CALÇOTADA – LET’S EAT A BUNCH OF ONIONS

I never even heard of this Catalan tradition until I was invited to join a calçotada. Then I started seeing big heaps of calçots, basically long and thick spring onions, in every supermarket in the city. What on earth was this onion craze? And how was my first calçotada experience?

A calçotada is another crazy but very popular Catalan tradition, held in the late winter months. It is more about the event itself, bringing together friends and family, eating calçots, drinking wine and getting your hands dirty. Seriously, this is not the right event to wear your fancy clothes, rather wear something old and preferably black (to hide the red wine stains).

Last weekend, we went with a big group to Can Martí, a restaurant hidden in the mountains with an amazing view, overlooking the city. While searching for the restaurant (it took a while to get there), we already smelled the burnt onions. We’re close!

View on our way to the restaurant.

So what is this calçotada all about? Basically, you’ll be served a ridiculous amount of roasted spring onions. They are served in roof tiles, and before the first one is empty, the next one (or four) will be put on the table. You have to strip the onions from their blackened outer layer, dip them in salsa romesco and eat them like a dutch haring. The onions tasted good, despite their weird look (but I have to say I like onions and everything oniony in general). The taste is quite mild, if you don’t eat too much of the green stuff at the end. The sauce though is seriously delicious, also great to eat with pa amb tomàquet – bread rubbed with garlic, ripe tomato and olive oil, which we had to do ourselves.

All of this was served with a good amount of red wine, of course. “Why be boring and drink it out of a glass”, Catalans must have thought – let’s drink it from a porró instead. And I have to agree, it is a lot of fun to drink from this wine fountain (the trick is to keep it further and further from your mouth without spilling any wine) and even more fun to watch others attempting to beat their record. Hence the not wearing fancy clothes part. 

 

After the bread and loads of onions, there was still a second course (my god). We were served a plate with different kinds of grilled meat, including black botifarra (looks scary, tried it though, a little too intense for my taste), homemade fries, beans and lots of aioli. I admit we probably didn’t smell that nice after this amount of onions and garlic, but man, it was so much fun. It felt like a medieval feast, eating with our hands (looking ridiculous with our plastic gloves), dripping romanesco sauce all over the place, drinking loads of wine in the afternoon while our glasses were covered in sauce and onion pieces, rubbing our breads with tomato and olive oil, talking loud, screaming “más vino!” every ten minutes and enjoying the breathtaking view. 

 

Those crazy Catalans – they can even make a party out of grilling (way too many) spring onions. I absolutely loved it!

Restaurant Can Martí
Carrer de la Font del Mont, 4, 08017 Barcelona

Calçotada menu: 30 euros (including drinks, bread, meat and more)

More info on opening hours, reservations and how to get there: www.canmarti.info