Bandini's, Barcelona

A natural wine bar with an impeccable kitchen

I suppose it’s inevitable that east London natural wine bars exist in Barcelona too, even if it feels odd to me in a city I associate with the long sprawl of a tapas bar, and a fizzing glass of either cava or lager clutched in my hand. Still, no city is frozen in time, and Barcelona most certainly is not, even if as a tourist I have a tendency towards the traditional.

Bar Brutal, apparently where the Bandini’s owners first met, fits that mould too, but its aggressive lighting and expansive space makes it feel rather its own thing. By contrast, Bandini’s feels of a piece with natty wine bars elsewhere: low-lighting and minimalist decor, pickles perched ostentatiously on the bar, wine list scrawled on the mirror in erasable marker.

Neither wine I tried was especially funky, and to be honest I wouldn’t have minded if they were more so. A riesling proved light, and rich with mineral notes; an Italian red from Piedmont was dry with just a hint of berries; I wouldn’t have known either was natural without being told. If natural wine gets your haunches up, you might well be alright here, and if you’re still worried, then hey, this is Spain — there’s always a vermouth to knock back instead.

This may be pitched as a wine bar, but it seems to have more of a reputation for its kitchen, which is what drew me along. There’s the usual array of drinking snacks, ideal if you’re just here for a glass or two, with larger plates if you want to make a meal of it. Chef Povel is apparently from Sweden, and while I wouldn’t say the cooking has a strong scandi element, it does extend beyond the Barcelona basics.

Sure, you can get a gilda (and I did), but more interesting are the smoked sardines, which appear swimming in a pool of olive oil, with a mound of wholegrain mustard at one end. For a plate with three ingredients, this is extraordinarily well-balanced: the sardines by themself feel almost overwhelmingly smoky, but are softened in one dimension while spiked in another by every smear of mustard, giving you the excuse to carefully calibrate every bite, a little bit of extra mustard here, a smidge less fish there, one more dab in the olive oil perhaps.

Bandini’s gets the basics just right too. The housemade bread is some of the best I’ve eaten in Barcelona, blackened and bitter outside but pillowy soft and comfortingly in its heart. Grilled prawns are tender and meaty, shells ready to give way without too much prompting, and sit in a supremely slurpable burnt chilli butter, which delivers just the gentlest hit of heat to the back of the throat.

I’m a little less sold on deep fried pumpkin, dressed heavily in a sickly spiced honey and paired by a small pot of dill mayonnaise. The pumpkin itself is clearly well fried, delicate discs ready to snap, still crisp despite the heavy layer of honey. But the mayonnaise does too little to balance the sugar and heat, creamy rather than cooling, the dill lost in the noise.

Fortunately it was all made right by dessert, compelling enough that I’d happily consider turning Bandini’s into a late night pit-stop for a stiff drink and a plate of something sweet. A dinky goblet arrived with deep, salty beurre noisette ganache perched atop a light meringue, black coffee pooled around its edges. Some desserts seem made to savour; I ate this over ten slow minutes, wine glass in hand, in no great rush for it to be over.

Those are the two ways to be in a wine bar, I suppose. Slurping a quick drink with a bite or two before heading elsewhere, or lingering for a while, taking the time to sample the menu and settle into the space. Bandini’s seems best suited to the latter, its clever cooking worth luxuriating in, not rushing through. And if the price to pay is that it all feels a bit east London, then so be it. That’s always been my favourite neighbourhood to drink in anyway.