4 cats - barcelona spain (ask around, you'll find it)

i have an excuse for being so lazy about writing here of late. read on to find out why...

the 4 cats (quatre gats) has a loose association with picasso when he was young and trendy...and alive. it's called 4 cats because the critics reckoned that's who would go when it opened in the 1920s. how wrong they were.

admission to the 4 cats was by luck. we had tried to get in the previous night but the empty tables and darkened front cafe hinted an air of 'we're closed'. the following night and two hours earlier we discovered the restaurant behind the darkened bar and empty tables. doh!!

unbelievably amazing food, great service, we could not fault it. we were perched on the art-deco mezzanine, basically in the rafters, but so much the better to keep an eye on the comings and goings. the musos playing piano and violin were stayers.

a true restaurant among restaurants in barcelona - on par with chois in hawthorn and more character than flowerdrum chinese. what melbourne supper club is to late drinks and the oyster bar is to seafood. if you get the idea that we really liked 4 cats, you're quite a shrewd mammoth.

and while there appeared to be two maitre'd's, i reckon it was the same guy doing a superman quick change. there was just too much clothing coincidence and we never saw them at the same time...think about it. if you're in barcelona, you just have to find 4 cats and have dinner. you will not regret it.