Popular ‘food trucks’ are now fashion in Barcelona. Several festivals of food on wheels and a varied gastronomy make them increase in number and improve in quality.
After decades of success in the United States, the international trend of selling food on the streets has arrived to our country. It’s an opportunity to taste a whole world of culinary specialities within an informal and relaxed environment.
Every day, dozens of food trucks prepare urban food on the go, with an excellent quality and at a good price.
Festivals like Eat Street, initiatives like Van Van Market, frequent fairs like Palo Alto Market and pop-up stores events like Rec de Igualada gather these travelling stalls.
These initiatives can be the link between cuisine and culture (All Those Food Market) or cuisine and music (SoundEat!), considering the complete programmes that are available.
1st edition of SoundEat! Barcelona from Soundeat on Vimeo.
While those in the industry restore old caravans and vintage trucks, cooks dream of taking their dishes to all the corners of the world.
This is the world of food trucks in Barcelona!
Trendy food trucks
High-quality food has a new window ‘with wheels’. Tough municipal law and other barriers found by entrepreneurs do not constitute an obstacle for the real cuisine artists.
After having conquered the United States, food trucks became also popular in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and France. Now, they’re coming to our country to make foodies fall in love.
What about their gastronomy? They’re far from offering fast food or insipid dishes. Food trucks recover the simple form from which high-quality gastronomy is born.
What about the restaurant? Keeping their vintage style, caravans and trucks from the 60s or 70s are equipped with kitchens in order to be able to serve dishes on the go around the whole geography.
Is this a trend? Trends do not usually last too long, but that’s not the case of a good gastronomy. The advantage is that they can park anywhere and sell their product in parks or on avenues, as it happens in New York.
For now, the city of Barcelona has a good collection of food trucks that are worth knowing and tasting.
Entrepreneurs behind the wheel
Food trucks are aimed at making clients enjoy good gastronomy, but also at helping good cooks to start their own adventure.
Eureka Street Food is a good example of this. It’s a cooking business, whose owners, Priscilla and Gastón, offer food from California. From their old Citroën HY dated 1974, they offer burgers, tacos, ceviche, nachos and quesadilla around all the destinations.
Whenever, Wherever from Eureka Street Food on Vimeo.
Food trucks aren’t only for people from Barcelona. Fernando Gaya is from Sant Pere de Ribes, who, with 57 years of age, decided to sell his delicious organic pitas in Rolling Pita. It’s a real chef behind the wheel.
With thirty years old less, young Roger is a real expert in croquettes, a home-made delicatessen prepared in Santa Perpetua de la Mogoda. Its business is called Reina Croqueta.
Owners of Caravan Made aren’t particularly interested in the business filosophy. Silvia is a publicist and Javi is a former cook of Celler de Can Roca. Their nomadic souls decided to get on a caravan in order to take their delicious sandwiches everywhere.
Also with restless souls, the owners of Rooftop Smokehouse, Jakob and Buster, are experts in smoked food. Far from the culinary monotony, their cuisine is a valuable discovery for those who love tasting new flavours.
A good coffee can’t be missing after this explosion of flavours. You can have it on the go in Skye Coffee. Its owner, British Skye Maunsell, has the secret of the best Right Side Coffee of Castelldefels.
Flavours from the whole world
The wide array of gastronomic options offered by food trucks is quite varied and international.
In Barcelona, there’re Italian proposals, like La Porchetta, a place named after its main dish, where delicious boned pork meat is cooked on the barbecue.
Gastronomy by Fuxia Barcelona, also from Italy, offers a much lighter and healthier food. Inspired by traditional piadina. Its menu includes Iberic tapas and diverse snacks.
The culinaty trip continues throughout Asia. Yango Urban Food is the travelling business of cheff Carles Abellan. On its menu, we can find 9 types of ‘hot dogs’, accompanied with sauces and toppings, taking the influence of nine international cuisines.
Looking for Indian cuisine roots, Masala’73 has gained special attention with its kati rolls, combined with home-made chapati bread prepared with organic flour. Its star dish is Pork Vindaloo Masala, a roll of secreto ibérico (cut of meat literally translated as ‘Iberian Secret’) with a delicious sauce.
The journey continues towards the north of America, where Corazón de Agave comes from. It’s a mixture of flavours with tipically Mexican dishes.
Corazón de Agave. Mexican food truck. from lukazfilms on Vimeo.
Lady Buti defines itself as ‘the Catalan sausage food truck’. This Butipà truck offers a wide variety of home-made sandwiches, where the sausage is the main character. Some of the specialities are escalibada, mushrooms, lamb, tofu or pinchos.
The sausage is a home-made product that is constantly evolving. Mr Frank and the Butis reinvents such product in its spectacular sandwiches with special names, like butibàsic, butibric, butibacon, all of them coming from the Spanish word for sausage, that is, ‘butifarra‘.
The journey reaches the end with desserts, a sweet of salty moment, in which La Rika introduces its delicious croissants with seasonal products, prepared at the bottom of Montseny Mountain.
Other specialities to accompany any dish are in Gela’t, which offers home-made ice-cream, or in Chök, with more than 30 different types of chocolate.
Delights on wheels make everyone stop during any journey.
