctions.
La Xiquella cheese can be found in some gastronomy shops in Barcelona, such as ARTiSANA in the Old City or Nova Galiza in Eixample. But seeing the production with your own eyes and hearing the history of the dairy from its founder is much more interesting.

La Xiquella

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

It has been a while since we talked about the wines of our region, but they certainly deserve special mention. Today we want to focus on the Hugas de Batlle winery, owned by Ed Hugas, and his unusual offer for the guests.
The main attraction is that you can enjoy a Hugas de Batlle wine tasting combined with a kayak trip. From the city of Llanca, north of our hotel, you can kayak on a special route with the SK Kayak team to Bramant Bay at Cape Ras. And there the team of the winery will meet the rowers and offer to combine a halt with a tasting. Wouldn’t it be great to make the D.O. Empordà wine route on the water?
See the link below for a more detailed description of the tour.

https://www.kayakcostabrava.com/es/actividades-guiadas/ecoturismo/enokayak-hugas-de-batlle-eco/

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

Recently, combined with the Sea Food Expo Global forum, Alaska Seafood Spain organized a “Wild Week” (Semana Salvaje) to introduce wild fish to a larger audience. What is important –the fish is extracted following all modern standards of respect for the environment and working conditions.
A world leader in responsible fishing, the Alaskan Fishermen’s Association has selected several restaurants and trendy places in Barcelona to sample fish bearing their Soy Salvaje eco-label: CDLC, Dos Palillos, Dos Pebrots, Flax & Kale (at Tallers and Passage streets), Green Co, Nectari, Nobu, Tamae Bar, Velissima, Virens and Xavier Pellicer.

https://alaskaseafood.es/semana-salvaje-de-barcelona-2022/

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

Craft ice cream shops have been trending for years, especially in Barcelona in summer. We dedicate this post to three sweet ice novelties:
1. Bandiani: This is an exclusive Italian ice cream, the winner of the Gelato 2015 festival, created by a family from Tuscany. We recommend trying their buontalenti, a sugar, egg and milk ice cream that is copied all over the world.
2. Lucciano’s also opened their first store in Spain. Here you will find 24 different flavors with 20 of their iconic icepops. The brand has the exclusive rights of Universal Pictures to produce IcePops minions. If you have kids, they will love it.
3. Baboia – very high quality ice cream with amazing tastes. They taste like “miel-i-mato” (cottage cheese and honey) or cava with tangerines. How do you like the taste of sangria? Let’s try everything!

badiani1932.es Carrer del Rosselló, 232
luccianos.net Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 601
baboia.es Carrer dels Canvis Vells, 2

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

For a modern restaurant, it is no longer enough just to have a creative chef, or good service, or delicious food. No doubt, this is the background. But now, to be at the forefront, you need to follow the trends of sustainability and take it real seriously.
More and more restaurants are betting not only on the taste of the dish, but also on what products are used and how they get to the plates. And after the last October Gastronomic Forum in Barcelona, where the main focus was on environmental friendliness, there are much more such restaurants.
For us at ALÀBRIGA, the idea of selecting the “right” products has always been very important. Our customers can be sure that they will get the freshest, highest quality products that were carefully selected by our chef Xavi Perera.
We can also recommend some other sustainable places that are easily accessible from our hotel. For example, the Hisop restaurant, where chef Oriol Ivern is in charge of the kitchen, and Les Coles by Fina Puchdevall, or Xavier Pellicer, a vegan restaurant in Barcelona named after the chef.

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

photo: wbpstars.com

Despite the abundance of luxury hotels and golf courses, Costa Brava has been a fishing region for centuries. And it still is…
The fishing capital of the region is the port city of Palamos. It is on its shores that the famous Palamos shrimps, the main delicacy of the Costa Brava, are caught. Every evening fishermen´s boats call at the port of Palamós to unload their catch and sell the shrimps at the auction. Anyone can watch how the auction goes, and this is a truly fascinating process: boxes of fresh shrimp drive along the tape, buyers place bets, bargain and leave satisfied with their purchase. Visiting the auction is one of the initiatives of the Palamos Fishing Museum, which, by the way, occupies a former warehouse.
And you can try the catch nearby, in the gastrospace Espai de Peix, where every weekend there is a culinary show with a tasting of everything that can be caught in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

Costa Brava is known not only for its coves with beaches hidden under pine trees, but also for its medieval towns. It would rather call call them fortresses, because these settlements of the XIII-XIV centuries are really tiny. We especially recommend visiting the walled city of Peratallada, just 32 km from our hotel.
The ideal plan for a summer get away would be a photo session with a scoop of ice cream on stone streets entwined with bougainvilleas. And if you want to add gastronomic experiences, then you should stop by the L’Eixida restaurant, well-known throughout the region. The chef will offer traditional local dishes with a modern twist. Both of their tasting menus are noteworthy – Menu del arroz, with a touch of the sea, and Menu torre del homenaje, inspired by the different cultures that lived within the walls of this amazing stone city.

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga

photo: www.elrincondesele.com

Cualquier pueblo de pescadores guarda sus propias recetas antiguas de cómo hacer un guiso de pescado. Muy sencillas, grabadas en la memoria de amas de casa y cocineras locales, estas recetas están desprovistas de elaborados trucos.
El suquet es un plato típico que los pescadores de Cadaqués cocinaban directamente en sus barcos. Ahora se sirve en todos los restaurantes locales. El suquet se cocina en una sartén catalana de hierro utilizando diferentes tipos de pescado, patatas y hierbas, más un poco de aceite de oliva, sal y agua. El tiempo de cocción es muy corto y el suquet suele servirse directamente en la sartén.
Te recomendamos que sin duda lo pruebes en alguno de los chiringuitos de Cadaqués.

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga
Photo: FOOD’S FIBONACCCI

The youngest of the Roca brothers, Jordi, is a real star among pastry chefs. In addition to his personal projects, he is in charge of the desserts at El Celler de Can Roca, which he co-owns with his brothers.
One of the unusual ideas Jordi came up with are his perfume-inspired desserts. It was quite by chance that he discovered a new ingredient – bergamot, a very fragrant citrus fruit. And it was another discovery when he realized that the Calvin Klein Eternity perfume brilliantly reveals the aroma of bergamot with hints of vanilla, mandarin and orange blossom. The chef decided to combine these flavours in a dessert. It was quite risky, but the result amazed him. As Jordi himself admits, the next day he went to perfumery and opened up a whole world of new ideas that he later implemented in his desserts.

Julia Chesnokova for Hotel Alabriga