Passadis del Pep

Passadis del Pep Restaurant Review:

For more than 30 years this almost completely hidden restaurant has been welcoming locals and in-the-know tourists through its homely stone arches, where Joan Manubens and his team of waltzing waiters serve seafood feasts and traditional Mediterranean cuisine in a warm and unhurried atmosphere. They are masters of ‘cocina de mercado’; there is no menu and there are no ‘daily specials.’ Instead, dishes are created depending on whatever is freshest at the market that morning --- and the fish, so they say, is delivered directly from the local fishing ports to the restaurant on a daily basis. Anticipate bountiful plates of sautéed baby squid with rice and garlic, clams with garlic and parsley, spider crabs and fresh lobster cooked delicately in seawater, and sea snails in Burgundy butter. By default, a bottle of Penedès cava will be brought to your table to get things started, but you’ll also be presented with a considered wine menu, offering some of the finest vintages from Catalonia and beyond. Sip on Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots from the nearby Clos d’Agon winery, or ask about the offerings from vineyards in Rioja, Pla de Bages, Rueda, the Loire and Portugal. Dessert also follows the seasons and the arrival of the city’s freshest produce, with fruit concoctions and the blow-torched crèma Catalana. Chase it with sugar-laced ‘carajillos’ (coffee with whiskey, brandy or rum) or more cava.