Month: November 2017

Photo: Adrià Goula [Originally published in Frame Magazine #118] In creating Tunateca Balfegó Espai Gastronómic, a restaurant dedicated exclusively to dishes prepared with Atlantic bluefin tuna (atún rojo in Spanish, an allusion to the deep red colour of the raw meat), acclaimed Barcelona studio El Equipo Creativo was tasked with both the interiors and the concept of the somewhat unusual establishment. The project is the brainchild of a family from the small coastal town of L’Ametlla de Mar, in the neighbouring province of Tarragona. Having fished the Mediterranean for five generations, the Balfegós are renowned for supplying top chefs around the world with this highly prized delicacy. Don’t be confused: despite its name, the Atlantic bluefin also populates the waters of the Mediterranean. “We were commissioned to design a gastronomic space that would promote Atlantic bluefin tuna as a quality product and, at the same time, make it known to the general public,” says El Equipo Creativo partner Natali Canas del Pozo. “We worked closely with the Balfegó family from the very beginning, at the conceptual stage, even before a space had been found.” The challenge, she explains, “was to create a showroom or ‘flagship store’ for a brand of tuna – and to do for that brand what has been so successfully done with Iberian ham: make it widely known as a local product of a very high quality.” To achieve...