Last May saw the opening of our restaurant Plat Únic, located inside the Yurbban Trafalgar hotel in Barcelona. We wanted to create a different, innovative and unique offering while delivering a local experience to clients. But, how to combine tradition and originality?
We decided to press the rewind button and go back to the very origins. And we found it: the old public houses. The places where travelers and locals came together. Those wineries in which a single dish was served, without hours or waiting times, while diners rested from their long journeys and exchanged stories of their daring adventures.
The gastronomic offering presented will vary seasonally, with different dishes that adapt to the time of year and the ingredients typical of that period. We want the client to discover the traditional dishes of our land, to try those oh so typical dishes, those which our grandmothers cooked for us on Sundays. We will also bring back the table wine, with which diners can refill their wine jug as many times as they wish.
Until now, the proposals have been Galician cow rib with various sides, and “Escudella amb carn d’olla” for the Christmas dish. As of January 22, we have returned with a delicious “fricandó” of beef.
The recipe for “fricandó” reaches Catalan lands through emigrants who traveled to the territory formerly known as Occitania (south of France), during the Middle Ages. Unlike other traditional classic dishes, its origin is not peasant-based but typical of urban cuisine. This recipe has been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years until at last, it reaches our tables.
There are four keys to cooking a good “fricandó”. First, the frying process. The secret is to cook it slowly and flavor it with different spices. Second, the “picada”, one of the essential and particular foundations of Catalan cuisine which consists of grinding certain ingredients, usually nuts, in a mortar. Third, the beef, which will be breaded and fried. And lastly, the flavor of the mushrooms in the sauce is fundamental (the moixernons are the most often used).
Plat Únic is not just a restaurant, it’s an experience. You don´t understand it until you actually live it for yourself. Plat Únic is pressing the pause button for a few hours and immersing yourself in a world of pleasure. Come in, enjoy and disconnect. What are you waiting for?
Plat Únic
C/ Trafalgar, 30. (Yurbban Trafalgar Hotel)
08010 Barcelona