Bread, tomato, olive oil, salt….for a Catalan, great eating starts and ends there. You need nothing else to make pa amb tomàquet, the region’s favorite breakfast, tapa, lunch and late-night supper. It’s a beloved after-school snack for Catalan children, and a dish weighted with nostalgia for Catalans who are far from home.

A proper pa amb tomàquet could hardly be simpler as long as the ingredients are superb: dense, rustic, day-old bread, vine-ripe tomatoes, some pungent extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. In the old days, every farm family had these basics on hand, if little else—the tomatoes from the garden, the bread homemade, the olive oil produced from trees on the property.
Classic pa amb tomàquet
The recipe, such as it is, goes like this: Prepare a wood fire (or preheat a broiler or gas grill, if you must). Toast the bread on both sides. Cut the tomato in half and rub the cut side into the bread until it is well moistened with pulp and only the tomato skin is left in your hand. Repeat on the other side. Drizzle both sides generously with olive oil—come on, more than that—and sprinkle with salt. Eat with a knife and fork.

If you moisten only one side of the bread, Catalans will think you grew up in a large family, writes Colman Andrews in Catalan Cuisine.

You can accompany pa amb tomàquet with anchovies or with some sliced jamón (ham) or salchichón (cured pork sausage). Pour yourself a glass of cava, add a salad or some cooked greens and you have the perfect wholesome dinner for one.

For cutting-edge chefs like Jordi Vilá of Barcelona’s Alkimia, the classic pa amb tomàquet is a launchpad. Naturally, this Michelin-starred chef has little interest in preparing a dish that a diner can get at the neighborhood tapas bar. But can he deconstruct pa amb tomàquet and reassemble it in a way that will seem both familiar and new? Vilá respects the traditional flavors but wants to surprise his customers and deliver an unexpected sensory experience.

Step into the Alkimia kitchen and watch Jordi Vilá’s riff on Pa amb Tomàquet. (Flash video, 6:12)

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