El Sopapu (CLOSED)

El Sopapu – set in the ground floor of a house in Barceloneta, a block away from the always-crowded Jai-Ca – is about as traditional a tapas bar as you’re going to get. I sit down at one of the four high tables and immediately order my favourites to satisfy the growling monster in my belly: beer, ‘patatas bravas’, a ‘bomba’ (a large breaded and fried ball of mashed potatoes with a meat centre), and ‘capipota’ (stew made of pork or veal with white beans and sausage). Today Jaume, the waiter, brings me a bomba of octopus instead of meat, and I’m pleasantly surprised. They pour a mean draught beer, and Jaume tells me that when he was 16 he worked at Vaso de Oro. And that everything you get at El Sopapu is prepared from scratch by his mother, Manuela Comino. El Sopapu is a tapas bar in Barceloneta staffed with people from Barceloneta and serving Barceloneta cuisine. It doesn’t get much more local than that.