Pompa

A chef-owner at the small stove

The bread comes from inside the house, the oil from a supplier friend, and Carles Pérez de Rozas, chef-owner of Pompa in Barcelona, sets the food around the wine. In Gràcia, at Carrer de Sèneca 25, he has made this smaller sibling to Berbena less a bar than a compact restaurant with a cellar temperament. He opened Pompa in 2023, after Berbena had already given him a working language nearby: seasonal Mediterranean plates, direct lines, and a natural-wine register that keeps the room alert without stiffening it. Pompa narrows that language and turns it toward the glass. Pérez de Rozas trained at Hofmann School, and the discipline shows in the restraint of the plates rather than in ceremony. He is chef-owner here as well as at Berbena, with Pompa under his hand since 2025. The published account of the restaurant gives no named sous chef or pastry chef to place beside him, so the lineage here stays with his training, his two Gràcia rooms, and the decisions he keeps close to the bench.

Wine first, then the plate

Pompa carries over 600 wine references and serves no beer, cocktails, or soft drinks. That is not a flourish; it is the operating method. The food follows the cellar, with small plates built to sit beside bottles from a list that moves across regions rather than remaining local for its own sake. In the mini open kitchen, Pérez de Rozas works with a two-burner stove and a compact oven, a constraint that makes the choices sharper. Hake pil-pil comes from cheeks, drawing on collagen for the sauce. Tarama arrives with trout eggs, a briny emulsion set against the pop of roe. Crème fraîche ice cream takes sea salt and olive oil, letting fat, acid, and cold sit in the same register as the wine. Duck tartare, grilled duck hearts, crispy corn, polenta pim-pam, and Corsican cheese or charcuterie extend the same thought: enough structure for pairing, enough looseness for sharing. The menu stays brief, seasonal, and small-plate in form, with the staff guiding guests through the pairings by preference rather than by script.

The room around the pass

The room is tiny, warm, and close to the action, with distressed walls, vinyl records, and the ease of a friend’s kitchen after the table has already filled. The counter and the pass sit in plain view, so the scale of the cooking is never hidden. Plates leave a small kitchen and meet bottles that have been chosen with more range than the room suggests. Pompa began in 2023 as a project that some expected to be a simple wine bar, then settled into something more complete: a wine-focused restaurant with bread, oil, and the cellar as its three pillars. Its place in Gràcia matters partly because it does not try to outgrow the neighborhood. The pressure stays with Carles Pérez de Rozas, the stove, the list, and hake pil-pil.