Xemei

Sorry I am being redundant, but it's true: all Italians know that in Italy we don't have Italian restaurants. Instead, each single city has its own culinary traditions, so, if you are in Verona, you will have Veronese food, if you are in Pisa you will have Pisan food and so on. Ingredients and cooking procedures vary so much across regions that it is sometimes hard to think that they belong to the cuisine of one single country. Maybe it's because in Barcelona we have a huge Italian community (we are everywhere!), but the fact is that we are seeing more and more real regional restaurants that look, feel and taste exactly the same as in the Belpaese. Xemei is one of those. Opened a few years ago by two brothers from Venice (Xemei in means twins in Venetian), the place is perhaps the best choice if you feel like having a gorgeous Italian meal in Barcelona. I love it because it's open on Sundays and it's in Poble Sec, one of the most authentic neighbourhoods in town, where you have lots of bars to have a nice vermouth and very few tourists around. 

The menu includes a limited choice of starters and mains and it changes constantly, which is a guarantee of care for the quality and freshness of the ingredients, and includes a mix of traditional and revisited Venetian dishes. Sometimes burrata, a glorious product from southern Italy, is available. It's a fresh mozzarella cheese with a very soft, creamy and buttery core, served with some cherry tomatoes and olive oil. It's just gorgeous and they serve it as a starter. Another highlight is carpaccio, perhaps one of the most famous Italian starters, created by Giuseppe Cipriani at the Harry's Bar in Venice. It's thin slices of raw veal meat arranged on a layer of tender salad leafs, all dressed, according to the tradition, with a light mayonese and worchestershire sauce combination. It's a perfectly balanced combination of tastes and textures and it just drives me crazy!

The atmosphere is laid back and cool at the same time, and the crowd is mostly young professionals both from the international and catalan community. In the summer, it is great to sit outside, under the red awnings, that became the trademark of this place. 

Xemei 
Passeig de la Exposició, 85 – Barcelona
Phone: +34 935 535 140
Price Range: 40-50€, depending on wines and spirits ordered.
Open on Sundays, which is not that common in Barcelona. Reservation is recommended.

The Unwanted Gap Year >> About

After a few years spent in Barcelona working in a real estate company, I found myself, at the beginning of 2011, on the job market again. It's not an atypical situation in Spain nowadays, and, like many other friends, I found myself in what we call paro in Spanish, i.e., unemployed. Instead of jumping on a plane and making the most of the privileged situation of having time and money at the same time, I decided to keep on looking for a job and leave the project of travelling around the world for the future. Weeks of job hunt followed, and they now sum up, more or less, to a year. Too bad that I did not want to spend a gap year, but, if I look back, life has not been so bad over the past months. Let's face it, Barcelona is a gorgeous city, and when you get stressed about the fact that your job search is leading you nowhere, you can always call up a few friends and arrange an aperitive on the beach.

In spite of the crisis, Barcelona has not lost its vitality, and it keeps offering a huge deal of restaurants and bars, scattered all over the city. The nice thing is that new places keep opening (although some, of course, go out of business), and the international vibe in town has not faded away. Throwing out CVs and going out in bars and restaurants with my friends were my main activities over this unwanted gap year. Since I assume that none would care about my job search strategy, I decided to open this blog to share with other internauts my best experiences in Barcelona's great dining and clubbing scene. Keep in mind that, as an Italian, I am really into good food, good wines and good drinks, so maybe you want to use some of my advice if you ever decide to spend a few days in town!