"I’ve been coming to Barcelona since just before the 1992 Olympics, that watershed moment when the city picked up the baton and ran with it. Since then I have always been swayed by the new: staying in Hotel Arts Barcelona when it rose up on the beachfront or making for The Hoxton’s rooftop taqueria. However, El Palace, like the Eixample district it sits in, is never ruffled by arrivistes. Locals still call it “El Ritz”—it was César Ritz’s last grand project—and while it officially lost the name decades ago, it clung to the theatrical pomp. The lobby’s basalt-black columns are the definition of mausoleum chic, as if ready to stage a production of Salome. Like all grandes dames, it gives good gossip and drops a few names. Everyone knows that Dalí lived here and once asked the staff to bring a giant stuffed horse that he’d bought up the stairs to his room, but there’s also a wild rumor that Trotsky’s murderer, Ramón Mercader, was once maître d’ here. I returned to Barcelona earlier this year, the first time since lockdown, to find it almost completely awake once more, and El Palace full of renewed zip. A new name has set up home here: Rafa Zafra, the topknotted former head chef at El Bulli, in Amar, a midnight-blue restaurant with ponzu oysters, caviar, and spider-crab cannelloni on the menu. And the rooftop pool terrace has been reclaimed by summer DJ sets and cocktail-fueled art lessons. I even danced the merengue—seasoned boulevardiers can learn new moves too. —Rick Jordan" - Lauren Burvill
