Jordi Mitjà, With Pajama or Without It.Vestiges of Summer Series 2026

Summer Vestiges 2026 brings together the projects of Carles Congost and Jordi Mitjà through a shared field of tension: summer understood as a stage for memory, fiction, sociability, and symbolic decline. Far from a nostalgic or merely evocative reading, the programme approaches summer imaginaries as a set of cultural forms—visual, bodily, gastronomic, and affective—that allow us to reconsider the relationship between territory, identity, and popular culture.

Jordi Mitjà’s dinner-performance, With Pajama or Without It, seeks to evoke both the beach bars and the large popular dining halls of the 1970s through a selection of dishes that pay tribute to them. A cold and festive menu is proposed to celebrate the Pijama, a traditional Catalan dessert that marked an entire era.

Today, almost disappeared from our tables, the Pijama still retains a connection to the equally famous Peach Melba, created by Auguste Escoffier in 1893 at London’s Savoy Hotel in honour of the opera singer Nellie Melba.

In 1951, at Barcelona’s 7 Portes restaurant, Paco Parellada recreated the celebrated Peach Melba following a phonetic and linguistic misunderstanding. A group of American soldiers reportedly ordered a Peach Melba, but in the kitchen the name was heard—or interpreted—as “Pijama”. Thus was born a dessert that quickly became popular throughout Catalonia and became an essential feature of major family celebrations, much like those that bring us together at ARBAR every summer.

And there we shall be: with pajama or without it.

Please register by 14 July at: info@arbar.cat