Granja La Pallaresa — 1947 Hot Chocolate Ritual

Granja La Pallaresa is a historic family-run café on Carrer de Petritxol in Barcelona, famous for serving traditional thick hot chocolate called suís since 1947. Operating in a former milk shop, the café sits on Barcelona's first pedestrian street, where chocolate shops have operated since the seventeenth century. Nearby at number five, Pablo Picasso held his first gallery exhibition in 1901.

Barcelona · from the walk “Stones & Secrets: Hidden Courtyards of the Barri Gòtic” · audio ~3 min · Generated

Carrer de Petritxol 11, Barcelona

What traditional specialty is Granja La Pallaresa on Carrer de Petritxol in Barcelona famous for?

Take a deep breath... and inhale. Can you smell it? That thick, warm, bittersweet perfume drifting through the air? You are standing on Carrer de Petritxol... Barcelona's famous Chocolate Street. And right here, at number eleven, is Granja La Pallaresa.......... Now, what exactly IS a granja? The word means "farm" in Spanish, but nobody is milking cows in here. A granja is a traditional name for a small family-run Spanish café that specializes in chocolate and pastries — and this one has been doing exactly that since nineteen forty-seven. Before it became a chocolate café, this space was a lechería... a milk shop, for many decades.......... But the real star here is the suís. That's a classic thick cup of drinking chocolate, crowned with unsweetened whipped cream on top. Not the watery cocoa you might be used to. This is chocolate so thick you could practically stand your spoon in it. And it's served to you by waiters in white shirts and bow ties, as if time stopped somewhere in the nineteen fifties.......... And here's what most visitors don't realize. This street's love affair with chocolate goes back Centuries. Since the seventeenth century, different chocolate shops began to be installed here, and it became a tradition to enjoy drinking chocolate. And Barcelona itself was ground zero for chocolate in Europe. The port of Barcelona was the entrance to markets for everything coming from the New World... and cacao entered the ibErian peninsula through Barcelona in the sixteenth century. Spain kept chocolate a closely guarded secret for about a century after its arrival.......... But Carrer de Petritxol is not only about sweets. Just steps away, at number five, sits Sala Parés. The first time Pablo Picasso exhibited in an art gallery, he did it right here, in nineteen oh one, when the artist was only twenty years old. An already consolidated Ramon Casas offered a section of his exhibition space to the young Picasso, who exhibited four paintings there... and didn't sell a single one.......... And here's a lovely detail. There is a plaque on this street in memory of Montserrat Caballé, the legendary opera singer, who worked in nineteen fifty for the scarf factory that was right here — and years later, she used to prepare for her performances next to the famous Granja Pallaresa.......... This was actually the First pedestrian street in all of Barcelona. In nineteen fifty-nine, sidewalks were removed and vehicle access was forbidden. So as you stand here, surrounded by the aroma of melted chocolate and the echo of centuries of footsteps... you are walking a street that Barcelona chose to protect for people, not cars, long before it was fashionable.......... Now. If you have time... step inside. Order the suís. Dip a melindro into that dark, velvety cup. And do exactly what Barcelonins have been doing here for almost eighty years.

Nearby stories