I didn’t expect to be in Barcelona on our last trip, thinking we’d be in the village up until it was time to fly out. It was Blai’s mother who suggested a night in the city and who am I to turn down a visit to Barcelona?!
It was a friend in Barcelona who originally introduced me to Forn Mistral, a bakery with two locations near Universitat metro station in central Barcelona. There’s one bakery on Ronda de Sant Antoni and another nearby with a large cafe attached where I’d previously tried a delicious toasted flauta with sobrassada and cheese…
…and a slice of an excellent Galician tuna empanada, both coupled with a big milky coffee.
Their main specialities though are their croissants and their Mallorcan ensaïmades and it was this past trip when I finally got it together and bought one of their ensaïmades. These large round flaky lardy pastries come in a number of different sizes, from bite-sized canape to giant wagon wheel. They’re also available plain, filled with the traditional cabell d’àngel (a candied pumpkin filling), marzipan, chocolate or sobrassada (the last three are new fillings to me!).
Not one to do things by halves, I ended up buying a medium-sized specimen (it was quite large!) filled with cabell d’àngel and between Blai and myself, we carried it all the way home to London!
Yes, it was as good as it looks! Thin layers of flaky lardy pastry, the sweet stringy jam in the middle…..we demolished this in two days (only because we controlled ourselves – it could have gone in one!). Next time, I reckon we could get 2, one on top of the other, into the same box!
Do stop by if you’re in the city though – those toasted sandwiches really are gorgeous.
Forn Mistral
Ronda de Sant Antoni, 96
El Raval, Barcelona, 08001
and
Carrer de Torres i Amat 7 (for the cafe)
Mon, 14 Oct, 2013 at 11:11
I’ve never seen those ensaimades before, but lard pastry sounds very delicious (and very guilt-inducing!) I have to admit I’m more interested in that cabell d’angel though – is it a jam type of spread or like candied ginger bits?
Mon, 14 Oct, 2013 at 23:26
There are definitely bits. Not like candied ginger but more….stringy… as you can imagine pumpkin fibres are! Maybe pumpkin is the wrong word….melon? squash?
Sun, 3 Nov, 2013 at 20:19
thanks for this awesome post. mouth watering image are also attacked very much
Sat, 10 Sep, 2016 at 11:17
[…] heart was broken when we found that one of my favourite bakeries in Barcelona – Forn Mistral – was closed for holidays in August. Alas, it was a good excuse to visit La Fàbrica Moritz […]
Sun, 15 Jan, 2017 at 13:32
[…] went back to my beloved Forn Mistral to try a wide variety of their pastries. I particularly wanted to try their mini chocolate […]