Cities and their restaurants mutate quickly. But there is a place in Barcelona that persists and keeps the flag of the city’s aesthetic history high. It’s Il Giardinetto. Unique in its kind. Original to the core: with those tree-pillars scattering leaves on the roof and its grass-carpet that climbs the walls creating tufts of fantastical solace.
It was born in 1974 by the photographer Leopoldo Pomés, who commissioned the project to the architects Federico Correa and Alfonso Milá. (With which he had already illuminated the successful tortilla shop Flash). He wanted another unique example, with good Italian cuisine, which was non-existent at the time. Pomés had been enthusiastic about the “fettuccini al doppio burro” that María Levi – the mother of his friend Ricardo Bofill – prepared for him, who would help him with the letter.
But let’s return to the continent: Correa-Milá had presented a first project that did not work. Federico Correa was marching towards Comillas where he spent his summers. He liked to do it through France, traveling for a couple of days. In one of those squares full of venerable chestnut trees, he had a coffee while the locals played petanque. Arriving at the hotel, in half an hour, paper and pencil in hand, he illuminated the project. The year of its inauguration, il Giardinetto received the FAD Interior Design Award. And it became, in the effervescent Barcelona of the moment, a meeting point for artists, architects, photographers, designers, actors, musicians, writers, editors and journalists.
It is the only place in the city that has received the same award twice. The second FAD, in 2013, recognized the delicate intervention of the architects Max Llamazares and Iván Pomés. If in the 70s clandestine and closed establishments were popular, in the 21st century the opening towards the street prevailed. And for the younger audience he became an icon of an entire era.
Although il Giardinetto has always been, also, its content: legendary gatherings, musical actions, literary meetings. Or its tiny showcase on the façade with installations by designers and architects. “The showcase promoted the renewal of a new generation of assiduous creators,” explains Poldo Pomés, photographer and director. Who, together with Xavier Mas de Xaxàs, is in charge of the Giardinetto Sessions, “interviews in video format with important people with a lot to say.”
Today Il Giardinetto continues in the hands of the Pomés family, the brothers Juliet, Poldo and Iván, children of the photographer-gourmet, who take care of what they consider “a small jewel of the city both for the uniqueness of its interior design and for its genuine personality.” .
