Bodega 1900, a casual tapas eatery by the Adria brothers (of El Bulli) in Barcelona provides good quality tapas while showcasing vermouth. The challenge for this place is that there are a large number of great tapas places in Barcelona and I don’t think Bodega 1900 stands out. So while I enjoyed the food, I had more more fun elsewhere and I guess I should just try harder next trip to get into the Adria brothers’ other eatery, Tickets.

Part of the reason I think Bodega 1900 was lacklustre for me was that we had such a great time at Bar Canete and Disfrutar the day prior and so my benchmarks were high. Also, at Bodega 1900, we sat at a table tucked in the back section of the restaurant which I think diminishes the fun part of being able to the see the food going to and fro. All in, the tapas was decent and you could tell that the produce quality was high but there wasn’t enough here to bring me back again my next trip to Barcelona.

 

We started with the house vermouth – this is a sweet aperitif but I thought a nice way the start the evening out. We also tried their house specialty potato chips – these were good – and had the ubiquitous El Bulli olives.

We then moved onto some cooked seafood dishes – namely the prawns, anchovies, and razor clams. The prawns were sweet, juicy and just nicely cooked. Size-wise they weren’t as big as the ones we had at Etxebarri in San Sebastian but still tasty.

The razor clams were dressed with a white escabeche sauce. The anchovy (not pictured) was just in oil (as you would find with a tinned anchovy). My friends said that this was better than expected and probably reflects that Bodega 1900 does the treating of the anchovy themselves.

The red mullet is a seasonal item and we were very excited to find them here on our last night in Spain. We’ve always liked this fish fried after eating these in Greece.

An attempt to add some vegetables to our dinner led to the tomato salad and a baked eggplant dressed in a miso-like sauce. Our waitress recommended this latter item to us, as it’s been popular, but not realising that since we live in Asia, it wasn’t as exciting to us.

We were looking forward to trying the squid mollete but unfortunately, you really couldn’t taste the squid due to the mayo and spicy chilli/tomato sauce. So this ended up being a bit disappointing.

One of the specials for the evening was the chicken with almond flakes – this was very good. We also ordered some heartier dishes. We had a stewed peas “maresme”, a Jamaican dish that has peas stewed with salted beef and pork. And had meatballs with cuttlefish (another special) braised in thick, tomato based sauce. I found this combination a bit odd for me.

We ended the evening with dessert – both of which were specials for the evening or the season. One was like a mixed strawberry and raspberry compote with ice cream and the other a mille feuille with strawberries, granita and cream. The latter was very good.

There were some hits and misses at Bodega 1900. I probably wouldn’t come out of my way to come here again but if you happen to be in the area and can’t get into Tickets, it’s conveniently across the road.

For more info and to make reservations, Bodega 1900 website is: http://en.bodega1900.com