The good taste of traditional cuisine
Maybe you've passed the corner Dance with Consell de Cent and you have seen the sign The key, but you have never entered. Until someone takes you. Then you wonder what you had been doing all this time without entering and, although you don't know it, it has something to do with this: without a prior reservation, you will rarely find a table inside. It is part of its idiosyncrasy, a culinary tradition and excellence which has been created through word of mouth of those who, as if it were a secret, entrust friends and acquaintances with one of the best places they know to go to eat.
When you ask someone from Barcelona about The key Only wonders are spoken and a word that resonates almost like a calling: Calluses, calluses, calluses. And I say someone from Barcelona because we had never entered a restaurant where so many customers – if not almost all – were regulars. None of this is coincidence.
El familiar trade is a consequence of the fact itself: the owners are Manuela, in the kitchen for almost 30 years and with the ease and grace of mothers who have a passion for cooking, her husband Álvaro, and her son Carlos. The bulk of the clientele enters and greets the person by name. Maitre d ' Álvaro and the rest of the team. Álvaro serves us with a personal and very professional treatment and advises us to start with the so-called "Caviar" from La Llave. It is this closeness – and even his good sense of humor – that makes us feel at home and want to return.
The Caviar of The Key It is, in reality, a trompe l'oeil consisting of thin slices of fried torrezno in the best way one can imagine and it is, without a doubt, the star appetizer of the house. Not having tried the tripe was, why fool ourselves, part of our plan: to have an excuse to return and without much time passing in between.
Instead, we were able to enjoy some magnificent starters with attention to detail, such as sardines in tomato jam at low temperature, fig sandwiches with anchovy, or some more classic ones such as cod fritters in the line of the excellent fried food that we had already discovered with El Caviar.
Probably our favorite starter was the rovellons which, Álvaro warned us, were the result of a collection from the same previous night carried out by a woman in the outskirts of the city. With the main course and all the starters we were able to appreciate a fresh and seasonal raw material –the menu includes some permanent dishes and some suggestions of the day that vary– of the highest quality, in line with the philosophy of The key and market kitchen and traditional. For dessert, some very thin, almost transparent pineapple slices that were a pleasure to eat.
And one last detail to highlight: in addition to the wine selection that hide in a cellar under The key, Álvaro has been making his own cava for six years. He is named after his family's initials 'Caalma', on whose label we could appreciate the beautiful words that Enrique de Héniz dedicated to them, and which fit so well with the tradition of La Llave: Carlos, Álvaro, Manuela, this is how you explain a name that should be pronounced slowly (...); like good things.
Services:
What: Bar Restaurant La Key.
Where: C/Concell de Cent 388.
Schedules: M – F from 7:00 a.m. – 17:30 p.m.
Price: €20-30/pax.
Contact: The Key website
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