From award-winning chefs to up-and-coming restaurateurs and much-loved local gems: Time Out Market Barcelona will showcase the city’s best local culinary and cultural talents – curated by Time Out.
Barcelona will soon be home to Time Out Market, the food and cultural market that brings the best of the city together under one roof: its best chefs and restaurateurs, drinks and cultural experiences – based on the editorial curation Time Out is known and trusted for.
Set to open this summer in the city’s Port Vell area, with the exact date to be announced closer to the opening, Time Out Market Barcelona will offer plenty of space to celebrate and explore award-winning and rising local culinary and cultural talents – all of them originating from Barcelona to give a true taste of the city. With views of the city, the marina and the sea, the Market will span 5,250 sqm; there will be a curated mix of 14 kitchens, a full-service restaurant, four bars (two indoor and two outdoor), an events space and a podcast station.
Located on the top floor of the Maremagnum in Port Vell, Time Out Market Barcelona will have direct access from the street via an escalator and an elevator. In a uniquely-designed space, guests will get to experience some of the city’s very best food from a variety of concepts while coming together with family and friends to enjoy their meals – on china with flatware – at communal tables. The Market will be an exciting addition to Maremagnum – a shopping and leisure destination – which is currently undergoing a repositioning to become a vibrant urban hub for locals through a redesign of all interiors, new shops and public spaces.
Today, the first five local culinary talents to join Time Out Market Barcelona’s all-star lineup have been revealed. These chefs and restaurateurs will represent the best of the city and Barcelona’s diverse and vibrant food scene which Time Out Market will make accessible, all in one place.
Having earned two Michelin stars with his restaurants, Chef Fran López will bring a fine dining experience to Time Out Market Barcelona
He was just 25 years old, when Fran López – trained in Barcelona and under Alain Ducasse in Paris – became the fourth youngest chef in the world to receive a Michelin star in 2009 for Villa Retiro in Tarragona. In 2006, Chef Fran López opened with his brother Joaquim Restaurant Xerta in Barcelona where he achieved his second Michelin star in 2016. It is in Xerta where he offers his celebrated mix of traditional and creative market cuisine that rethinks the local flavours of the lands of the River Ebro to offer a unique culinary experience – the essence of which he will now also bring to Time Out Market Barcelona.
Chef couple Lena Maria Grané and Ricky Smith from BaLó will serve their unique flavours at Time Out Market Barcelona
Run by chefs and owners Lena Maria Grané and Ricky Smith, BaLó – the name a combination of their hometowns Barcelona and London – offers modern Mediterranean cuisine with Atlantic touches. Bringing together calm creativity, cutting-edge techniques and fresh, seasonal ingredients, they create exciting dishes full of unique flavours which they will now also bring to Time Out Market Barcelona. Trained in top restaurants – Chef Lena Maria Grané in Barcelona and in London where she met Chef Ricky Smith – they brought their ideas together and opened the culinary gem that is BaLó which has since been recognised with a Michelin Bib Gourmand and celebrated on Time Out Barcelona’s list of the city’s best restaurants.
Darvaza will play with fire at Time Out Market Barcelona to offer grilled dishes
Darvaza is a barbecue-focused restaurant loved for its high-quality ingredients that are grilled, smoked and flamed. Darvaza, named after a crater that burns at 400°C in Turkmenistan, offers a fine dining experience in which every dish has a touch of ember, fire or smoke resulting in very characteristic flavours. The menu will feature essentials such as aged ribeye croquettes and a special selection of the best cuts of meat where the chop plays a pivotal role.
Can Ros Barceloneta will bring their much-loved rice dishes to Time Out Market Barcelona
Run by the same family for more than a century, Can Ros offers tradition with a creative flair at a great budget – it’s one of the city’s much-loved and well-respected local gems. In addition to cooking classical rice dishes, Chef Jordi Ballester creates new seasonal and flavourful recipes made with seafood bought daily at La Barceloneta's fish market which competes with the city’s most iconic paellas.
Casa Amàlia’s traditional Catalan cuisine will come to Time Out Market Barcelona’s full-service restaurant
Time Out Market Barcelona will offer, alongside its 14 kitchens, a full-service restaurant which will be home to Casa Amàlia – one of the city’s emblematic places, since 1950, using the freshest seasonal and local produce to create traditional Catalan cuisine based on innovative culinary techniques.
In the lead up to the opening, Time Out Market Barcelona will announce further additions to its curated lineup, an exciting beverage programme, as well as how local culture will be part of this unique experience.
Silvia Nuri, General Manager of Time Out Market Barcelona said: “I am very proud to be opening Time Out Market Barcelona, together with a fantastic team. At the heart of what we do is celebrating the best of the city – from award-winning chefs and much-loved local gems to up-and-coming talents and rising artists. Everything will be local and homegrown. Just as important as the culinary and cultural experiences will be to make Time Out Market a hub for the people of Barcelona – we want to rediscover the port and make this a space where locals can connect with each other and enjoy everything that we love about our city.”
To curate a Time Out Market, the team comes up with a list of the types of cuisines that make a city the vibrant culinary destination it is to then curate a list of the leading, most exciting and most aspirational local representatives in these cuisines. Part of this process is to try and test to discover the best of the city right now and then invite the very best to join. However, this is not just about 'big names'; the city’s up-and-coming chefs and much-loved local gems will also be proudly featured, all showcasing their skills and creativity.
Making the people of the city feel at home and a close connection with the city is at the heart of the Time Out Market philosophy which is dedicated to working with local companies and suppliers. As a meaningful addition to the neighbourhood, it will bring significant contribution to the local economy through employment across a variety of skills and new opportunities for homegrown talent.
This will be Time Out Market’s first location in Spain. Having started in Lisbon in 2014 as the world’s first editorially-curated food and cultural market, Time Out Market has since opened in other cities and there are currently seven open Markets with more to come – and while this is now a concept popular across several cities, the execution of each Market is distinctly local, for locals by locals.
Time Out Market is rooted in the heritage of Time Out – a publication created at a kitchen table in London in 1968 to help people go out better and discover the exciting new urban cultures that had started up all over the city. Today, a global team of local expert journalists are curating the best things to do, see and eat in 333 cities in 59 countries (in Barcelona since 2008) across websites, social media, video, podcast, newsletters and live events; now this curation is also brought to life at Time Out Market.
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Notes to editors
For further information, please contact: pr[@]timeoutmarket.com
About Time Out Market
Time Out Market is the world’s first editorially-curated food and cultural market, bringing a city’s best chefs, restaurateurs, drinks and cultural experiences together under one roof. From award-winning chefs to much-loved local gems, from cooking classes with top chefs to installations from local artists and live entertainment, Time Out Market captures and celebrates the best of the city. The first Time Out Market opened in 2014 in a historic market hall in Lisbon, quickly turning into one of the most popular destinations in the city. The success of Lisbon brought further expansion and the portfolio currently includes seven Markets in cities such as New York, Montreal, Dubai and Cape Town, several new locations with expected opening dates in 2024 and beyond, in addition to a pipeline of further locations in advanced discussions. Time Out Market is part of Time Out Group PLC (AIM: TMO), a global media and hospitality business that inspires and enables people to experience the best of the city through its two divisions – Time Out Media and Time Out Market. Time Out launched in London in 1968 to help people discover the exciting new urban cultures that had started up all over the city – today it is the only global brand dedicated to city life. Expert journalists curate and create content about the best things to do, see and eat across 333 cities in 59 countries, and across a unique multi-platform model spanning both digital and physical channels.