Restaurant Paco's revenge on Spain's gastrobar craze
A documentary about the forgotten dishes of 1970s restaurant Paco has become a cult hit, standing up to Spain's gastrobar boom.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Restaurant Paco, a legend in the age of the gastrobar
The paradox is a hoot: at the height of the gastrobar dictatorship, what Spanish food lovers crave most is not fine dining but the good old menú del día (fixed-price lunch menu). A documentary about the forgotten dishes of the Paco restaurants of the 1970s and early 1980s has become a cult object. Its narration is text-to-speech; its hook is something else: it portrays the era when eating out did not require explaining what "market cuisine" was.
Paco-ism has a canon: the una manola suit as an aesthetic peak, El Sustancia ilegal as its cult film, and melon with ham as a sacred dish. The nostalgia is not just sensory. The Paco model was a complete economic circuit: real ingredients, bar service with character, and prices that did not pretend to be gourmet. By contrast, today's gastrobars are described as a fraudulent era in which the label replaces the product. The informal economy also peeks through: if you wanted a receipt, the answer was "give me your NIE" (foreigner ID number). Today, with the crackdown on the underground economy, that scene is remembered as a museum piece.
A word of caution about the myth: the real Paco was a damp-smelling basement and an owner yelling at you to hurry up. Nostalgia idealizes what was precarious. But, like it or not, a menu from that old tavern beats a franchise burger a thousand times over. How much of that authenticity was misery, and how much of today's is farce with good design?
The paradox is a hoot: at the height of the gastrobar dictatorship, what Spanish food lovers crave most is not fine dining but the good old menú del día (fixed-price lunch menu). A documentary about the forgotten dishes of the Paco restaurants of the 1970s and early 1980s has become a cult object. Its narration is text-to-speech; its hook is something else: it portrays the era when eating out did not require explaining what "market cuisine" was.
Paco-ism has a canon: the una manola suit as an aesthetic peak, El Sustancia ilegal as its cult film, and melon with ham as a sacred dish. The nostalgia is not just sensory. The Paco model was a complete economic circuit: real ingredients, bar service with character, and prices that did not pretend to be gourmet. By contrast, today's gastrobars are described as a fraudulent era in which the label replaces the product. The informal economy also peeks through: if you wanted a receipt, the answer was "give me your NIE" (foreigner ID number). Today, with the crackdown on the underground economy, that scene is remembered as a museum piece.
A word of caution about the myth: the real Paco was a damp-smelling basement and an owner yelling at you to hurry up. Nostalgia idealizes what was precarious. But, like it or not, a menu from that old tavern beats a franchise burger a thousand times over. How much of that authenticity was misery, and how much of today's is farce with good design?
Also available in: Deutsch
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (11 replies).
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