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Long before Pablo Picasso\u2019s paintings fetched nine figures at auction, his artwork could be found somewhere a little less expected: on a restaurant menu.<\/p>\n
And more than a century later, you can still dine there.<\/p>\n
Tucked away on Carrer de Montsi\u00f3 in Barcelona\u2019s Gothic Quarter, Els Quatre Gats\u2014or 4Gats\u2014first opened in 1897 on the ground floor of Casa Mart\u00ed, an ornate Modernist building designed by architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch.<\/p>\n
Related: Babe Ruth\u2019s Favorite Meal Is Still Served Nearly 100 Years Later at \u2018Florida\u2019s Oldest Restaurant\u2019<\/p>\n
The restaurant quickly became a gathering place for Barcelona\u2019s artistic crowd, hosting everything from poetry readings and exhibitions to puppet shows and plenty of spirited conversation.<\/p>\n
Among the regulars was a teenage Picasso.<\/p>\n
The budding artist began frequenting Quatre Gats in 1899 and quickly caught the attention of owner Pere Romeu. By the spring of 1900, Romeu had tapped Picasso for an important job: designing the restaurant\u2019s menu.<\/p>\n
Picasso created numerous sketches before settling on his design, depicting a scene inside the restaurant with one of its distinctive pointed arches in the background. He also designed artwork advertising the dish of the day.<\/p>\n
Not bad for a guy who hadn\u2019t even entered his 20s yet.<\/p>\n
But Picasso\u2019s connection to the restaurant went well beyond drawing up a menu. Quatre Gats also hosted his first solo exhibition in 1900, years before works such as \u201cLes Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon\u201d and \u201cGuernica\u201d would make him one of the most recognizable artists of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
The original Quatre Gats had a surprisingly short run, closing in 1903 after just six years. Decades later, the space was revived as a bar and restaurant, preserving much of the Modernist atmosphere that once attracted Picasso and other artists.<\/p>\n
Related: Al Capone\u2019s Favorite Meal Is Still Served Nearly 100 Years Later at \u2018Miami Beach\u2019s Oldest Restaurant\u2019<\/p>\n
Today, diners can once again pull up a chair inside the historic haunt, where the current menu leans into traditional Catalan cooking and local ingredients.<\/p>\n
And Picasso isn\u2019t its only brush with celebrity.<\/p>\n
More than a century after the artist hung out there, 4Gats made another appearance on the big screen when scenes from Woody Allen\u2019s 2008 movie \u201cVicky Cristina Barcelona,\u201d starring Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall, were filmed inside.<\/p>\n
So yes, Barcelona has an entire museum dedicated to Picasso.<\/p>\n
But this is one place where you can pair the history with dinner.<\/p>\n
About the author<\/p>\n
Trending News Writer, Parade<\/p>\n
Sam Sears is a travel and entertainment reporter at Parade with a heavy focus on food, travel, pop culture, and sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Get Parade in your Google feed Long before Pablo Picasso\u2019s paintings fetched nine figures at auction, his artwork could be found somewhere a little less expected: on a restaurant menu. And more than a century later, you can still dine there. Tucked away on Carrer de Montsi\u00f3 in Barcelona\u2019s Gothic Quarter, Els Quatre Gats\u2014or 4Gats\u2014first<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[33388,33465,33458,33467,33466,769,33460,33464,120,8377,33459,33461,33457,557,558,5163,559,560,2857,33462,33463],"class_list":["post-43070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spanish-restaurants","tag-barcelona","tag-casa-marti","tag-catalan-cooking","tag-celebs","tag-els-quatre-gats","tag-food-drink","tag-javier-bardem","tag-josep-puig-i-cadafalch","tag-news","tag-pablo-picasso","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-scarlett-johansson","tag-spain-travel","tag-spanish-tapas-bar","tag-spanish-tapas-bars","tag-spanish-food","tag-spanish-restaurant","tag-spanish-restaurants","tag-tapas","tag-vicky-cristina-barcelona","tag-woody-allen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117480944062303264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}