Italy has its pizza and focaccia, France its pissaladière, Turkey its lahmacun, and Lebanon its manakish. Seemingly every country in the Mediterranean region has its own topped flatbread, and Spain’s contribution to the genre is the coca. The dish is associated with Catalonia, and the go-to place to get the dish in Barcelona is L’antic Bocoi del Gòtic.
The restaurant, in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, was opened by a husband and wife in 1993, yet the space has a much older history; one side of the restaurant is thought to be part of a former Roman wall. The couple specializes in coca de recapte, that is, coca topped with various “harvested” items.
The most traditional version is topped with escalivada, a mix of roasted vegetables that usually includes eggplant and peppers, and that at L’antic Bocoi del Gòtic is typically served with another topping such as butifarra, Catalan-style sausage, or bacallà amb all i oli, flakes of salt cod and aioli.
Whatever you choose, don’t go in expecting pizza; coca is rarely topped with cheese or tomato, and is made with a denser, less-leavened dough that’s closer to a cracker than it is to focaccia.
And in addition to coca, L’antic Bocoi del Gòtic is known for pa amb tomàquet, Catalonia’s dish of toasted bread rubbed with tomatoes and drizzled with olive oil, and has a menu of simple but refined salads and starters.
