Chef Ferran Maicas finds it hard to believe that ten years have just passed -ten!- since five friends whom we once described as the ’79 gang formed the first team at the restaurant that he and his colleague Albert Ferrer opened. That first Bambarol (Santaló, 21) that the Galvany neighborhood welcomed with open arms and that would immediately attract customers from all over Catalonia and well-oriented tourists who were trying to get a table to try their delicious dishes opened it with all the enthusiasm in the world . As it should be
A few days ago, ten festivals of Sant Joan after that night in which friends and family filled the venue to act as guinea pigs at the preview, Maicas decided to celebrate the first decade with the family, the team and regular customers. He confesses that he had a bittersweet feeling: “On the one hand, the joy of having come this far and of once again having a beautiful and cohesive team, but also nostalgia for those beginnings full of illusion and complicity with an unrepeatable brigade.” These are things that happen in many businesses that were born as a project between friends who one day get separated; things that are rarely talked about. “This started as the dream of two people, Albert and me, who for things in life decided to continue on their own”. How can there not be nostalgia, he wonders, when there are friends who stay on the road. “We had worked with Albert for 15 years and one look was enough for us to know what was missing from that dish”. Bambarol has it very clear, it is the story of all those who have made it possible at all times; by Albert, by Jonatan Viol, by Pablo Rodríguez, by Gioseppe Lapignola… And there are also difficult moments, like the fire in 2018 from which a more beautiful restaurant eventually emerged, “because the blows don’t count but the way to deal with them ”.
Bambarol is also the complicity that there was later in the kitchen with Nandu Soler, “he is my brother, we shared a flat for many years and now he has his business, Can Marlau”. Bambarol, explains Maicas, is also the crossing of the desert in the pandemic, when she thought “this cannot end here.”
And it is, of course, the current team, of which he is proud. The honesty of the second chef, Arnau Gozález, the skill of Aaron Buitrago in the hot game, that of Fabio Monterisi in the cold game; It is Miron Sikder on the pike, a key piece of the house from the beginning. Bambarol is the hospitality of Abel Castillo and Esther Ortiz in the room; the involvement of Eva Lázaro, Ferran’s partner, who keeps the accounts and looks after the dining room. And it is the filming in the houses they went through before opening, from internships at El Bulli or El Celler to apprenticeships at Xavier Franco’s Saüc or in the chef’s own project in China.
A decade is enough to show off a section of classics -the salad, the croquettes, the bravas, the scallops with asparagus and jowls, the marinated salmon…- and for that table in which the dishes of the day appear, where there is never a lack of rice and some eggs. “I like that the letters evolve but there are houses in which I want to find those specialties that I know are worth it.”
The dishes on the table that are successful end up finding a place on the menu. There has been a before and after the pandemic. Before there were 11 and then 5; now there are 8. But they try to fill fewer tables and not double shifts. They explain that they have found a good formula to reconcile: they close Sunday and Monday, they serve lunch from Tuesday to Saturday, and dinner from Thursday to Saturday. At no time have they lost that hospitality that characterizes them from the beginning and that makes them one of those houses loved by a loyal clientele who are always excited to return.
