On the corner of Roger de Llúria and València, one of Barcelona's most beautiful shops still stands: Colmado Múrria, opened in 1898, at the height of Modernisme. Its iron-and-glass façade, with the original period advertisements, is listed and protected as an emblematic establishment of the city. Inside, cheeses, tinned goods, wines, and coffee roasted right there in the shop, as it has been for more than a century. Walking in means making two purchases at once: Saturday's snacks and a ticket back to the Barcelona of 1900. For anyone living in the Eixample for a while, it's the go-to gourmet shop with the best possible backstory.
From 'La Purísima' to Múrria
The shop opened in 1898 under a different name, 'La Purísima,' run by Joan Soler, a coffee roaster and wafer maker. In 1943 it was bought by Josep Múrria, whose son Joan owned it for decades, and the family surname became forever linked to the place. More than 125 years later, the shop is still on its Eixample corner, listed as a historic establishment of heritage value and included in Barcelona's catalogue of protected emblematic shops.
The Modernista façade — iron, glass, and original period advertising — is one of the most photographed in the neighbourhood, and rightly so: it's one of the few that hasn't been rebuilt or imitated. It's simply the same one as always.
What a 'colmado' was (and why it matters)
The Spanish word 'ultramarinos' (overseas goods) tells the whole story: these shops sold products that arrived from overseas, from the Spanish colonies, into Barcelona's port. The colmado was the forerunner of today's gourmet shop, and Múrria is its living symbol in the city: the place where generations of Barcelonans, from the bourgeois families of the 1900 Eixample to today's newcomers, have bought something special.
There's a delicious paradox in its survival: what was colonial exoticism a century ago is today local authenticity. The shop hasn't changed all that much; what we look for in it has. And that, too, is a lesson about Barcelona.
The pantry: what to buy
Múrria is today a serious gourmet shop: artisan Catalan and international cheeses, smoked meats and charcuterie, caviar, tinned goods, premium wines, and coffee roasted on the premises — a direct echo of its founder's trade. The space is small but dense, the kind that asks you to walk in unhurried and leave with something that wasn't on your list.
For a long stay, it's the natural Friday-afternoon stop: the weekend cheese, a good tin, a better bottle. The occasional gourmet purchase is one of the genuine pleasures of living in the Eixample, and making it at an 1898 shop improves it considerably.
A corner that sums up the neighbourhood
Colmado Múrria condenses the best of the Dreta de l'Eixample: heritage in active use, shops with memory, and quality daily life. It's a walk from the routine of anyone living in the area — close, too, to our Barcelona lofts, built for stays of weeks or months.
Our way of understanding accommodation is exactly this: we don't rent out square metres, we give access to an ecosystem — the market, the century-old café, the Modernista grocer. When your Friday shop happens at an 1898 shop and the assistant already knows you, the word 'expat' starts to feel too small. It looks a lot more like being a neighbour.