Fonda Europa

Granollers, Spain

Fonda Europa opened in Granollers in 1771, making it one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in Spain. Granollers sits in the Vallès Oriental comarca, northeast of Barcelona, in the heart of the white bean country that produces mongetes del ganxet. The restaurant occupies a building on the Plaça de la Porxada in the town centre and has served Catalan cooking to travellers and locals for more than two centuries. The botifarra amb mongetes here is a reference version: the beans come from local farms in the Vallès, the sausage from Osona producers. The menu also covers escudella de pagès, cap i pota (calf's head and trotter stew), and grilled meats. Fonda Europa functions as a hotel as well as a restaurant. The dining room maintains its original tile floor and wooden beams. Reservations are required for lunch on market days in Granollers.

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Sausages served here

Butifarra

Catalonia, Spain

Butifarra is Catalonia's fresh white sausage, built on lean pork and back fat, seasoned with white wine, pine nuts, salt, and white pepper. The white wine tenderises the grind and carries the pine nut's oil through the mix; the result is a sausage with a pale, dense interior and a faint sweetness that disappears the moment the heat hits it. It is the centrepiece of botifarra amb mongetes, the Catalan dish of grilled sausage with stewed white beans, which appears on virtually every traditional restaurant menu between Barcelona and the Pyrenees. The sausage exists alongside its blood-filled counterpart, the butifarra negra, but the blanca is the one that anchors Catalan cooking as a weekday staple. PGI protection covers the broader category under Botifarra Catalana, fixing standards for pork content, casing, and seasoning.

porkSpainCatalonia