La Nena – family-friendly cafe in Gracia |Barcelona

https://www.facebook.com/chocolaterialanena

c/Ramon y Cajal, 36
Gracia

All about La Nena

La Nena is one of those places you fall entirely in love with the instant you see it. It looks pretty cute from the outside with its pendulous coloured lights and tiny tables and then inside you find board games, home-made cakes, and the kind of ramshackle ambience that you couldn’t buy with a hundred interior designers. An old clock dongs the hour (almost accurately) sleepy old-time blues tickles your skin, and customers’ dogs wander around untethered or snooze at their masters’ feet alert for falling crumbs.

What about the menu ?

The menu is only in Catalan but you fight your way through with a little knowledge, a little intuition or just by throwing caution to the wind.

A good tea menu provides decent brews of green, chai, pu-erh, earl grey, digestive, mate, green with mint and yogi teas – all made, we are told, with mineral water.

They also have fruit juices that you can combine using the following fruits: orange, lemon, apple, banana, beetroot, and celery. Or (for a little extra) tropical fruits such as pineapple, mango, papaya and fresh ginger.

You can choose a milk shake – all of which are available with soya milk or rice milk and can be combined with mango, papaya, banana etc and cost from around €4.

There is a choice of hot chocolates such as Spanish style (thick), Swiss style (with cream), Russian style with vanilla ice cream, Brazilian style with coffee (and a bikini wax) and French style –which they offer no explanation of so I therefore quite rightly (probably) assume is served with a striped top, a beret and onions. The hot chocolates are frightfully rich and utterly delicious and served with a side order of proper fresh cream.

Coffees are all organic and can be served with soya milk, rice milk, or skimmed milk. And they even serve a caffeine-free coffee made with cereals.

There is also toast, served on white or brown bread with toppings such as nutella, butter, jam, honey, olive oil, tomato, goat cheese or mozzarella.

Sandwiches are also available on brown bread but also on rice cakes! First time I’ve seen that in these parts for sure.

Nena’s has a backroom area for kids and the emphasis is definitely on family friendly.

La Nena might not have wi-fi but it does have an ambience oft-lost in time, and is completely dog and child friendly. Which is preferable – in my world – to the internet. Maybe you can do something else like play with your dogs or kids. It’s a place to meet and chat or read and a fine place to.