- Do you live where you want to live?
- I can't complain. Both in Cala Montjoi, which is a marvellous place, as well as in Ciutat Vella, where I live when I am in Barcelona, I am fine. I don't have big houses because I don't spend much time indoors.
- Why and where would you like to move to?
- I wouldn't change, I'm fine.
- Do you spend time in your neighbourhood and with your neighbours? Do you have the shops you need nearby (baker's, grocer's, dry cleaner's)?
- I live in the heart of the city. I leave my house, walk a short distance and I am in La Rambla; I like walking down La Rambla, and there is everything there, and more.
- As well as doing your daily shopping (if you do it) do you have places and services for all your needs?
- I am very much from Ciutat Vella. I always find any excuse to go to the Boqueria, I like the Boqueria, I have many friends there. Remember that I have been going there for quite a few years.
- Do you stroll around your own neighbourhood for pleasure or do you go elsewhere?
- I walk a lot, really a lot, but I am stuck in my ways: when I go out, I take the opportunity to go shopping. Because I don't buy once a day, but bits of the day, I never have anything in the fridge. Fridges should be made smaller so that people can't fit so much into them.
- Which are your favourite cinemas, theatres and clubs?
- I don't go out much at night. I like going to the lobby of the hotel Om to have a drink, perhaps. But I like all kinds of places and styles: minimalist and, at the moment, perhaps those which are new-baroque.
- And which are your favourite restaurants, bars and cafés?
- Very near the Cathedral there is a Japanese restaurant I like, El Shunka. It has a splendid bar. It is also very near my kitchen workshop.
- Is there any public area where you like to go, to sit and chat?
- La Rambla, and speak while walking. I don't have much time to stop and look.
- When you have to act as a guide for visitors, where do you take them?
- Those foreign visitors who come to Barcelona and who like eating, I take to places I'm sure they won't find in their own country, such as Quimet & Quimet, El Pinotxo in the Boqueria, or the Jamonísimo...
- What is the most appropriate, funny or surprising adjective you have heard to describe Barcelona? Which one would you use?
- We are always complaining, but people outside are jealous of many things, or rather, they are jealous of us. They say it is a very creative city, and it is true. I would add that it is a city of perfect dimensions.
- Of where, between the sea and Tibidabo, do you have the most memories?
- I have lots of memories of Santa Eulàlia, the neighbourhood in Hospitalet where I was born; don't forget that Hospitalet is also between the sea and Tibidabo.
- Which is the best place (a park, a café, a seat in the city) to have a romantic date, or to be able to whisper sweet nothings to a loved one?
- Instead of a corner, I would say an open space: a beach, a sea front walk. This balcony to the sea is one of the good things about Barcelona which we never value enough.
- What colours or smells, when you see or smell them anywhere in the world, remind you immediately of Barcelona?
- The smell of the sea, and the immense blot of blue...
- When you have had to leave the city for a while, what have you missed most?
- More and more I like to talk about feelings geographically. Barcelona is the head and the ancestral home, the casal, of Catalonia, my home, my country, and when I am away I feel a vacuum, as if I had forgotten something very important which I have to go back to look for soon.
- Which of the changes that have been made in the city recently are you happiest with?
- Everything that has been opened up facing the sea. This has been the great change.
- What don't you like, and what would you do to change it?
- I think we should give more help to creativity, which is our weapon for the future. Above all, young people should be helped a lot more, new grants created, and in all fields; art, industry, new technology..., in all. This should be the great target for the city.
- Add anything you would like to say, and that we haven't asked.
- You haven't asked me where I would go if Barcelona closed its doors. To Sidney. It's a fabulous city, the city of the future. Barcelona, Sidney and San Francisco, with their differences, are three twinned cities, each as beautiful as the other. I would have the three.