We moved to Barcelona a little over five years ago and have learned to speak Spanish pretty fluently. Our Catalan isn’t quite there yet—but it’s getting better.

Why are we doing ‘À Table’?

When we first arrived in Barcelona, we didn’t know the city’s food scene, so we turned to the internet—restaurant guides, glossy magazines, influencers, the whole apparatus—to figure out what was supposedly worth our time.

What followed was a string of disastrous experiences, the kind that’s hard to convey without sounding exaggerated.

And then, little by little, you start to see it: the opinions of many “trusted” outlets—specialist media, journalists, influencers—are for sale. Sometimes it’s as simple as a comped lunch or dinner; sometimes it’s an envelope with a small stack of cash.

We do this to help people who are new to the city, so they don’t waste their time or their money.

We wish we’d had something like this when we arrived.

We owned restaurants and wine bars in the United States (New York, Boston and San Francisco) for more than ten years. Whatever that means.