Barely a week ago the emblematic Pinotxo Bar at Barcelona's central Mercat de la Boqueria announced that it had been sold and ownership was changing hands. History, however, has just taken a sudden turn: Bar Pinotxo has raised the rollers again, and it has done so with its old name.
Doubts about the future of Pinotxo have been consigned to a new chapter in the long history of the bar itself. After agreement proved impossible among the family members who managed it, the team responsible for another establishment at the Boqueria market have acted quickly to keep the flame burning: we are talking about the nearby Bar Central.
Finally, the managers of another Boqueria market establishment have acted quickly to keep the Pinotxo's flame burning: we are talking about the nearby Bar Central.
Will the essence of the place remain? Will they still offer the same dishes? Speaking to local TV channel Betevé, the new management at the Pinotxo bar assures that this will be the case. "The essence of the product, the friendliness and joyfulness that characterized the old Pinotxo bar", they say, will be respected in this new era for the classic bar just off the Rambla.
The menu being offered as the bar reopens has also appeared and, on the face of it, the promise of the new team, for now, is being fulfilled. Navalles gallegues, bonítol en escabetx, empedrat de bacallà, capipota.... Will they be as good as those we have enjoyed for so many vermuts?