Ode to Ramen Shop

Moving house is often rather bittersweet. Once the excitement of heading to pastures new subsides, you begin to miss the nooks, crannies and oddities you fell in love with at your old place; the comfy sofa, the friendly neighbors, the 74 stairs that you had to walk up every. single. day. (ok, maybe not the last one).

I recently moved out of my first Barcelona flat in the Barri Gòtic to the rather more salubrious barri of Gràcia. While I won't miss the noise, the busyness, or the inability to go two steps out my front door without being accosted by someone trying to lure me to a “coffee shop,” there is one place which will fill me with wistful longing as it no longer fills my belly on a weekly basis. That place is a charming little restaurant on Carrer d'en Gignàs called Ramen Shop, and I can say with some conviction that they do the finest bowl of that delicious soup in Barcelona.

Ramen Shop specializes in (no points for guessing) ramen. For the uninitiated, ramen is a Japanese noodle soup that has become hugely popular internationally, first in the US but now in cities across the globe. You may have heard it coined as the hipster’s dish of choice—although I would like to state on the record at this point that I am in it for taste, not the look—but it’s something that has been around in Japan for a century or more.

Part of the joy of ramen is that it is something of a curiosity in Japanese cuisine. It lacks the strict, rigid adherence to tradition and aesthetics that you tend to find in the country’s other dishes—a bowl of broth can’t compete on looks with the delicate art of sushi. But rather than acting as a hindrance, ramen’s outsider function sets it up as a dish where experimentation and fusion are encouraged rather than condemned. It means you can have the umami of yakisoba, the depth of teppanyaki, and the freshness of sushi all at once in a piping hot bowl of exquisite salty goodness.

Done properly (please don’t confuse real ramen with that instant, freeze-dried, shop bought nonsense), you can expect a wonderfully fragrant bone broth, freshly-made steamed noodles, an array of fresh accoutrements like pork and mixed Asian veg, and always a soft boiled egg. Ramen Shop follows this delightfully simple formula to a tee, and the flavor all starts with the broth.

The menu is relatively small—a good sign for any one-dish restaurant—but the variation achieved with each stock is seriously impressive. While the Yokohama and the Tokyo soups may look superficially similar, there’s a startling nuance between the bold porky richness of the former, and soy laden subtlety of the latter (yes, I’ve tried them all). And if you want something per picar (to nibble), the gyozas rival any I’ve had in Barna, and the octopus filled takoyaki is worth a try too.

The key to Ramen Shop's success, and what I think sets it apart from the numerous other ramen places in central Barcelona, is that it all feels pretty authentic. From the anime plastered over the walls to the enormous vats steaming away in the kitchen, it feels more like your friend’s place than a restaurant—a far cry from the other deliberately westernized, gentrified, hipster-fied ramen joints in the city. And that, I think, is what you want when you eat a dish like ramen: homely, unfussy surroundings for unassuming, unpretentious food.

And what’s more, when you get your bill and you realize you’ve had a meal and a beer for under €10, you’ll be heading back quicker than you can say “Hakata Tonkotsu.”

You can find Ramen Shop at Carrer d'en Gignàs, 3.

Harry Stott is a regular contributor to the Barcelona Metropolitan covering Brexit, local political and social issues as well as the music scene. He recently received a B.A. in music from the University of Leeds, and now writes and produces radio content for a number of organizations in Barcelona and beyond. You can read more of Harry's articles here.