Stop brunch! How a rustic Catalan meal is taking the fight to bland food and overtourism | Abbas Asaria

There are many worse ways to start your day than with eggs royale. The contrast in textures between a soft poached egg and a coarse, toasted English muffin is a thing of beauty, and the combination of smoked salmon and a lemony hollandaise sauce ties it together perfectly. The term “brunch” was coined in an essay in Hunter’s Weekly in 1895, and while you’re unlikely to find too many fans in foodie circles, or among those who have to work the shift (“nothing demoralises an aspiring Escoffier faster”, wrote Anthony Bourdain), they aren’t lacking in number. It clearly has its place. The problem is the place it currently occupies: in our gentrifying cities, brunch has acquired a symbolism that goes far beyond the food itself.
After the quieter winter months, Barcelona is one of many European cities gearing up for another holiday season of heightened tensions around tourism. Feeling increasingly embattled amid soaring rents and an overcrowded, blandified city centre, Barcelona residents have made their voices heard through increasingly voluble protests. Beyond the general “Tourist, go home!” slogan, you’ll see specific pain points addressed via placards, chants and graffiti across the Catalan capital: specifically, “Ban Airbnb”, and perhaps more surprisingly, “Stop brunch!”
There’s nothing inherently bad about wanting a late breakfast. However, the European city’s generic, placeless “brunch spot” – sibling to the globally generic hipster coffee shop – with its homogeneous menu, decor and background music, never varying regardless of where it is in the world – has seen the meal come under fire. These cafes have become emblematic of how overtourism erodes a city’s character, identity and culture: where bars, restaurants and shops serving local communities close down, to be replaced by these kinds of Identikit businesses, which heavily target tourists and can charge higher prices to service rising rents and costs. While some people disagree with the methods of Barcelona’s anti-tourism protesters – most notably when they made headlines for squirting tourists with water pistols – I find it hard to disagree with their rationale. When you, as a resident, feel you are no longer the answer to the question “Who is this city for?”, what else can you do?
This is where Albert Molins, a journalist at Catalonia’s leading newspaper, La Vanguardia, started something proactive and beautiful. It was the autumn of 2020, and Molins created a simple Google Maps listing, which unexpectedly grew into a movement to revive and promote the Catalan tradition of esmorzar de forquilla. Literally meaning “fork breakfast”, it refers to a hearty meal between breakfast and lunchtime, consisting of a main dish, wine, bread and a coffee – typically for less than €15.
While brunch was designed to be enjoyed on a leisurely day off, the esmorzar de forquilla is thought to have started in the 19th century as a labourers’ meal in rural Catalonia – fuel for powering through the afternoon after a morning of hard work. Nowadays, you can find it across the region, typically in charming, old-school, no-frills establishments that showcase the best of traditional Catalan cuisine.
The dishes themselves are a world apart from what you’d see on a brunch menu. The most well-known might be trinxat – a pan-fried hash of potatoes and cabbage, topped with a crispy rasher of pancetta. Other regional classics on offer include fricandó (stewed veal and mushrooms), bacallà amb samfaina (fried cod on a bed of stewed vegetables) and Catalan produce such as botifarra – a lightly spiced sausage, with or without blood. If you’re an offal lover like myself, this meal is paradise, offering you the opportunity to start your day with a steaming bowl of callos (tripe stew) or peus de porc (pigs’ feet). By far my favourite dish, and the one I ate for three consecutive days the last time I visited Barcelona, would be cap i pota – an incredibly rich, gelatinous stew of veal head and feet, sometimes with tripe thrown in for good measure.
As happy as regional culinary experiences and animal trotters both make me, I don’t want to fall into the black-and-white argument of “esmorzar good, brunch bad”. Vegetarian and other alternative options are quite limited here, for example, and Molins himself said in a recent interview that the esmorzar isn’t necessarily “better or worse than brunch, but it’s our history”. And therein lies the key point: it’s a wonderful and tasty local tradition, its revival has been driven by a collaborative, community effort, and visitors can join in too. Here’s how.
Molins’ Google Maps listing, where users could share their favourite places to enjoy an esmorzar de forquilla, gained so much traction that it’s since been rereleased as the more functional EsmorzApp. It’s not only brought together an existing community of esmorzadors (fork-breakfast enthusiasts), but significantly expanded it. Gerard Llopart, owner of the fantastic Gelida in Barcelona’s Eixample neighbourhood, said last year that his esmorzars have become more popular in recent years, with a growing crowd of younger diners alongside his traditional clientele of local workers and older, retired people.
I love initiatives like this – such as the crowdsourced project to champion “the last bolos de arroz (rice muffins) in Lisbon”. True, they won’t solve the impact of overtourism by themselves, and nor should they need to do so. But it’s wonderful to see people come together to share an aspect of local culture dear to them, in such a way that even a tourist can take part. You’d be making Molins’ wishes come true in the process: he says that he doesn’t encounter enough tourists in these traditional esmorzar places. If I can inspire a visitor to Catalonia to do anything, let it be this: download EsmorzApp, and practise the following phrase to yourself in the mirror: “Un cap i pota, si us plau?”
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Abbas Asaria is a food writer and chef based in Madrid