Les Gens que J'aime

Les Gens que J'aime emerges from the depths of the Eixample like a mythical beast from the past that they say was divine and even more gauche. The mirrors in the entrance whisper from beyond decades, from a time when children obeyed their parents and played outside. Someone was thinking a lot about Paris when they decided to build this bar, a sort of bohemian cave fit for the Boulevard Saint Germain, in a city whose inhabitants stroll in the Bulevard Rosa.

The stairs are the real creaky wooden deal, leading into the velvety murkiness full of red velvet armchairs and love seats where you can pore over a Conan Doyle novel. The stained and dusty carpet looks like the floor of someone's hoarder granddad who lives surrounded by altars to charming little figurines and unimpressive pictures of Godard.

Once you're settled in, the friendly bar staff prepares cocktails with candied red cherries. Rasputin, libidinous, gluttonous, minds the narrow staircase that leads to the loo. His legs seem to be hidden in one of those devices where magicians cut a perfectly good assistant into three parts.