For all the traditional and avant-garde attractions of Catalan cuisine (though I never fancied the daft deconstructions of Ferran Adrià, even if I had had the patience for a 2-year waiting list, and the disposable fortune to blow on a platelet of flavoured foam), the taste of Barcelona is for me a falafel from one of the cupboard-sized takeaways on the narrow streets just down from the Plaça Reial in the Barri Gòtic.

A Proustian express ticket back to my carefree youth.

I haven't been back for a long time. Maybe they've been gentrified out by now. Or perhaps more have sprouted up to cater to the stag party crowd. I'll be sure to pay a visit next time I'm in town.