The Washingon Post ran a piece on the tiki bars in Barcelona in yesterday’s Travel section. While the article shows the typical signs of a tiki-related puff piece (”tacky” rears its head in the title: “Barcelona Puts the Tiki in Tacky,” and I’m pretty sure that Martin Denny was not famous for his voice), the author is certainly one-up on me, as I haven’t made it to the tiki bars in Europe myself, yet. And it certainly feels good to see Tiki Central get a mention in the Washington Post.
- Barcelona Puts the Tiki in Tacky (registration req’d) [Washington Post]
- Aloha Polinesian Bar, Barcelona [Critiki]
- Kahala, Barcelona [Critiki]
- Kahiki, Barcelona [Critiki]
- Spain [Tiki Central]
January 25th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Aloha from Paris, France
I haven’t read the article because, last month, I visited every Tiki bar in Barcelona (there are four or five of them.) Never mind ‘putting the Tiki in Tacky’, Barcelona puts tacky into Tiki! These were cheap and horrible places, bad Spanish pop blaring from ghetto blasters, awful - truly AWFUL - cocktails (all very bright in color and VERY low in taste/booze!)and it was all just very nasty, basically. One of them even had a sort of aquarium at the entrance, which had never been cleaned and housed a handful of very sad little turtles and a couple of really ill-treated parrots (this aquarium-cum-aviary was about four feet by six feet…very, very cruel.)
The whole Tiki/Barcelona experience depressed me no end. When you visit Barcelona, forget Tiki altogether. Instead, enjoy the wonderful tapas bars in the Born district….