Barcelona's Independent Review Website

Hook
Click here to view map Despite my education in the joys of Barcelona theme bars I’m beginning to wonder if there is a limit to the pleasure I can extract from drinking whilst surrounded by a particular range of memorabilia / convincingly resculpted interior walls. In fact I find myself faced with the eternal dilemma; just how much of a novelty is a novelty bar in a city filled with them? It was with apprehension that I finally entered the often passed but never seriously considered “Hook.” No, it’s not an angling themed bar, or a pub decked out like an abattoir. Hook is a Barcelona bar with a Peter Pan theme. The place is covered with slightly musty looking figurines and memorabilia relating to the story’s characters and their various incarnations from stage and screen. There is an uber-tacky but life size Captain Hook waiting to greet you and have his photo taken, staff dressed up like pirates and, perhaps more confusingly, one wall given over to photos of Tina Turner – who I suppose some might consider to have Pan-like qualities. There is also nautical paraphernalia, Golden-age-Hollywood posters and a number of unidentifiable artefacts which all add to the strange mishmash of influences the bar’s owners have opted for, presumably upon discovering that they didn’t have enough J.M Barry related memorabilia to go round. On paper it may appear to be the most cynically tacked together bar in history, but there’s something about Hook that makes it actually quite attractive. While I don’t believe it quite fulfils the potential that a pure pirate themed bar might have, the memorabilia appears to have been lovingly assmebled, the mood of the bar is very nice – unless you happen to be seated directly in the sights of the frighteningly unconvincing Captain - and the drinks are not overpriced, including the themed cocktails, with such alcoholic delights on offer as a "Dead Man's Chest" and "Peter's San Francisco." We can be thankful that the owners opted for the darkly menacing baddy as the central motif of the place as opposed to the Disney-gooiness of the little fairy, or even Pan himself. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the bar though is the building it is housed in. The Palau Mornau, itself a 16th century edifice, was purportedly used during the Peninsular Wars for hanging prisoners and I have heard claims that you can see hooks and nails within Hook used for this very purpose. Further rumours claim that there are a series of escape tunnels leading from the bar to the safety of who knows where! Now there’s an idea! How about a Napoleonic war themed bar with a life size version of the little Emperor himself? Or a corporal punishment themed bar with electric chairs and live hangings!!! Hmmm… perhaps not.