A historic tapas bar reopens in the center of Barcelona (and at neighborhood prices!)

This emblem of Eixample faces a second life with a prudent modernization under the ownership of Somos Esencia.

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It closed last September, but there are places that have a popular profile that is too popular to let them die. The historic Bauma Bar (Roger de Lluria, 124) has just reopened its iconic marquee in Roger de Llíria with Diagonal. The owner of the bar-restaurant, Joan Altarriba, has transferred it to the restaurant group We Are Essence, owners of Bestial, Barraca and Agua. According to Altarriba, the transfer was made “on the condition that the bar remains in the hands of someone who has the same values as us”.

The values of Bar Bauma are none other than those of everyday life and those of daily use. Opened just after the Second World War, it was one of the first modern public venues in the Eixample (and as I heard Altarriba say, it was the first bar in the city to have a customer-facing television). During the nineties and early 2000s, it became a gathering of writers: you could meet Quim Monzón, Joan de Sagarra or Marsé, but in reality the important thing was the calm that the bar transmitted, in a strategic location, and being able to enjoy a good breakfast or a decent and abundant menu of the day.

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Bauma means “rock shelter in a shallow natural cave where clarity penetrates”. And the crevice of the dark entrance, under the iconic sign and between stone walls, continues to promise that. According to the direction of We Are Essence, the modernization of the premises has been surgical. “The renovation of the interior design was very prudent, we left the bar intact and also the detail of the ceramic caravel above the coffee maker,” they explain. The intensive schedule doesn't change: every day from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., “to meet a customer profile that ranges from the elderly to grandchildren, and where everyone tells you their story with the bar when they come back in”, they say satisfied.

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They have also maintained the breakfast offer that was the brand of the house: tortilla flute sandwiches, Iberian ham and fuet, or the classic tuna with mayonnaise and roasted pepper They talk about a 100% Barcelonese way of having breakfast. For lunch, a hot plate of spoon (fricandó, dumplings with cuttlefish, oxtail...) and a repertoire of classic tapas. And also the inevitable concessions to tourists queuing up at La Casa de les Punxes: tatakis, avocado toast and eggs Benedict, but all at prices that don't gentrify.