Paradiso at 10: How Barcelona's Hidden Speakeasy Became a Global Cocktail Icon

A decade ago, Giacomo Gianotti pushed open a refrigerator door in Barcelona's Born neighborhood and stepped into what would become one of the world's most influential cocktail bars. Behind the pastrami sandwich shop facade, hidden behind what looked like an old appliance, lay Paradiso—a speakeasy that would transform not just Barcelona's drinking culture, but the entire conversation about what a cocktail bar could be.

When Gianotti arrived in Barcelona in 2013 from London, where he had spent six years learning his craft, the city's cocktail scene was fragmented. There were respected classics—Dry Martini, Tándem, Boadas—but most bars served simple mixed drinks without the technical infrastructure or professional structure that serious cocktail work demanded. The city was open to new ideas and had a deep tradition of bars as social anchors, but no one had yet brought the London and Paris cocktail renaissance to this particular moment and place. When Paradiso opened in 2015, it arrived as something entirely foreign to Barcelona: a speakeasy with international style, skilled bartenders, and an uncompromising vision. Gianotti's own credentials helped—he had won Spain's World Class cocktail competition and placed seventh in the global final, achievements that came from years of developing his technique, creativity, and presentation.

The bar's early success was swift and overwhelming. Lines formed outside. Awards followed. In 2018, Paradiso became the first Spanish bar to rank number one on the World's 50 Best Bars list. The concept expanded to Ibiza and Dubai. The team—Gianotti alongside partners Lito Baldovinos and Joan and Enric Rebordosa of Grup Confiteria—began organizing an annual Paradiso Sustainability Summit. But the real achievement was subtler: Paradiso established a style of cocktail-making that other Barcelona bars would study and adapt, raising the entire city's ambitions.

Gianotti's philosophy centered on surprise, but surprise calibrated with restraint. Every element—what was said, what was served, how it was presented—was designed to create impact without overwhelming the customer's private moment. He and his team borrowed techniques from the kitchen, experimented with unusual textures, commissioned distinctive glassware, and built an R&D laboratory where one person worked full-time on the endless, increasingly complex problem of creativity. When he started, finding distinctive glasses meant hours at Els Encants flea market. Now, he said, almost anything is possible.

The cocktails themselves became legendary. Mediterranean Treasure, created for World Class, arrived in a seashell with vodka, St. Germain, fino sherry, oyster leaves, lemon juice, agave honey, cilantro, and egg white. The Great Gatsby—a smoked Old Fashioned with Macallan 12, white truffle honey, amaro, lavender essence, and tobacco-vanilla smoke—became so influential it was replicated in bars across the world. The current menu, Misterios del Mundo, includes Enigma, served in a human-head-shaped glass, a fresh, fruity, balsamic drink built on Altamura vodka and pine infusion. An upcoming menu called Oltre, inspired by the dreamlike and surreal, will feature Eclipse, a Bamboo variation with amontillado and banana water served in a thermochromic glass that shifts from white to black as the drink is poured.

But the bar's evolution over ten years reflects something larger than technique. A decade ago, customers came to socialize and enjoy themselves, but they weren't accustomed to the kind of reflective, immersive experience that modern cocktail culture demands. The pandemic accelerated a shift: people returned to bars with deeper knowledge of spirits and liqueurs, and with greater awareness of alcohol's health effects. Non-alcoholic cocktails grew from two percent of orders in 2015 to fifteen percent in 2025. Customers now often order one round with alcohol, another without, but what they never want to lose is the experience itself. The bar, Gianotti observed, will never stop mattering—people still want to be there with friends, talking with the bartender, existing in that particular kind of social space.

Barcelona's position as a global cocktail capital seems secure, he believes, if the trajectory of the past decade continues. What's remarkable is that the best bars haven't closed; they've multiplied, deepening the entire offer. And Gianotti's own story is completing a circle. His bar was named Paradiso after his parents' ice cream shop, which opened in 1987 in Marina di Carrara, Tuscany, in a palm-lined area. Within two years, he plans to open a family-run gelato shop with a cocktail bar in its back section—dynamic, playful, where the drinks will echo the flavors and textures of the ice cream. The speakeasy behind the refrigerator door will eventually lead back to where it all began.