Cal Pep, Barcelona

What’s The Restaurant? Cal Pep, in Barcelona’s El Born area.

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a seafood restaurant. Remarkable, I hear you cry. But yes, it is indeed remarkable. It’s been in business in the El Born region of Barcelona for over forty years, during which time it’s reputation has grown and grown until it’s reached it’s current level. That level being “extremely high”.

Now let’s be honest, seafood places aren’t exactly something Barcelona is hurting for – there’s about a bajillion of them. But with a city like Barcelona, the key is to get away from all the tourist traps that lurk around La Rambla and similar areas and find something that’s actually able to provide amazing food. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a “for locals only” place or whatever – something too many food writers try to put too much emphasis on in order to come across as “superior” and knowledgeable – it just needs to have good quality food that doesn’t fall into tourist levels of mediocrity.

At Cal Pep, there’s no menu, so if nothing else a visit you frees you from the burden of having to make decisions. You can make a few general requests – seafood, fish, meat courses or a mixture of them, one specific dish you really want to try, or something you need to avoid for allergy reasons – but the emphasis is more on the chefs providing you with their top-tier food rather than you selecting something specific. You’re taking a gamble of the food being up to the level they claim it is and you don’t entirely know what it is you will be presented with.

But is it worth taking a gamble?

Why Did You Give It A Go? I was in Barcelona with my partner on holiday and I had been before. The truth is, in fact, that beyond a general love of Barcelona, a city I haven’t had the chance to visit since before lockdown, this restaurant is the principal reason I wanted to return. The last time I ate there I simply adored it and, while you can never be certain a place will be able to maintain their standards or quality post-pandemic, it seemed like they probably would.

Is It Any Good? Oh yes. Oh, very much yes. In fact, I cannot honestly remember the last time I had a meal that good. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, orgasmically good, a point my partner emphasised (with rather stronger language than that) after we completed the meal and staggered, blinking, out into the glorious afternoon sun.

Depending on what time or day you go, you may need to queue to get in – they don’t take reservations for the main dining area, a longish bar you sit at to be served (there is a back room which can be reserved for parties, but that’s separate from where the main action is). Normally, I’d sneer at the idea of queueing up for somewhere – oh hai, Dishoom – because it’s almost always the triumph of marketing over actual quality but Cal Pep is definitely an exception.

Upon arrival, we were seated at the bar between a French couple on our left and an American couple on our right, all here for the same reason as us – the reputation of the place. We started off with a couple of drinks before getting down to brass tacks.

The initial plates that we were presented with was a simple plate of sardines in pastry, some pan con tomate (toasted sourdough bread “painted” with garlic, then fresh tomato, drizzled with olive oil and a little sea salt), and a Spanish tortilla. Of those three, the star was easily the tortilla, which was melt-in-the-middle gooey and just dissolved with bursts of flavour. The sardines were clean and flavourful and pretty damned irresistible. If the pan con tomate was slightly underwhelming by comparison, it was just by comparison – it was still good, though needed a bolder amount of garlic to come through as it rather got lost in the mix.

We then moved on to El Pedron peppers, simple green peppers fried and eaten whole (minus the stalk). Clean, simple and tasty. This was brought alongside a bowlful of mussels which were – and this will become something of a theme during this review – cooked to absolute perfection. They were tender and fresh, with just a little oil and Iberia ham piece to add additional depth to the flavours. These elements were all balanced expertly, the oil and ham richly complimenting the mussels without ever threatening to take away from the star of the show.

And on the courses came – next up, tuna tartar. It would be something of an understatement to say that the tartare was spectacular. Absolutely bursting with flavour, seasoned to perfection, and I could have demolished around three platefuls of it. Not that I was short of food to eat – very much the opposite, in fact. As with all the portions, the helping was generous and it was impossible to feel like you were being short-changed.

Still going strong? Well, I was still going anyway. Next up – scollops, served on fois gras with black lentils. This was probably the star of the entire dish, the richness of the fois gras melding perfectly with the sweet, so-soft-they-practically-dissolve scollops, which were (naturally) cooked to perfection. The black lentils added a lovely additional texture to the dish while being plenty flavoursome in their own right. Filling, though. But really – it’s impossible to imagine how this dish could have been better in any meaningful way. It was astounding.

The final course was tender strips of beef, cooked to absolute perfection, alongside some freshly deep-fried potato chips / crisps. The beef was as good as any I’ve ever tasted – perfectly pink in the middle, with just a touch of sea salt on top to enhance the flavour. At this point, I was just barely able to eat anything else so, I regret to inform you, the quality of the deserts will remain a mystery – eight courses at lunch is, it would seem, my limit. So even if the beef ended up being the final course, it was a spectacular way to conclude the meal.

How Many Of These Have You Been To? Well, Cap Pep is just Cal Pep – there’s only one of them. But I’ve eaten in plenty seafood places in Barcelona. None of them come close to it.

Would You Recommend It? I think you probably know the answer to that by now but, well, yes, I would! The food is spectacular but the place itself is very unpretentious, which is both nice and a refreshing change from a lot of places like that. There’s no heirs and graces being put on, no fakeness, nothing that will detract from the simple pleasure of eating somewhere that provides amazing food in a delightful environment. That also means there’s no “theme” or “concept” – it’s just straightforwardly great.

Saying that, though, it’s not cheap. For the eight course we had, plus three drinks each (three glasses of cava for me, three beers for my fella) was €130, which is around £109.00 or $143.00. Which isn’t nothing. You get more food than you’ll know what to do with but all the same – it’s not an everyday place, more an indulgence for a special occasion or something you’ve been looking forward to for a while.

So, after all those glowing words, was there anything that might serve as a demerit? Anything that might take away from the experience? I mean, not really. The pan con tomate might not have been ball-burstingly amazing but since everything else pretty much was, it’s hard to hold that as much of a strike. And, as mentioned, it was still perfectly decent, just not quite up to the standards of everything else. But beyond that? I really can’t think of a single thing that took away from any of it. The staff were great, the chefs beyond incredible, the ambience relaxed and easy-going… This is just going to run into a list of synonyms for “great” again, so I’ll stop.

The tl;dr here is simple – if you’re in Barcelona, love food, and can afford it, then there are few meals you can have that surpass Cal Pep. It really doesn’t get much better than this.

Scores On The Doors? 9.75 / 10 – 0.25 of a mark off for the pan con tomate. If they’d had slightly more garlic on them it would have been a clean 10/10.