Quick Bites: Salt
It feels like summer has been a long time coming this year, doesn’t it? But when the heat finally hits, Barcelona transforms into a magical land of shiny, happy people, all over-excited and slightly drunk on summer. It is the season of spontaneous celebration, luxuriously long lunches, and a time when a shimmy in the sand at one of the chiringuitos is a daily occurrence. Unfortunately it is also that time of year when anyone failing to be waif-like or 18 years old can feel somewhat redundant.
Thank goodness then for the Friday and Saturday sunset sessions at the W Hotel’s new beach club, Salt, where the bodies are just a little bit more rounded and the vibe a tiny bit more grown-up. It’s a place to be naughty, bunk off work and while away an entire afternoon fantasising you’re staying somewhere fabulous. Believe me, it’s a lot cheaper than a room, and the water this end of the beach is just lovely, which is a bonus since the hotel’s pool is strictly off-limits to non-guests. And thus my important research begins, with lunch across the boardwalk at Salt ‘proper’: a surfer-chic bistro with a decked terrace that feels less self-conscious than the high-gloss glamour of the main hotel.
The Southern California-inspired menu offers five different gourmet burgers, which one hopes would be extremely good since they are priced between €15 and €17, alongside more interesting entreés such as beef carpaccio with deep-fried crunchy oysters and nasturtium flower gazpacho. We plumped for a spanking fresh seabass ceviche with guacamole, a bright grilled prawn salad, spoon-tender and wickedly sticky barbecued ribs, and a Wagyu steak grilled over a volcanic stone at the table. It was a little tough to tell the truth, but the rest was winning stuff and went down a treat with a bottle of Verdejo.
Afterwards, we drifted back over to the beach club and lounged about in string armchairs sipping ginger mojitos watching the sun go down over the Med while Frank Gehry’s fish glittered on the horizon. If you’re going to blow off an afternoon now and then, I reckon you might as well make it a good one.
W Hotel, Mare Nostrum 19-21, Barceloneta. Tel. 93 295 2819. www.saltbeachclub.com. Open daily 1pm-2am. Around €50 per person for three courses with wine.