There seems to be only a handful of restaurants that serve brunch in Barcelona, and I wanted to give them a try and see how they compare with the big breakfasts you can get in the U.S.!
I have also been craving pancakes and waffles lately…

Entrance to La Fianna Bar Restaurant:

The restaurant is on a narrow and dark street.

The room I was seated in:

The moment I walked into the restaurant from the bright sun outside, I literally became blind. The restaurant was so pitch dark that for a few moments things were black and I couldn’t walk forward. As my eyes adjusted to the extremely dark lighting, I saw that the place was more of a bar than a restaurant. It was a strange feeling for me to walk into the dark space so early in the day. Large raised bed mattresses lined the walls were you could dine lying down if you wanted. Cozy couches with cushions and lots of pillows and candle lighting added to the dark atmosphere. It was like I turned the clock forward 10 hours into the night. The small bright square in the center of the photo is the only window in the entire restaurant, looking out from the cave like settings.

A shot of the bar area.

Fun and colorful. At this hour, there was only one working waitress who was difficult to bring to attention. The space is actually quite large compared to most places in Barcelona, but was mostly empty that day. I could imagine it being packed and lively at night.

Some orange juice to start. €2.50 each.


The small brunch menu offered various sandwiches, omelettes and waffles. But upon ordering, I was informed that they no longer serve waffles! And no pancakes! Hopefully they will reconsider this, as I was pretty saddened from it. So I decided on the eggs florentine instead.

Service was pretty slow at the time as there was only one waitress, and, unfortunately, a group of 6 people ordered right before we did. If I had known that we would have to wait an hour for the food to come, I would have raced to the waitress before them! There must be one cook in there preparing each order one at a time. Things were not looking too happy for me…

Eggs Florentine- Poached eggs, spinach and hollandaise sauce served with homefries €6.50

After waiting for an hour, and starving, my spirits brightened when I received a nice and large plate. For some reason, having all the food on one big plate made it feel homey and made me feel happy! The food itself was good too. 2 perfectly crunchy slices of toast with lots of butter, a good amount of potatoes, and nice buttery and tangy hollandaise sauce on 2 plump eggs. Underneath was boiled spinach and a slightly soggy thick bread. Accompanied with crispy plain lettuce.

Cheese Omelette €6.50

A good normal omelette.

The food overall was satisfying and good, but the atmosphere was too dark and sad for brunch. Sunday brunch should be sunny and happy! The slow service also did not help. From the looks though (and the decent food), La Fianna seems to be great for a night out.

(I guess they forgot to update the menu to reflect the price inflation this year)
Receipt:
2 Zumo naranja 5.00
Eggs Florentine 6.95
Omelette 6.95
total= €18.90 (brunch for 2)

This entry was posted by chicken on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Barcelona, Born, Bar, Brunch, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.