Barcelona, Spain, Feb 14 (EFE).- A shop selling traditional ‘churros’ in Barcelona’s historic center is seeing a sales boom, with Asian visitors to the Catalonian city eager to taste the classic Spanish pastry.
While churros have long been one of Spain’s better known snacks, a visit by a South Korean pop star to the San Roman churrería has attracted more Asian tourists to the shop, so much so that its owners have decided to expand the business to Korea.
The eatery in the heart of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter – which has been open since 1968 – has been featured in tourist guides for years, but it gained widespread popularity after a member of K-pop group Blackpink, Kim Ji-soo, published a video of her trying them in Barcelona on her social media channels over a year ago.
“It was a big ‘boom’; although we already had a solid base because we were in the (tourist) guides, that video certainly helped us,” the owners of the business, Xavier Català and Francisco Almendros, told EFE.
The churrería’s owners will soon open locations in South Korea under the same name: “We have given them the rights to our brand and we have taught them how to make the churros, so that everything is like here,” the pair said.
They plan to open five stores – three of them in the South Korean capital Seoul – starting in May and the other two in other yet to be determined locations in the country.
In addition to Korea, the owners of the churrería do not rule out opening establishments in other parts of Spain or other countries: “We are open to anything,” they said.
Outside the churrería, a Korean couple on their first visit to Barcelona, Grace Kim and Yongsoo Sung, told EFE that they had read about it on Korean forums online.
“I’ve actually tried them back in Korea and in other places, but I think this will be my first authentic churros,” Kim said.
Another couple, Noboru and Chizuru from Japan, explained that they had heard about the establishment on Instagram and that, among all the types of churros on offer, the ones they like the most are the “traditional ones, with chocolate”. EFE
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