Barcelona is one of the most visited cities in the world—and given its abundance of urban beaches, cultural institutions, and striking Gaudí-designed masterpieces, justifiably so. But while the city is famous for its restaurants, much of what makes its cuisine so unique has been lost in the rush of international brands and blandly Spanish dining concepts meant to appeal to tourists and digital nomads.
To this day, Barcelona’s identity is tied to Catalonia, a semi-autonomous region with its own language, culture, anthem, and gastronomy. Despite being part of Spain for well over five centuries, Catalan people are still fiercely proud of their own distinct traditions. When it comes to the food, that means here you’ll encounter dishes combining meat and seafood (as well as meat and fruit) found almost nowhere else.
You’ll also find “fork breakfasts” once meant to fuel laborers, a deep appreciation for fungi, more pasta than you might expect, an obsession with dairy products, one of Europe’s longest-standing chocolate-making traditions, a tendency towards the edible avant-garde, and an enduring link to the Balearic Islands—as well as farther flung points in the Mediterranean.
To steer visitors back to these concepts, we’ve put together a list of 10 venues that highlight what makes Barcelona’s cuisine so exceptional—the type of restaurants, cafes, bars, and shops you won’t find in any other city, even in Spain.
Pizza may have made inroads, but the people of Barcelona still love their indigenous topped dough. Coca is the name of a family of Catalan-style flatbreads, which can boast toppings from sweet to savory—with some in-between. They’re available at just about every bakery in Barcelona, but L’antic Bocoi del Gòtic, run by a husband and wife couple, with its ancient interior and refined toppings, has emerged as the city’s go-to destination for the dish.
A former winery dating back to 1944, this Barceloneta restaurant is the origin of the bomba, a “bomb” of mashed potatoes with a meat center, deep-fried and garnished with aioli and a dollop of spicy sauce—today an iconic bar snack in Barcelona and beyond. With its hand-written menu and ancient decor, La Cova Fumada has changed little from opening day, and today is considered a classic Barcelona bodega.
Opened in 1786, Can Culleteres is generally known as the oldest restaurant in Barcelona (and the second oldest in Spain). But it’s also a go-to for Catalan-style pasta dishes. In particular, the restaurant is known for its canelons, a local take on cannelloni, the traditional post-Christmas dinner staple made with leftover meat. First served at the restaurant in the 1950s, the dish is now its best seller, with as many as 300 sold on a Sunday.
An old tradition in Barcelona is esmorzars de forquilla, “fork breakfasts,” hearty, often meaty dishes the working class used to start the day. Many of the venues associated with the meal have closed, but a handful of traditional-leaning restaurants in working-class areas of Barcelona, such as Cal Boter, continue to serve it. Here, breakfast might take the form of butifarra, Catalan sausage, served with beans, or baked salt cod with aioli, ideally paired with a porró (a traditional glass pitcher) of wine.
Granja means “farm” in Catalan, but in late 19th-century Barcelona, it also meant a business that sold milk—a rarity at the time. Today, some of Barcelona’s original granjas are still in operation, and one of the oldest of these is M. Viader, founded in 1870. A highlight here is what many consider Barcelona’s best crema Catalana, the region’s iconic custard topped with a layer of burnt sugar. The beautiful stuck-in-time cafe is also the place to get other Barcelona-specific, milk-based desserts such as mel i mató, a type of local cheese served drizzled with honey.
One of Catalonia’s most iconic styles of cooking is known as mar i muntanya, “sea and mountain,” a repertoire of dishes that blend products from the sea and inland. Today, this version of surf and turf is getting harder to find, but restaurants such as La Pubilla, in Barcelona’s Gràcia neighborhood, are retaining the tradition, and continue to combine such disparate ingredients as pigs’ feet and octopus.
Barcelona is located on the coast of the Mediterranean, so xiringuitos, or beachside bars/restaurants, are part of the city’s culinary scene. Escribà, located at Platja del Bogatell, a sandy strip within Barcelona proper, is considered one of the better examples of the genre. It’s also a respected entry point to the region’s rice-based dishes as well as fideuà, a paella-like dish made from thin noodles.
Carrer Petritxol, in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter is known colloquially as “Chocolate Street” because of its numerous sweets shops. At the southern end of the strip is this stuck-in-time cafe, opened in 1941, and arguably one of the most classic places in Barcelona to drink hot chocolate—optionally crowned with a massive peak of whipped cream.
Catalonia has a long, proud legacy of cheesemaking, although Barcelona hasn’t played a particularly large role in this—until now. The proprietor behind Pinullet is a self-professed “urban cheesemaker” who uses organic milk from dairies just outside of the city to produce nine different varieties of cheese right in the center of Barcelona, making him the only cheesemaker in town.
Don’t have time to visit Mallorca? Na Mindona is one of only a few places in Barcelona that serves the dishes of Spain’s Balearic Islands, a short boat ride away but with their own distinct cuisine. Appropriately located in Raval, Barcelona’s immigrant neighborhood, the ever-changing menu spans offal dishes, vegetable-stuffed pies, salads topped with pickled seaweed, house-made Mallorcan-style sausages, and other dishes including ingredients such as fresh marjoram and purple carrots that don’t typically make it to the mainland.
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