Along the Passeig de Gràcia the tour groups flow, guidebooks in hand, smartphone cameras poised. The masters of modernista architecture crafted some of their greatest works on this elegant, tree-lined thoroughfare, which a century and a half ago led Barcelona from its congested medieval core into a new era of space, order and creativity.
Inside, owner Ignacio Ussía and his Estonian barman Erik Bagmet are concocting elaborate creations: spinning cocktail shakers, long-pouring, mixing, performing. A row of appreciative customers sits at the polished, spot-lit bar, entranced. He raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Godfather,” I say, a touch hopefully. He nods his approval at the password, which I’d wrangled from my hotel concierge earlier, and reaches forward to activate a switch. The entire mirrored unit — draws, counter and all — swings open, and I step into the 1930s.
Behind the bar, Sofia D’Agnano is mixing up a storm. A photographer by day, the young Italian is in her element, feeding off the energy in the room and creating plenty of her own. As the music ramps up, a fellow bartender charges the length of the bar, pushing each of its domed, pendulous lights, which strafe the room with milky light. All the illuminated faces are beaming.
Time for one more? In Barcelona, always. Exiting Paradiso, I allow myself to be drawn back into the web of El Born, where suddenly every flaking door is infused with the tap-and-whisper possibility of a speakeasy.
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