Barcelona BUZZ

A popular drawcard for digital nomads and expats alike, the Catalonian capital offers equal parts sophistication and fun. Here, DANI VALENT discovers the latest dining hotspots.

- DANI VALENT

If it's possible to feel more like you're in Barcelona than I do right now, then you had better tell me how. It's Sunday, rolling towards noon and I'm in Bodega Quimet, a rustic bar in the artsy, village-like neighbourhood of Gràcia. It's standing room only and we're clustered by the door, enveloped in the hubbub. Wooden barrels marked with chalk labels (vermut, Oporto, Malaga) are racked high along the sides of the narrow room and the servery is lined with point-and-pick tapas: glistening olives, striated oyster shells, lolling anchovies, ensaladilla with tuna and tomato. Drinking vermouth and nibbling a few tapas before a slow Sunday lunch is - I was going to say traditional, but will correct myself to compulsory. The act is so embedded in the culture here that there's a phrase for it: "fer el vermut" or "do the vermouth". And do it we must, sipping vermouth so dark red it's almost black, bitter with a sweet finish, garnished with green olives on a toothpick.

But this isn't an ancient tradition, or at least not one that's persisted without interruption. "Vermouth has made a huge comeback," says Barcelona native and food writer Mireia Font, who has suggested Bodega Quimet as our meeting place. "It was a drink my grandparents used to have when they were young but by the 1980s and '90s, nobody would order it. In the 2000s, vermouth came back as a drink that you have with tapas." She proposes a toast. "A lot of Catalonians - and I include myself here - toast by saying "Salud y República,' which means 'health and republic' because we don't agree with the Spanish monarchy. It's a good way to mix good wishes and politics." We clink glasses in tipsy rebellion.