As a side benefit of his former life as a financial advisor, Xavier Maymo got to spend 20 years dining at some of Europe’s finest restaurants. When he would return home after his business trips, he would relax by recreating the dishes he had enjoyed at these restaurants in his own kitchen. His mother had taught him the basics of cooking when he was a kid, and his natural gifts and intuition allowed him to recall flavors and then to riff on them and invent new ideas. Over the years, Maymo also sought out many chefs in order to learn from them, and in the process he became friends with them.
Eventually, his life as a financial advisor became too exhausting and stressful, and Maymo decided to quit and start anew. Together with his partner, Maria Alba Fort, he opened El Xiringo, a homey little spot in Barceloneta offering top-notch takeaway and a great selection of wines and cavas from interesting producers. That was just the beginning.
As Maymo tweaked and adjusted his cooking and figured things out, customers began to ask about eating in the shop. A couple of years later, in 2012, Maymo and Fort received a new license and transformed their takeaway joint into a wonderful, intimate little restaurant. It’s the kind of place that we feel lucky to have discovered and can never decide whether we should urge everyone to go there or just keep it a secret for ourselves.
You can smell the sea all around El Xiringo, and fittingly, while the restaurant offers many meat options, fish and seafood are the main event here. Maymo loves to work with whatever has been caught just that day, which, on a recent visit, was sustainably fished Mediterranean red tuna. Some of his best-loved specialties are the amazing croquettes, especially those stuffed with various kinds of seafood, and the rice dishes (smoked rice, seafood paella, black rice, cod rice and others).
With such exquisite ingredients, Maymo’s goal is not to mask or overwhelm, but to highlight those pure flavors. Those croquettes are some of the best we’ve ever had. Each is different from the others in both the main ingredient and the preparation. The lobster one, stuffed with a mixture of the leg meat and coral, leek, onion and whipped cream instead of the usual béchamel, is bold in flavor. The squid version is made with the ink and is both succulent and creamy.
The last time we were at El Xiringo we enjoyed a rice dish with ratatouille and artichoke hearts and a traditional dish of cod in allioli, in which a small portion of the fish covered in garlic mayonnaise was broiled – we may have liked it even more than the seafood paella we had on a previous visit.
We always have to make sure we save room for those entrées, since it can be hard to move on from the starters – they’re that good. One of our favorites is the escalivada, the traditional Catalan roasted vegetable dish, served with tuna ventresca (belly) and dressed with a sherry reduction. The onions, red pepper and eggplant have a lovely smokiness, and the meaty tuna is pointed up with some garlic and parsley. We also love the shellfish preparations, such as rock mussels with allioli pearls, and the clams with cava cream.
El Xiringo’s wine list offers about 60 cavas and 80-some Spanish wines, including organic ones. To help navigate through such an extensive selection, we prefer to ask for suggestions, especially for wines that will best pair with the food.
Maymo has put together a menu of dishes that are regularly available, and, based on the season or what’s at the market or his own inspiration, he also makes around a dozen specials each day. For more elaborate seafood specialties, such as the lobster stews caldereta de langosta or suquet langosta or other seafood casseroles, you can call ahead to order.
One last note: Funnily enough, though Maymo has left finance, the financial world still has its eyes on him, for El Xiringo was recently named one of the top five places to eat in Barcelona by the Financial Times.
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