Barcelona restaurant wins Catalonia's best Esmorzar de Forquilla award

A Barcelona restaurant was crowned Catalonia's best Esmorzar de Forquilla this weekend in the first-ever competition celebrating the traditional local breakfast.

L'Andreuenc, in the Sant Andreu neighborhood, won the award for its mar i muntanya dish, a classic Catalan combination of mountain ingredients, particularly sausage and meat, with seafood. The dish featured sausage, beans, and cuttlefish.

The final took place Sunday at the MOS gastronomic fair in Lleida, where the jury chose L'Andreuenc's creation from 12 finalist restaurants across Catalonia.

This was the first competition of its kind in Catalonia. Most other dishes focused on pork, with specialties such as chitlins, pig's trotter, and cap i pota taking center stage.

Esmorzar de Forquilla vs Brunch

Esmorzar de Forquilla is the traditional Catalan breakfast. Literally meaning "fork breakfast," it has a long history, and its dishes are usually hearty and dense.

In recent years, many in Catalonia have reclaimed this breakfast as a counterpoint to the rise of brunch culture, especially in Barcelona.

"Today, the esmorzar de forquilla is the best defense of traditional Catalan cuisine," journalist Albert Molins of La Vanguardia told Catalan News in a report last year.

Molins is one of the pioneers of the movement to revive the traditional local breakfast. Alarmed by the declining visibility of Catalan cuisine and the proliferation of brunch spots, he set out to preserve this culinary tradition.

"When you walk down the street, Catalan cuisine is not visible," he explains. In response, after the Covid-19 pandemic, he created a Google Maps listing of his favorite esmorzar de forquilla spots.

The simple idea quickly gained traction on X, where other enthusiasts began adding their own recommendations. Soon, the map was filled with new locations.

The result was EsmorzApp, a mobile app that now catalogs more than 2,000 traditional breakfast spots in Catalonia, along with 400 in Valencia and 100 in the Balearic Islands.

To learn more about Esmorzars de Forquilla, listen to this episode of our podcast Filling the Sink.