The woman at the frutería across the street from my flat ran away when I asked for a tomato. Somewhere between the eggplants and the onions, she disappeared behind a door and emerged with a perfect ruby orb. She held it to my ear and squeezed. Swish, swish. “This one,” she said, “is ready for bread.”
María José had already clocked me as a novice. I’d just moved to Barcelona and, like any newly anointed local, had been eating pan con tomate – crunchy, tomato-slicked toast – in cafés and taverns all over town. Sometimes more than a slick. But I hadn’t noticed how one plate sang while another spoke in hushed tones.
That day, María José became my teacher. She sent me to see Jordi at Semón for olive oil and good salt, and to Claudia at La Farineta for proper bread. I returned with golden oil, salt like snow flakes and a warm sourdough loaf to join Maria José’s swish tomato. That morning, I tried to get it right at home. I bit into my first attempt and the tomato spoke. It was clearer now, louder than I’d heard before. From that day forward, I chased the voice.
Pan con tomate became a compass, pointing me deeper into Spain. It guided my mornings and set a baseline for every journey. On a recent visit, I was hunting down the last threads of Ernest Hemingway’s Spain for my latest book. There’s only so much suckling pig and paella one could handle, so I found myself seeking the finest examples of tomato bread, city by city. Each carried its own dialect, each one another lesson.
It began tucked into a charming stretch of the Chueca neighborhood of Madrid at Café Toma 1. Warmed by sundry houseplants and a caffeinated cloud, I was handed a plate full of intent. A thick slice of sourdough marked by a grill. A dense, scarlet mound of tomato in the center. A drizzle of fine, fruity arbequina extra virgin olive oil from Córdoba. Maldon salt in a small pile off to the side, to dose as I wished.
The tomato mound was deliberate. “Some things are better left a mystery,” Santi Rigoni, one of the founders, laughed when I asked. With a knife I spread it thick and thin as I went, saving the saturated center for last. Some more crisp. Some soft. All indulgent. The tomato spoke again. I drained my café con leche and moved on.
(Howie Southworth) Pan con tomate at Cafe Toma 1 in Madrid
La Latina neighborhood was next. El Perro de Pavlov Café is said to have Madrid’s best pan con tomate. Maybe it is. Owner Leva Birstonaite said of her tomatoes, “The moment that one variety starts to lose the intensity of their flavor, the frutería sends us new ones.” Their tomatoes are blended a bit chunky, doused with olive oil from La Mancha and sprinkled with flaky salt, then mounted onto a toasty slice of whole-grain bread from the famed Obrador San Francisco around the bend.
It was advised – and I obeyed – that I eat it immediately. The crunch, the sweet, the tang, the salt. The tomato was alive with a voice clear and strong.
I carried that clarity onto the train to Valencia. Vineyards and citrus groves blurred outside the window like frames of an old film reel. I twisted open a screw-cap tempranillo, toasted my tomatoed tongue, and let the country run past.
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In Valencia, the rules bent. At Travieso Bar in the Eixample district, pan con tomate’s vessel was focaccia. Pillowy, fermented, irreverent. Nacho Otamendi, the maestro behind this 90% hydration masterpiece admitted, “We wanted to give our personal take on the traditional tomato bread.” It arrived with more irreverence, roasted garlic for spreading before the tomato smear. A sly nod the raw cloves rubbed on toast by the Catalan herdsmen who stake claim to the dish’s origins.
I bucked the trend and mashed garlic and tomato together on that airy, comfortably salty focaccia. Genius. The tomato spoke low but sure. Softer than Madrid, but still there — and the garlic gave an Italian accent. This was lunch and called for a glass of Valencian Bobal red.
It may have been the wine and it may have been curiosity, but another afternoon snack was on order. A vegan café called Madrigal a few blocks away in the Rufaza. Will Kuchenreuther, the owner, insisted the secret was “simple ingredients.” But his simple meant exquisite Valencian tomatoes, teardrop in shape, premium Andalusian olive oil and ciabatta bread from the vaunted Horno de Valencia bakery. Split and toasted perfect.
Here, you assembled it yourself. I dragged the tomato smooge, pulp catching in the crevices, a ritual both primal and exact. It wasn’t fancy, it was participation. I added avocado, but not their plant-based cheese. The textures danced. The tomato spoke again, brighter this time. Cream meeting acid, crunch grounding both. Another glass of Bobal.
Another train. This time to Barcelona. Enough wine. Sleep.
I’ve known Barcelona as a home and pan con tomate feels the same. Many places in Spain claim the dish, but Catalonia holds it like a birthright. There are plenty of great versions here, but Tapas 24 delivers the ideal. Chef Carles Abellán, with his El Bulli pedigree, serves the dish without fanfare. Cristál bread shatters like spun sugar. Garlic rubbed in restraint. Tomato glossed with precision and salted true. The tomato tasted like it had lived in the sun, and then perhaps in Maria José’s closet. I could almost hear the swish swish.
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After the best of it, there was nowhere left but home. On the last morning, I visited an old friend, Mantequerias Pirenaicas in the Mercat de Galvany, near my one-time flat. Here, colgar tomatoes – hung on the vine to ripen slowly – are blended with good green arbequina oil and crystalline salt. The bread, narrow flauta loaves, are the secret. Owner Miguel Pujol pinched one for me. “We give it just the right touch of moisture before baking,” he said, “so it comes out crisp.” The crackle at the heel was enough to draw me in. No need to toast. Split the loaf, spread the smear, serve.
I sat at my final breakfast, a perfect double espresso breathed its steam, the bread still warm, the smear glistened and pooled in the nooks. I bit in. The crust cracked, the oil and salt rose. And the tomato whispered my name.
