From the toast and grilled meat tavern to the haute cuisine restaurant. This is how the evolution of Bruce Springsteen's visits to Barcelona is summarized, from 1981 to 2023. A long stretch of passion.
A lot has changed since that day in April 1981 when Bruce (to the fans), a native of New Jersey, discovered that he was causing a fervor beyond the Hudson River, on the other side of the Atlantic.
That night, at the Palau d'Esports on Lleida street, something much more exceptional took place than a tour concert to present the album 'The River' (1980). A love story arose. The venue was not even close to full. Saying half an entry is more accurate. But the enthusiasm of the attendees, “springsteeans” of true faith (plus a few who dropped by by chance and discovered this secular and deeply social religion), caused the Boss to catch the piece of atmosphere.
That concert always emerges in memory as one of the best, if not the best, that has ever been seen, with a more than overturned Springsteen, who designed almost another concert from the encores. He was enjoying himself so much that there was no way he was going to leave the stage. Clarence Clemons, his long-awaited saxophonist, seemed mesmerized.
In addition to personal memories, sometimes, you know, memory is very imaginative, at least one real, physical souvenir survives. In the El Glop Taberna, in the Gràcia neighbourhood, on Sant Lluís street, they still keep the photograph that the artist took within its walls. Signed and with dedication.
This correspondent in New York was awakened by nostalgia when reading Cristina Jolonch, in La Vanguardia digital, the dinner menu at the Amar restaurant that Springsteen and his wife Patti Scialfa enjoyed, accompanied by Barack and Michelle Obama and by Steven Spielberg and Katy Capshaw.
There is nothing for the scrapbook of the establishment and the city: a legendary musician, one of the masterful film directors in the Hollywood industry and the first black president in the history of the United States and one of the most admired first ladies. that is remembered
According to that gastronomic chronicle, the six friends enjoyed the “truffle bikini on brioche toast with butter and caviar, clams, anchovies, the spectacular Roses prawns or macerated oysters. Nor was there a lack of lobster carpaccio, a tribute to El Bulli, sole meunière and wagyu meat cooked in Josper. Among the desserts, from the chef's cheesecake to the macerated fruits”. All delicacies.
But the first restaurant linked to the Boss in Barcelona is the Glop, a place for toasts, pa amb tomaquet, sausages and grilled meat at that time. And salads, one of the best thermometers to weigh the transformation that has taken place in the culinary field. Those salads lacked the sophistication of goat cheese or, unthinkably, Modena vinegar.
In a phone call from Manhattan, Manel García (“like the one from the Last in Line”), manager of El Glop, answers the question of whether they still treasure Springsteen's photo. "I sold it... Noooo, that's a joke", he laughs.
He acknowledges, however, that they have moved it. This witness has a clear image of that photograph on a wall located to the left of the entrance. "It's not there anymore because they tried to steal it from us, now it's on the top floor," he clarifies.
When commenting on the jump from the Taverna El Glop to Amar, García reflects. “This has changed a lot. You have to adapt and today we do everything, we are a restaurant, ”he replies. “Then we were a tavern, now we only have the name of a tavern”, he emphasizes.
