Address: Carrer de Còrsega, 200. Between Casanova and Muntaner. Area : Eixample Esquerre. MAP IT
Tel. : 934 532 020
Price: More 45 Euros. (Precio medio 48 €)
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 13:30-15:30 hr and 21-23:30 hr. Sunday 13:30-15:30 hr. Closed: Sundaynight, Monday.
Web site
TripAdvisor : 4/5 rank 584 / 4196 68 reviews
Yelp : 4.5/5 5 reviews Qype : 4/5 1 review VipGourmet 6.8/10 4 reviews
Bcn RestaurantesCarles Gaig, after his experience in the restaurant of Hotel Cram -where he offered contemporary cuisine-, invites us now to make a regression in order to go back to the most traditional Catalan cuisine. That means going back to all the dishes our grandmas and mothers cooked, a really attractive offer that will please both those who need to forget –at least for a while- about implausible names and weird combinations, and those visiting the city who want to enrich their gastronomic culture.
Fonda Gaig is decorated with modern elements. In spite of its big dimensions, it is essential to book in advance. But don’t be misled: the gastronomy is traditional but prices match perfectly the times we are living. If we decide to top up our meal with a bottle of wine, the bill probably rocket.
At the Fonda Gaig the food is very traditionally Catalan, like that at Petit Comité, in a return to grandmotherly Catalan basics. Carles Gaig and a growing number of top chefs are going back to simpler and more affordable food. Gaig’s traditional pastas are legendary: slender cannelloni with a decadent multimeat filling, and macarrones del cardenal, silky pasta tubes cloaked in a divine sauce of cream and onion sofrito under gratinéed Parmesan. Look for standards such as botifarra amb mongetes de ganxet (sausage with white beans) or canelons de l'Avia (Grandmother's cannelloni) or pollastre de gratapallers a la casssola (stewed free-range chicken). An interpretation of the traditional Catalan cuisine that has made Carles Gaig synonymous with top Barcelona dining since 1869, this new enterprise is making a place for itself in Barcelona's continous evolving cuisine. A great destination for a long lunch or dinner, very relaxed, very Catalan and in a super comfortable ample dining room, with red leather armchairs, careful soundproofing and mellow lighting.
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| Cette photo de Fonda Gaig est fournie gracieusement par TripAdvisor |
It's currently all the rage for Barna's top chefs to set up more affordable offshoots, and this one is under the guiding hand of Carles Gaig. The Fonda Gaig schtick, like that at Petit Comitè, is a return to grandmotherly Catalan basics, and the favourite dish here is the canelons - hearty, steaming tubes of pasta filled with shredded beef and topped with a fragrant béchamel. The various dining rooms manage to be both modern and wonderfully comfortable, with red leather armchairs, careful soundproofing and mellow lighting.
Fonda Gaig offers comfort in both food and surroundings, although you can expect to pay for the pleasure.
Do you see the pattern here? High-end chef with expensive, possibly Michelin-starred restaurant is bored. He wants to return to the kind of cooking that his mother did, while offering his adoring dining public a more affordable night out. A designer jazzes up the joint, and lo, a ‘new bistro’ is born.
Unfortunately, Barcelona’s top chefs have still to catch up to the idea that we’re in a recession—restaurants in both New York and London are now doing ‘eat for free’ nights to keep their customers faithful—and that means way more than just eating on the cheap. It means being flexible and making us feel special, because the crashing economy means that our rare nights out need to be exactly that.
As such I wasn’t expecting Fonda Gaig to be particularly cheap, which is just as well because it wasn’t, but I was expecting that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with being in the bubble of a great restaurant. After all, in chef terms, Carles Gaig is a force to be reckoned with. And that I got in spades, from the deep, red leather armchairs good enough to sleep in, to the gentlemanly patriarch and his handsome family who bade me ‘good day’ as they left, leaving behind the warm glow and empty glasses of a celebration.
The Fonda, you see, is as much a lunch spot as a dinner place, and it’s packed whenever you go, thanks to clever lighting that leaves you feeling bathed in buttermilk by day, intimate by night. Either way you never want to leave. The menu: hard-core Catalan from the trenches of culinary history. Daily specials include buñuelos de sesos y setas de burdeos—fried brain fritters with wild mushrooms (€10), and the much-esteemed if rarely seen Catalan becada, woodcock (€27.50) (...)
(...) there’s a lot to recommend Fonda Gaig. It serves great food in a convivial atmosphere that makes you want to be there—we arrived at 2pm, left at 5pm—and has hospitable staff who are genuinely happy to have you.
One of the shining culinary showcases of Barcelona, Gaig was founded as an out-of-town fonda (small inn for travelers) in the late 19th century by the great-grandmother of present owner Carlos Gaig. Today it's a sleek deluxe downtown restaurant celebrated locally for the quality and freshness of its food. Eggs come from the chickens seen wandering about the patio, where customers often dine alfresco in the summer months. Gaig's cuisine centers on traditional Catalan recipes transformed and altered to suit lighter and more modern palates. Among the stellar choices are arroz del delta con pichón y zetas (rice with partridge and mushrooms), rape asado a la catalana (grilled monkfish with local herbs), and els petits filet de vedella amb prunes i pinyons (small veal filets with prunes and pine nuts). One of the tastiest dishes is marinated roast pork thigh. Desserts include crema de Sant Joseph (a warm flan with wild strawberries on top), homemade chocolates, and a selection of tarts.
New York Times
(...) So I made my way uptown to Fonda Gaig, in the Eixample. With its white walls and blood-red leather, the restaurant epitomizes sleekness, but the menu is down to earth. Part of a trend that has several of the city’s most avant-garde chefs opening updated versions of the old casas de comidas, homey restaurants where generations of Spaniards took their midday meal, Fonda Gaig specializes in updated versions of the old favorites. With a blustery wind outside, hearty dishes like meatballs with squid and trinxat — a potato-and-kale pancake — were exactly what I wanted. In honor of the holiday, I started with the sopa de galet, which I quickly realized was a Catalan version of matzo ball soup, though a decidedly trayf one: the single, dense galet floated in a rich chicken broth alongside a pilota, or pork-and-bacon meatball.
Next came the dish I had heard most about. Canelones are quintessential Christmas food in Catalonia, and I had been told that the only place to eat them was in someone’s home. Fina Navarro, the Fonda’s manager and wife of the chef Carles Gaig, explained: “Traditionally, you eat them on St. Stephen’s Day,” Dec. 26, she said. “Your grandmother would have made a big pot of escudella for Christmas Day,” she added, referring to a chickpea and meat stew, “and she would use the leftover meat to stuff the canelones.” It was hard to imagine even a grandmother making a better version: the tender meat encased in pasta tubes and topped with a creamy béchamel was deeply flavorful but surprisingly light.(...)
