One family.
Two generations.
From Barcelona to California.

A mother from Pamplona opens a restaurant in Sant Cugat.

Soledad Urabayen Arza grew up in Pamplona, in the Basque Country, where every family on her side ran a restaurant. In 1992, she and her husband, Ramón Padrosa, opened Rondes in Sant Cugat — twenty minutes north of Barcelona.

Rondes did something nobody in Catalonia was doing: it served pintxos. Small, skewered bites from the north, eaten standing at the bar. In Barcelona, people still called that "food from somewhere else." Soledad put it on the map.

The Torrija on our dessert menu is still her recipe.

Xavi and Maria grow up inside the restaurant.

Xavi and Maria worked at Rondes from the time they could carry a plate. Xavi, the youngest, played competitive tennis. Maria studied interior design.

In 2012, the siblings opened the first Telefèric Barcelona in the center of Barcelona — built around the pintxo tradition their mother had brought from the north. Barcelona took notice. A year later, Telefèric won Best Tapa in Barcelona for the Ma Premiere Foie Gras — the award that put a family restaurant on the map of a city that doesn't hand those out easily.