Category: shops

Dextremadura

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Dextremadura is a new gourmet food shop featuring artesanal products from Extremadura.  The La Chinata brand figures prominently on the shelves, including their line of beauty products made from extra virgin olive oil, as well as beautifully packaged food products, all at very reasonable prices. There’s also decent selection of wines and owner Felipe Romero will soon be organising free wine tasting events, so drop by and get put on the mailing list.

Dextremadura
Zaragoza, 7
Tel 955 516 942
10.30 – 14.30 / 17.30 – 21.00 Monday – Saturday

Wabi Sabi Vintage Market

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This afternoon I stopped into Wabi Sabi Shop & Gallery to check out their Sunday Vintage Market, an exclusive one-day-only event that they were hosting with Mary Jo Torres from Mulita Couture. I was told that this is just the start of regular “every-other-Sunday” events, which will include poetry readings and wine tastings, along with fashion, furniture and art workshops.

Owner María Lopez Vergera opened her bright new space just off the Plaza Encarnación in part to help make people feel less intimidated about walking into an “Art Gallery”, which I think she mostly does by just being herself.  I love the mix of art and fashion, retro furniture and cool chachkas on display, but it’s the friendly and open welcome you get from María and Manolo that really makes you feel at home.  Seriously my kind of place.

Wabi Sabi Shop & Gallery

Viriato 9
Tel. 954 214 065

Bazar Victoria

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A true Sevillano classic and landmark that has been going strong for almost 100 years, Bazar Victoria is my absolute favourite… what? Well, here is where I run into trouble. It is at once a traditional hardware store with everything from basic nuts and bolts to gardening implements, as well as being the best place to find curious kitchen gadgets. Its shop windows display an endlessly fascinating variety of objects and it’s almost impossible to walk by without stopping and being drawn inside. Once there you are advised to take a number and you can happily browse through the crazy clutter while you await your turn at the (also cluttered) magnificent wooden counter.

Excellent personal service is another thing that sets Bazar Victoria apart. Not only do Rafael, Paula and Amalio know where everything is (no small feat in itself) they attend to every customer with genuine warmth and enthusiasm. You can tell they are proud to be a part of this piece of living history.

Among the many articles on sale you can find such diverse things as wooden darning eggs, spinning tops, lamps, cooking bags, marble mortars and pestles, and prawn peelers, made of every material from silicone to brass, sheet metal, wood and enamel. But it’s also the power of nostalgia that keeps people coming back again and again, to enjoy the bustle of customers coming and going, the ringing of the cash register, and all the sounds and smells that bring back old familiar memories of home. Something almost so subtle that it could be trapped inside a cricket cage (also for sale – seriously).

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Bazar Victoria
Entrecarceles 1
Mon – Fri: 10.00 – 13.15 / 17.00 – 20.30
Sat: 10.00 – 14.00
Online Store
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No Photos Allowed

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Last night I was out with my friend Eduardo from Different Spain for a short tapeo. I got to our first stop a bit early so, while I was waiting for Edu, I took some photos of the place in case I liked it enough to put in my Sevilla Tapas blog. No problem. Got a few outside and interior shots and, though the waitress looked at me with curiosity, she didn’t say anything. When Edu arrived he took his iPhone inside to take a few pictures and the cook told him that the manager didn’t allow people to take photos. Huh?

Then I remembered one time I was in El Corte Inglés and saw somebody taking a photo of something on a shelf, presumably to remember a price or show someone at home, and the security guard came up and told him he wasn’t allowed to take photos.

So this morning I asked on Twitter if it is actually legal for a place that is open to the public to ban photo taking and the general response was that it was at the discretion of owner/manager, regardless of the location being open to the public. Someone also pointed out that many museums and monuments don’t allow photos, but in those places you are clearly warned with signs when you walk in. Somone else mentioned that once they were in a London bar and were told they could take photos of the bar but not of the bottles on the shelves (eh?). It was also mentioned that in many railway stations they don’t like people taking photos.

What’s been your experience? I’ve never thought twice about taking photos of the restaurants and tapas bars I visit, and to date have never had anyone tell me I couldn’t. I can’t imagine why they would.

Graffiti Buster

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What do you think of graffiti?

In general it just looks like vandalism to me. Okay, every once in a blue moon you get a Haring, Basquiat or Banksy, but you know… hardly ever. Mostly it’s crappy blobby spray-painted messes that only serve to make neighbourhoods look shabby.

I guess when a building is abandoned, like the one in the before & after pics on the left, and its windows have already been covered over with layers of tacky posters, it’s not any worse to have a couple of guys from a local gallery come and paint that over with their website logo. But many shop and restaurant owners would have to repaint their properties on a weekly basis just to have clean walls for a day or two.

So I was surprised to come across Alexandra Del Bene the other day while on my way home from a walk around the Alameda. She was busy with both spray cans and paint brushes painting the window protectors of the Santa Marta Bar (home of Sevilla’s largest flamenquín!), but it looked to me as if she were doing a job and not just a hit and run burst of “artistic expression”, so I stopped and asked if she’d been commissioned to paint the Santa Marta. Turns out that a lot of people have been commissioning her to paint their storefronts so that they won’t get vandalised by roving so-called “graffiti artists”, who curiously don’t vandalise Alexandra’s stuff. I guess it’s a sort of professional courtesy?

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Alexandra showed me her business cards, which are decorated with pics of her various projects, and it turned out that one – a candy store – was just around the corner, so I also got a snap of that one. Anyhow, we had a nice long chat and it struck me how much more interesting life is when you stop and talk to people instead of just walking by.