Half a millennium. Few restaurants can say that they were born only 30 years after Columbus arrived in America or during the reign of Charles I and that, 500 years later, they are still serving food to the diners who dare to cross their centenary doors. In Catalonia we have one of them, the Hostal de Pinós, which this September celebrated 500 years of history.
Founded in 1524 in Pinós, in the Solsonès region, this historic inn, with a kitchen that has never stopped working, is still active on a daily basis in the village of just 300 inhabitants where it has always been found. Now, after half a millennium of life, the restaurant celebrates its anniversary with several events but without changing its offer: a daily menu of 14 euros with an unbeatable traditional Catalan cuisine.
The history of the restaurant
Originally an inn for pilgrims, the Hostal de Pinós has evolved over the centuries to become a symbol of traditional Catalan cuisine. Its history, as curious as 500 years of life can be, is humbly summarized in a chronology made by students from a nearby school, which explains that on September 26, 1524, Joan Bertran opened the inn in Pinós “for the sick, travellers, pilgrims and pilgrims”.
At that moment begins an uninterrupted history, that the archives gloss with all the owners that have been passing. There are not so many: the inn belonged to the church, linked to the sanctuary of Pinós. It is not strange: historically the inns and taverns have been establishments related to hermitages or sanctuaries, usual stops on the roads that passed through the less populated areas.
It has then passed through a dozen hands to reach Móncia Segués, a neighbor of Pinós, who has been running it since 2002 after her grandmother had already taken over for a few years in the 1970s.
Since then, they offer a menu for 14 euros on weekdays and 21 on weekends, with traditional Catalan food, quite similar to what must have been cooked when the place opened. There are no recipe records, but Monica tells the evidence: if back then there was rabbit or lamb, and no potatoes or tomatoes, today they keep the meats but you can also see the masked potatoes, escalivada, esqueixadas, cannelloni, snails ….
Why not have a Guinness record?
Curiously, if one looks for a list of the oldest restaurants in the world, the Pinós does not appear, but other places like the Casa Botín (1725) in Madrid or the very old Can Culleretes (1786) in Barcelona do. Monica explains it simply: when the Hostal de Pinós was born, the term restaurant did not even exist (it was born in France after the French Revolution). In addition, the place was born as an inn that gave meals (like many of the old restaurants), not as a house of meals exclusively, and in these lists usually appear places already born as restaurants and that, in many cases, have closed for some periods in their long histories.
For that reason, Monica explains that the Hostal de Pinós is neither a hostel nor a restaurant, but the oldest dining establishment that has ever closed. And with that she remains calm, although she doesn’t seem to mind either. She hangs up the call with the certainty of being in an almost mythological place. In a while she will leave the restaurant to go home, crossing the historic stone door on which, since 1677, is carved the phrase “Veritat és que hostal sense diners no donen res”, which has not been erased in more than 400 years.
How to get there?
The only way to get to the Hostal is by car. It is a one and a half hour trip on the C16 that passes through Terrassa, Manresa and Súria and from there you take a detour inland to Pinós.
And while you’re in the mountains, you can take advantage of the opportunity to do a hiking route that we propose in this article to complete a wonderful getaway to complete a wonderful getaway.