EXCURSIONS IN BARCELONA

The 1929 World Trade Fair was ending in Barcelona when José Luna Latorre opened a restaurant he called L'Hostalet.
From the very beginning, the owner, a man with a strong love of culture and art, filled the restaurant with paintings by various artists, which over time turned it into almost an art gallery.
At the end of the Civil War, when the use of the Catalan language was banned and the names of all businesses were forced to be castellanized, José Luna was not happy with the fact that his restaurant had to be renamed El Hostalillo, so he decided to change it to Orotava, in memory of a trip he made to the Valle de la Orotava on the island of Tenerife.
Señor Luna's close ties to the art world led to his restaurant becoming a gathering place for the city's most renowned artists. Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Eduardo Chillida, and Eduardo Arroya were among the guests. They left their comments in the form of drawings in a special guest book. For the restaurant's 50th anniversary, Joan Miró presented them with an original drawing with the inscription "Restaurant Orotava, formerly known as L'Hostalet," which was displayed in one of the rooms. This gift from Miró became famous when artist Joan Gardi Artigas painted a copy of it on a ceramic mural in 1997, which was installed on the building's façade.
The illustrious history of the Orotava restaurant ended on the last day of June 2005, when its owner, Josep Maria Luna, son of the restaurant's founder, retired. Upon closing the restaurant, Luna decided to auction off nearly a hundred works of art that had previously delighted patrons, including a drawing by Joan Miró for the restaurant's 50th anniversary. With the proceeds, he founded a foundation to help children with mental disabilities. Josep Maria Luna's son was autistic.