Mon 11 Nov 2024 - Mon 12 Nov 2024
We took off Sunday evening from Chicago with visions of tapas and Gaudí dancing in our heads. Evan used credit card points to get us into the airport lounge in Portugal during our layover, which made me feel very fancy. We sipped champagne with the confidence of people who do this all the time and raided the snack bar with the enthusiasm of people who absolutely don’t.
Thanks to the magic of time zones (and the cruel trick of overnight flights), we landed in Barcelona on Monday night, slightly disoriented but fully excited. We checked into the Axel Hotel Barcelona & Urban Spa, which we did not realize was quite as... let’s say, sex-positive... as it turned out to be. Near the front desk was a glass display case filled with penis figurines. The hotel shop offered every sex toy imaginable, and there were condoms thoughtfully placed on the nightstand. Definitely the kind of hospitality you don’t find at your average Marriott.
Our first stop was La Flauta, a cozy little tapas place near the hotel that hit the spot hard. The star of the show? Calamari fries—lightly battered, golden, crispy perfection with just a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt. These were not your average chewy fried squid rings; they were elegant little seafood miracles. We shared a few more small plates and each had a glass of local wine, which was both really good and really cheap. Like, are-you-sure-this-isn’t-a-mistake cheap. (Spoiler: it wasn’t.)
After dinner, we went on what can only be described as a very long “we’re almost there” walk so Evan could see Gaudí’s Casa Batlló. It was illuminated against the night sky and genuinely cool to see—though I didn’t yet realize we’d be seeing it again later in the trip in broad daylight, when it would be even more impressive. #Foreshadowing
But the highlight of the night was still to come: The Alchemix, a gastro-cocktail bar that felt like walking into a magical forest mixed with a high-end science experiment. There was literally a tree inside. The menu featured drinks inspired from around the world, and the bartender told us he’d curated cocktails in Thailand and London before landing in Barcelona.
We sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender and his apprentice—a sweet kid from Italy on a work visa, in Barcelona with his girlfriend—while sipping the most whimsical drinks imaginable. It was like the bartender had bottled his travels and served them in cocktail form. I ordered the Khao Tom Mad, a Thai-inspired cocktail served in a coconut with banana chips on the side. Evan got the Apollo, which came in an actual Apollo bust and was topped with what he described as “the most glorious whipped cream of his life.” No joke—he talked about that whipped cream for the rest of the trip and openly dreamed of bottling it.
