Barcelona has become quite the destination on the global bar circuit — one of the benefits, I suppose, of being a sub-$100 return flight away from the capitals of Europe. It’s a city which has attracted some top international bar talent, and in which you’ll find former world number one bars Paradiso and Sips — both, incidentally, helmed by Italians. It feels like the bartenders in Barcelona are always from someplace else.
The city is also home to some golden era drinking glamour too, with Boadas — a little cocktail bar off Las Ramblas that has been home to the throwing technique since the 1930s — one of the world’s great bars and a bucket list destination for many bartenders. There’s also the great sherry and vermouth bars, tapas joints, and world class dining — all set amongst a backdrop punctuated by Gaudi-designed buildings and parks.
But it’s in the neighbourhoods of Barcelona, outside of the touristy old town, where you’ll get a glimpse of what makes Barcelona really beautiful: the people there are fiercely Catalan — not Spanish — and you’ll find small streets, a village-in-the-city feel, and dusty squares where children play and locals come together to talk and drink.
In Gracia — a neighbourhood just like this — you’ll find one of the city’s best bars, FOCO.
“FOCO is an abbreviation of the words foreign correspondent,” says Tom Godfrey, who owns the bar along with his mate, Theo Quinn. “The idea [for the bar] came from these foreign correspondent clubs I read about a few years ago. The most famous one is in Hong Kong. These clubs are basically private members clubs where all the members are foreign journalists.”
I met Tom in Hong Kong during The World’s 50 Best Bars event in October; he was there to attend the event and host a FOCO takeover during the week, and the bar itself landed on the 50 Best 51-100 long list this year, coming in at number 89.
I’d visited FOCO earlier in the year, and having been unaware what the name meant — clearly, I am not a foreign correspondent — I was struck by the quality of its cocktails in its neighbourhood surrounds, and how it seemed to function as a hub for visiting bartenders and the local hospo crowd alike. Needless to say, I had a good time there.
Here, the English expat talks about the serendipitous way the bar got started (after a career detour for Tom as a pop-up kitchen chef in Barcelona), how their short and sharp drinks list ballooned to a 30 drink menu, their recipe development process, and why he just wants something tasty in a comfortable place.
SAM BYGRAVE: Tell us how did FOCO come to be? Why choose to open in Barcelona?
TOM GODFREY: Serendipity, more than anything else. If you look at it from an outside perspective, looking back, it seemed like we hit the right place at the right time. And absolutely none of it was on purpose. None of it.