There is much that is confusing at first about Tickets, the tapas bar Ferran Adrià recently opened with his brother Albert in Barcelona. There is the greeter in top hat and circus-master rig, the rows of theatre lights like an early Odeon, even a smart bar with another name secluded behind a curtain. The design screams diffusion line. This is no sacred temple to gastronomy, it says. Tickets is tapas as democracy, world-class cooking for travellers and Barcelona families who never made it on the winding road to Roses and now never will.
Many of the El Bulli big hits are here: the "air baguette", a brilliant empty crust larded with Iberico ham (€4.30), a playful take on a typical Spanish sandwich. The "liquid ravioli" (€3.10), the "marinated olives" (€7.80) that look like olives and really taste like olives yet aren't. I watch a young boy close his eyes as his bursts at the back of his mouth. Perhaps best of all, for kids at least, is the Tickets "cotton candy tree" (€5.40): candy-floss clouds studded with fruit and El Bulli essences, served up on a small bush and ceremonially carried to your table. Even the ice cream (€3.50) comes with a trolley and a ringing bell. Mine is made with alphonso mango from a recipe Albert perfected 13 years before with his brother.
It is not all kids' stuff. At the seafood bar: oysters five ways, slices of peerless tuna belly, delicate fish skin served in a paper cone. For those in search of something riskier: a playful plate of rabbit ribs with foamed aoli.
Through a louche, loose curtain at the back, 41° is a cocktail bar serving classics with an Adrià twist and El Bulli bar food. Even here the brothers' attention to detail is apparent: the ice has had the oxygen removed so it sparkles and shines like glass.
Perhaps sometimes Tickets can feel more like a "fun" roll-out concept than a truly great tapas place (for which, sit at the bar at old-school Cal Pep, Thomas Keller's vote for the best food in Europe), but after nearly 30 years at El Bulli, the Adriàs can be forgiven for that.
Tickets Bar, Avinguda Paral-lel 164, 08015 Barcelona, ticketsbar.es; Cal Pep, Plaça de les Olles 8, 08003 Barcelona, calpep.com
