Bar Brutal: A Cookbook of Revelations

What we talk about when we talk about Bar Brutal: This is a portrait of one of the world’s best-loved drinking holes and its formative role in the natural wine movement, a two-way symbiosis from Barcelona to the world. Emerging in 2013, Brutal is the place where a legendary cast of winemakers, sommeliers, chefs, musicians, and wanton drinkers have all converged in the feeling that something was taking shape there between the never-ending party and an intimate knowledge of the wines. The book combines multiple, intersecting strands that veer between structure and chaos, reflecting the bar’s own underlying methodology. At the centre of the work is Bar Brutal’s first official cookbook, featuring 26 recipes, while collage sections merge archival imagery with the stories—or revelations—of 80-odd contributors, including Stefano Colombo, Joan Ramón Escoda, Christian Tschida, Nuria Renom, John Wurdeman, Thierry Puzelat, LCD Soundsystem, Peggy Gou, 2manydjs, Gilles Peterson, Aziz Ansari, Alice Feiring, and many more. Photo essays by Adrià Cañameras, Nacho Alegre, and Yago Castromil document the dinners, wines, people, and spaces that bring the place alive by day and night, while four written chapters anchor the story in time and place, tracing the bar’s evolution. Brought together by Madeleine Willis, former Apartamento editor and long-time Brutal regular, the work reflects the same energy that Brutal has injected into Barcelona and the wide world of wine since 2013 and celebrates over a decade of happy, chaotic, expansive service.

About Bar Brutal
Bar Brutal was founded in 2013 by Max and Stefano Colombo, supremely generous hosts and restaurateurs; Joan Valencia, co-owner of the wine distributor Cuvée 3000; and Joan Ramón Escoda, a forerunner of natural winemaking in Catalunya. Since then it’s become a globally recognised epicentre for the natural wine movement—offering countless drinkers an entry point into this world and, just as importantly, providing a space for winemakers, sommeliers, and all ‘wine people’ to exchange experiences, agricultural knowledge, and a specific language and camaraderie before moving off again to help spread the word.