Editor’s note: We regret to report that Vell Poblenou has closed.
When people think of rice and Spain, they think of paella. In Barcelona there are hundreds of places to eat paella. And every Thursday you can find it on the menú del día at most restaurants across the city. There’s more to Spanish rice dishes than just paella, though.
The word “paella” didn’t even appear until the 18th century; recipe books from the Middle Ages talk only of rice, and particularly the Valencian and Catalan kinds. In fact, “paella” originally referred to the pan used to cook the grain, but eventually came to describe the dish as we know it: rice prepared so that the water or broth completely evaporates and sometimes is left with a toasted layer on the bottom. But enough about paella! We’ll return to that topic in a future post.
When we want to eat rice, we go to Vell Poblenou (Old Poblenou), a wonderful family-run restaurant owned by José Luis Sánchez, a highly regarded chef with many years of experience cooking in other great kitchens around town. He opened Vell in 2006 in the eponymous Poblenou neighborhood, next to La Mar Bella beach and 22@, a lovely district with a village feel and old factory buildings populated by tech startups.
Vell Poblenou is divided in two, with a bar and dining room occupying the long, narrow building and a pleasant terrace facing the quiet pedestrian-only street. The restaurant is truly a family operation, with Sánchez at the stove, his daughter Azahara taking care of customers and his son Jordi tending bar. Vell Poblenou is also a restaurant de barrio, drawing locals as well as office workers and diners who travel from others areas of the city to eat here.
During the week, the restaurant offers a well-priced menú del día with a few seasonal dishes, but there are also frequently changing specials that can be ordered à la carte. And rice, of course, is the main attraction.
When we last visited, we were enthralled by an amazing off-menu seasonal dish, mar i muntanya. “Sea and mountain” is a surf-and-turf rice preparation made with trompetas de la mort, the ominous-sounding yet utterly delicious and not at all poisonous “black trumpets of death,” cuttlefish, butifarra (a Catalan cooked pork-and-pepper sausage) and prawns. Those mushrooms imbued the substantial, velvety sauce with a deep, earthy richness. It’s a dish that makes you wish that fall would go on forever.
Sánchez uses Bomba rice from the Ebro Delta in southern Catalonia. The short-grain variety is harder to grow and thus rare. It’s known for its ability to absorb large amounts of liquid. Sánchez prepares it perfectly: each grain is cooked through, yet firm and distinct and packed with flavor.
Besides the many rice preparations, we also recommend the wonderful grilled tuna with tomato confit and gratinéed all i oli (garlic mayonnaise), the many cod specialties and the dishes featuring eggs from Calaf, such as eggs poché with foie gras and porrusalda – usually a leek soup, but in this case fried chopped leeks with minced black butifarra, a Catalan blood sausage. The village of Calaf is known for its extraordinary eggs, which come from hens that are free to roam wherever and eat whatever they like.
Paella has a justly deserved reputation as one of Spain’s most emblematic foods, but there’s more than one rice game in town, and we can’t think of a better place to get in on the action than Vell Poblenou.
This review was originally published on November 14, 2013.
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