Tripology

An Exciting Interview with Arthur Frommer

Cooking in Barcelona

Print Email

Detailed Trip Description

The program combines hands-on cooking lessons with visits and tastings at carefully selected markets and vineyards, plus, you’ll discover simple local hideaways and top Barcelona restaurants. We share with our guests an interest in authenticity and sustainability, and we always find seasonal delicacies, festivals, or customs to learn about. Workshops vary each day, exploring Catalan food and wine in depth. You’ll learn techniques favored by local chefs and create delicious three-course meals. But you’ll also spend time outside the kitchen touring markets and tasting at specialty shops. This city’s shopkeepers fanatically curate superb collections of everything from cava, chocolates, and dried fruits to cheeses, ibérico hams, and salt cod. There’s plenty of tradition to be absorbed, but you’ll also enjoy what Barcelona’s most innovative chefs are doing. Our menus are always enjoyed with wine, and participants will learn about the excellent and still somewhat undiscovered wines produced in Spain. You’ll taste with local experts and also make a day trip to vineyards to see how cava is made and explore the impressive reds being produced by a younger generation of winemakers who are having great success with their biodynamic wines. The program is limited to 14 participants. The course begins on Sunday evening and ends the following Friday morning. The course fee of $2,995 covers five workshop days, including cooking classes, tastings and tours, three lunches, and three dinners. The fee also includes transportation and guiding on our wine country excursion. It does not include accommodation; we assist enrolled participants in selecting the best Barcelona hotels and apartments that suit their style and budgets.

Print Email
 

Trip Itinerary

Day 1 - Barcelona

 
Sunday – Catas & Platillos in the Eixample.
Wine

Participants gather tonight for a celebration of Catalan wines in Barcelona’s elegant 19th century Eixample (the neighborhood where Gaudí’s architecture sets the tone). We start with a cata or tasting led by Santi Olivella, wine director of the respected bar and tasting club Cata 1.81. Santi will lead us through a flight of whites representing the range of the region, from the freshness of Alellas, a tiny d.o. north of Barcelona where vineyards are threatened by development, to the sophistication of the Penedés, where new approaches to growing and winemaking are changing perceptions of the classic cava grape, xarel-lo. Then a flight of reds that shows off the fabled style of the new leaders in the Priorat and allows us to compare them with little known rivals from the neighboring d.o.s of Montsant and Terra Alta. Santi’s wife Teresa is the chef here and prepares us a modern, creative version of Catalan platillos (literally “small plates”).


Day 2 - Barcelona

 
Monday – Sourcing the Flavors of Barcelona.
Shopping

We dedicate the morning to touring and tasting at some of the best specialty shops anywhere. Our wanderings span the Eixample and the Barri Vell or old city. We meet first at a chocolate shop, Cacao Sampaka, run by Albert Adrià, pastry chef at the fabled El Bullí (and brother of Ferran). It’s also pure pleasure to follow your nose to a traditional coffee roaster, a top artisanal nut roaster, an old school herb and spice shop, and an artisan cheese cave.

Food and Dining

Enjoy the afternoon and lunch on your own (we’ll recommend favorite places).

Cooking Classes

We have cooking class tonight, where you’ll learn an array of great additions to your tapas repertoire and get to know some nice Catalan rosat wines.


Day 3 - Barcelona

 
Tuesday – The Boquería and Catalan Seafood Specialties.
Cooking Classes

Class today begins at the Boquería market, big and bountiful, but made up still of small, specialized vendors. Chef Ignacio Caminero guides us to some of his favorites as well as to a top tentempié (pick-me-up) spot. The center of the market features an unforgettable display of fish and seafood, and we’ll learn how to select the freshest fish possible, plus pick up some of our ingredients for today’s cooking class. Today we’ll learn two classic techniques of the Catalan kitchen as we set to work on our three-course seafood-focused lunch: first, a sofregit, or slow caramelization of aromatics, and the basis of many Catalan sauces, is important to our suquet (similar to the bouillabaisse of Provence); also, a picada, something like the Italian gremolata, of ground almonds and hazelnuts, garlic, parsley, and olive oil-toasted crouton, a key finishing touch. This is a good meal for challenging the question of what to drink with fish – the seafood is light indeed, but these are big flavors. We’ll experiment by tasting both full-bodied whites and light-bodied reds from coastal d.o.s with this meal.

Sightseeing

In the evening, you’re free for your own exploits.


Day 4 - Barcelona

 
Wednesday – The Penedes Wine Country.
Cooking Classes

The class makes a field trip today to the winemaking region just south of Barcelona, where two d.o.s, cava and Penedés, intersect. We’ll skip the larger-scale operations and learn how cava is made from one of the top-quality traditional artisanal producers (there are several to choose from, with Gramona, Llopart, and Recaredo being our favorites). Then, on to a winery we especially like for its focus on sustainability – Albet i Noya is a family operation with a long history of making fine wines, but the younger generation’s innovation has been to introduce organic and biodynamic methods. It’s an altogether beautiful place, and the reds, in particular, are delicious.

Food and Dining

Lunch is at a rustic restaurant specializing in cooking over a wood fire — this is a place where winemakers like to gather and gossip.

Relaxation

Back to Barcelona and downtime for the evening.


Day 5 - Barcelona

 
Thursday – Barcelona’s Sweet Avant-Garde.
Cooking Classes

Today’s cooking class focuses on desserts. And since this is an area where Catalan chefs have been especially experimental, we’ll try some fanciful tricks. You’ll learn to layer complexity onto traditional Catalan desserts, adding savory notes like smoked almonds to a classic crocanti (toasted almond ice cream), or using bitter orange to update a crema catalana (the crème brulee of this land), or reconstructing the childhood after-school treat of bread and chocolate as something much more adult. We’ll sample three wonderful Catalan dessert wines today as well – for example, a grenache-based Mas Estela Dulce Natural from the Emporda-Costa Brava; a Rotllán Torra Blanquerna from the Priorat, which combines moscatel with a little PX; and a classic oxidated vi ranci from Celler Covilalba in Terra Alta.

Food and Dining

After an afternoon break, we’ll reconvene tonight for a celebration of all we have learned in this creative city with a meal at the avant-garde Michelin-star restaurant, Alkimia.


Day 6 - Barcelona

 
Friday – Departures.
Hotel

Participants will have varying check-out and departure schedules. We will be available to offer advice to anyone staying on in Barcelona.
Note :-
This itinerary is subject to change. Our menus change with the seasons, as do our visits with artisans. While we strive to perfect every detail of our itineraries before offering each trip, we reserve the right to modify them without prior notification as may become necessary. In such an event we pledge to substitute services of equal quality to those planned.


Request more info

Not the trip you were looking for?

 

You may also start a free trip request below and get matched with up to three travel specialists who can help you plan your travel:

Create Trip Request

 

Submit Inquiry to Travel Specialist

Trips you may also be interested in

European Explorer incl. Mykonos
Enjoy 35 Days European Explorer incl. Mykonos tour featuring sightseeing and many activities in France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Greece, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium. Start in Paris on an evening Tour of Illuminations. In Paris you will see the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, ...
European Explorer Incl. Cruising - Option 2
Enjoy 35 Days European Explorer incl. Cruising - Option 2 tour featuring sightseeing and many activities in France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Greece, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium. This tour starts in Paris with an evening Tour of Illuminations. See the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, the ...
Spanish Wonder
Enjoy 9 Days Spanish Wonder Escorted tour featuring sightseeing and many activities in Barcelona, Cordoba, Granada, Madrid, Seville, Toledo and Valencia.
European Escapade
Enjoy 27 Days European Escapade tour featuring sightseeing and many activities in France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium. this tour starts with an Evening Tour of Illuminations in Paris. See the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Champs Élysées, and Notre ...
Search for travel inspiration