Aleia, a journey into beauty

In Barcelona, at 132 Paseo de Gracia, almost on the corner with Avenida Diagonal, there’s Casa Fuster, the sum of many brilliant voices: history, beauty and goodness. We owe the fine dishes to Paulo Airaudo, an Italian-Argentine restaurateur and chef with roots, and consequent trunk, in San Sebastian in the Basque Country, while the branches and leaves spread in several directions between Catalonia, Florence and Asia. We owe the history to the Fuster. At the beginning of the last century, they commissioned architect Lluis Domènech i Montaner to build a house in pure Catalan Modernism. It was his last work, which has reached our days after several changes of ownership.

The current version dates from 2004 and is a delightful hotel with an intense charm, respectful of the initial solutions. Airaudo named his restaurant Aleia in memory of one of the Fuster daughters. It occupies the original dining room on the first floor. On one side there’s a more intimate room for the orchestra that once entertained family and guests. On the other, the room for after-dinner drinks and cigars, thoughts and words. Nowadays, one sits and leaves the world outside the hotel. And that is precisely why, little by little, I began to picture the notes of a saxophone, the main instrument of my emotions, gliding between the white marble columns, the armchairs, the various rooms, the lights and shadows, and a unique ceiling, serene jazz, played in your mind as you taste the courses of a single menu, shorter at lunch and more structured at dinner, for 134 or 172 euros.

The place is run by Rafa de Bedoya, a 32-year-old chef with roots in Jerez and steady growth, for example with a stop at the Roca brothers in Girona. The cuisine is Mediterranean, elegant and rich, full of hints to France. Don't expect essentiality and minimalism, precise strokes, strict angles and edges.

Everything is strongly persuasive, designed to make you dream in a special architectural space, the heir of a specific architectural period, which has reached our days because no one has intervened in an arrogant, reckless manner. The beauty of a hundred and ten years ago has reached us almost intact and permeates every moment.

After five delicious tastings, such as a prawn in mignonette sauce and seafood croquette; then the bewitching Red Rose of radishes and tuna; Mushroom soup, smoked eel, foie gras and Iberian ham broth; Red snapper, salmon roe; Monkfish, mushrooms and truffles; and Bresse quail in double service, first the stuffed midsection, then the thighs; came Cheese and sweet potato where we have like a sun lying in a bowl…

Came the single dish of which I didn’t really understand the meaning given in which city I was and in front of which sea: delicately grilled langoustines and white butter sauce, too much and too opaque, it could have been so many different things.
Changing course, next time, and this is an eternal wish of mine, I would taste the whole stuffed quail, neck and rear end included. The pleasure continues.

 

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso