When I first arrived here in 1995, I missed Gap and Bergdorf’s but my idea of shopping in Barcelona was to walk down Santaló on my way home from work so that I could stop and look in at Cracrac. Now it turns out that when Paquita, who’s been working there for 32 years, retires, it will probably disappear.
The herb-scented air, the little bottles and bags with their hand-written labels and the artisan jam with the gingham cloth on top make me dream about a time before packaging was packaging. Big glass jars of honey, with spigots, straight form the beekeeper cry out to have you take a little sweetness home with you. What they do must be a labour of love – filling all the little bags and writing out the labels in the same script for more than 30 years is more than branding.Cracrac has always had nuts and herbs, then candies with herb flavours then they added just plain candy to keep up with the times. But mostly they sell nuts and herbs, just like always, from their green shelves and bins, with their green and white labels and gingham. Stop by to see them before they go away.
Cracrac
Santaló 44
tel 93 200 5523
