BAR ALEGRIA
Tomás Abellán’s second Alegría landed in Gràcia this year inside the bones of Can Tosca, a family restaurant that fed the neighborhood for three-quarters of a century — and to his credit, he kept the bones. The room still feels inherited rather than installed, and the idea is honest: tavern classics cooked lighter, a wine list that champions small growers and low-intervention bottles, prices that respect the postcode. When it works — the confit leek, the truffle omelet, a properly wobbly flan — you glimpse the neighborhood institution this wants to become. But new restaurants, like new shoes, pinch, and the city’s critics have split loudly on this one: the opening months brought reports of long waits, uneven seasoning, and a kitchen running behind its own ambitions, alongside equally loud voices declaring it a hit. Our read lands in between. The intentions are right, the wine list is genuinely likable, and the bloodline — this is the son of Carles Abellán, with a 1899 original in Sant Antoni — suggests the wrinkles will iron out. For now: come curious, order the vegetables, and give the room the patience you’d want extended to a one-year-old.
