Carrer de Sant Cristòfol, 10
A store like this does not go unnoticed. Entering La Confianza is like travelling back in time to the end of the 19th century, and specifically 1896, the year it was opened, according to a sculpted wooden sign supported by two angels inside the shop.
Designed by the architect Puig i Cadafalch, La Confianza is today the only living witness of a modernist grocery store in Mataró. Its first owner, according to a garland inside the shop, was Francesc Palomer, a maker and trader of pasta.
The store, on the ground floor of an old terraced house, with homes on the upper floors, has modernist ornamentation inside and out that makes it unique. The exterior is decorated in glazed tiles that frame the entrance door, and an elegant and discreet wrought iron sign under the balcony announces the name of the establishment.
Inside, and don’t be ashamed to enter, the walls and ceiling are decorated in floral motifs and borders. The cabinets, decorated in Gothic relief and crowned with pinnacles, as if they were small chapels, are clearly identified with the work of Puig i Cadafalch. And two symbols, the ears of wheat and an olive branch, remind customers what this store’s first products were: soup pasta and olive oil.
Although since 2002 the building has been municipally owned, the store is still run by the fifth generation of the Pinós, the heirs of the first owner, who remain committed to local and bulk products as in the last hundred and twenty years.
