Churros and Hot Chocolate at Xurerria el Trebol (Barcelona, Spain)

A 2025 Backstreets trip to Catalonia included a stop at Barcelona's Xurreria el Trebol, which is likely the city's oldest continuously operating churro shop. They specialize in churros and thick, pudding-like hot chocolate (xurros amb xocolata calenta in Catalan). The shop turns out 20 to 30 trays of long, slender tubes of fried dough per day on the weekends, when they are open 24 hours to meet demand. Their xurros are extra long, thick and very crunchy; el Trebol fries them a little longer than other shops, giving the pastries a toasty flavor.

The original owners of Xurreria el Trebol are married couple Cecilia Martínez and Juan Bacells, who started making xurros in the 1940s. Around 1950, they opened up the current shop in front of the original location, which is now long gone. Although Martínez has retired, she's still an active member of the xurreria labor union, and the shop remains in the family: her son Ramon and grandson Alex took over the business.