Jose "Pepe" Gutierrez started the company after a two-week trip to Barcelona, which he took to take in the Catalan culture and architecture, especially Antoni Gaudi’s work. Pepe has always been a fan of architecture and Barcelona is filled with architecural history. Many of Gaudi's works are scattered all over the city and walking is the best way to see them and to infuse yourself with the locals and their culture.  La Sagrada Familia is quite a site to experience and it’s amazing to see that it is still a work in progress.

​

 After walking the streets and immersing himself in the Catalan culture and cuisine 

he had the pleasure of finding himself in Las Ramblas at Mercat de la Boqueria were El Mercat’s story begins. 

Growing up in El Salvador, as a kid he loved going into the city market with his uncle to sell fresh meats at his uncle's butcher shop stall. The concepts of this market were intriguing. The whole idea of having different little stalls offering all kinds of products, the selling, the buying, the smells, the sounds, the colors seemed amazing to him. But el Mercat de la Boqueria was a totally different kind of market than what he was used to as a kid, with more that 300 traders offering fresh local and international Gastronomic products. As Pepe puts it, "It's a site that needs to be explored once in a life time or 10 days straight like I did for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think that I left my shadow at one of the stalls there.."

​

Seeing all this selection of fresh local and international products created and appetite in him to have other people experience what he saw and tasted. After overseeing the food Services at the International Monetary Fund and IADB, managing high end restaurants in Washington DC for many years, and having had the the chance to caterer to many different culinary and culturally diverse crowds, Pepe wanted to give people the opportunity to experience other cultures as well, by way of their natural cuisine and products. The mission of El Mercat is to source the products at their origin and to take them into your tables.  It's a labor of love to Cultivate, Grow and Harvest these carefully selected products.

​

Bon Appetit!