The last glass-cutting business in Catalonia creating unique glassware for Barcelona bars

Nov 04, 2024

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Emma Monrós Rosell | @emmamonros | Barcelona

First published: November 3, 2024 11:35 AM

Barcelona boasts two different cocktail bars recently named Best Bar in the World by the prestigious World's 50 Best Bars ranking list: Sips, and Paradiso.

But where does the unique glassware that forms such an integral part of the experience in these bars come from? The answer lies inside a little workshop next to Sagrada Família.

Cristalerías Moya was founded in 1952 in Barcelona, and it started with the idea of cutting plain glasses to sell them to gift shops or similar stores.

Then, "around the 1960s, my father wanted to differentiate himself and the business," Toni Moya, the current owner and only worker of the glassware company, tells Catalan News in an interview.

To do so, Cristalerías Moya started to create specific elaborate cocktail glasses for the bars that were starting to take off in Barcelona at the time, such as Dry Martini or Up&Down.

Toni has followed in his father's footsteps, managing the business for the past 30 years.

Now he still creates unique glassware for bars in the Catalan capital, as well as in other parts of Spain.

One of these particular orders was for the cocktail bar Belvedere.

The owner of Belvedere, Ginés Pérez, previously had another bar called Zsa Zsa, whose logo was designed by Pere Torrent, a graphic designer also known as Peret.

Ginés Pérez asked Toni Moya for a design where that logo could be converted into a cut-glass decoration.

"They did not want the logo to just simply be put on a glass. So, from the art I drew certain lines of its silhouette and created an abstract cut-glass unique to this bar," Toni Moya explains.

"I think it is a job where you have to have a lot of creativity," Toni states.

"I always carry a notebook with me in case any ideas come up, so the next day I am able to get to the workshop and try it on a glass," he continues.

Moya also fixes glassware and flower vases, both from private clients and luxury yachts that dock in Barcelona.

"There are also antique shops that want to fix objects and give them a second chance at being used," Toni explains.

Cristalerías Moya is also the last glass-cuter left in Catalonia and Spain, at least that he knows of: "Before all of us at the guild used to know each other, so you knew when one of them closed down because we informed one another. After the pandemic, the last two glass-cutters in Madrid closed."

"The problem with this profession is that there is no generational succession. Glass-cutters have gotten older but fathers and sons have not continued the tradition, like I did in the past," he concluded.

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