La Noucentista

When the 'colmado' (a traditional kind of grocery shop) Can Puig closed after the retirement of its owners at the start of the 21st century, Girona lost one of its most emblematic shops that had been part of the city landscape for decades. The owners' son-in-law, Xavier Baig, decided, however, that with some modernisation, the business still had life left in it. And it's true that the current trend for quality gourmet food shows no sign of abating. La Noucentista took over from Can Puig albeit with new premises in l'Eixample, Girona's latest shopping centre, which meant a move away from the Old Town and its gentrification and rising rents. Nowadays, 14 years after Can Puig, customers are once more interested in commerce matched with history. All that La Noucentista was missing was a legend - and it got one: the investiture of Carles Puigdemont, the former mayor of Girona, as president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in early 2016 brought many clients to the shop to purchase the Capricis de Can Puigdemont, a creation from the cake shop that the new president's family has in nearby Amer.