Bed and Gluten

For those who are not gluten-free or run in fear from the sight of a baguette, there’s a chic new Barcelona hotel where a major bakery sits smack in the middle of their lobby. Praktik Bakery opened last month in the city’s Gaudi-buliding-studded Eixample district, around the corner from the swank Passeig de Gracia. Praktik, the Spanish hotel group, has three establishments in Barcelona and one in Madrid where their smart, mid-range hotels combine modern and antique elements into sophisticated settings that pay homage to late mid-19th Century European styles.

The hotel is located in a converted hospital and was designed by Lazaro Rosa-Violan- the Barcelona-based interiorista de jour-  featuring striking wood, iron and glass, and 74 minimalist rooms with clean lines, metro tiles and paneled walls. As the lobby is a working gourmet bakery, the subtle aroma of freshly-baked bread coming out of the oven can induce a feeling of night-time serenity- or perhaps a late night carbo binge. Anna Bellsola, the owner of Baluard Barcelona, offers traditional pastries and organic loaves all day long. The hotel group wanted to do something a bit out of the box- or oven- with this concept and introduced something homey, such as bread, within the hotel so that their guests would feel at home. After a stay here, I’d definitely be heavy cargo heading back to my home. www.hotelpraktikbakery.com