Restaurants in Barcelona

You only need to see the gorgeous fresh produce piled high at La Boqueria market to understand how seriously Barcelona takes its food.

Catalunya has its own distinctive cuisine, shaped by centuries of Mediterranean influence. You’ll find Catalan canelons (cannelloni filled with slow roasted meat) on many a menu. Cap i pota (meaning head and leg) is a rustic beef stew that recalls a tougher past, while the butifarra pork sausage dates from the Romans. Fish plays a big role in this port city, from a single oily anchovy with a lunchtime vermouth to seafood paella with rice or vermicelli pasta (fideuà) on the waterfront. With everything, and for breakfast, you’ll be offered the beloved pa amb tomàquet (see below for its history). Tip: In Catalunya, a truita de patates is a potato omelet not a trout, and red wine is vi negre, literally “black wine”.

You can eat fabulously at the city’s many traditional taverns, often run by families who pass their passion down the generations. But Barcelona is also a gastronomic pioneer. It’s well worth splashing out to experience the creativity of its many Michelin-starred chefs—be sure to book ahead.

And you don’t need to sit down for every meal. Hopping from place to place for small plates of bar-top tapas is an excellent, and economical, way to sample what this great eating city has to offer. Whatever you choose, avoid the eye of the waiters who tout for business at the touristy pavement restaurants on La Rambla. You can do so much better than that.

Lunch in Barcelona is usually served between 1:30 and 3pm when the menú del dia (set lunch with drink included) offers great value. Dinner service usually starts around 8.30pm, though locals rarely dine before 9pm—later in summer.

What Makes Catalan Cuisine?

Much of what Barcelona's feted new chefs do is put an avant-garde twist on traditional Catalan cuisine. But what is that exactly? Like its language, what Catalans eat is different from the rest of Spain and varies within the region, from the Mediterranean coastline and islands to the inland villages and Pyrénées mountains. Like Catalan culture, the cuisine looks out toward the rest of Europe (especially France) and the Mediterranean arc, rather than inward toward Castile. Many of the techniques and basic recipes can be traced back to medieval times, and as any Catalan is only too willing to point out, the quality of the produce proceeding from the Països Catalans (Catalan Countries) is some of the best available. The same goes for the locally produced wine. The D.O.s (domaines ordinaires) of the Penedès and Priorat regions are now as internationally renowned as La Rioja, and the local cava (sparkling, champagne-type wine) is consumed at celebratory tables from Melbourne to Manchester.

If there is one food dish that symbolizes Catalan cuisine, it is pa amb tomàquet. Invented as a way of softening stale bread during the lean years of the Civil War, there is barely a restaurant in Catalonia, from the most humble workman's canteen to the Michelin-starred palace, that does not have this on their menu. In its simplest form, pa amb tomàquet is a slice of rustic white bread rubbed with the pulp of a cut tomato and drizzled with olive oil. Top the bread with cheese, pâté, chorizo, or Iberian ham -- this is then called a torrada. The idea is ingeniously simple, and like most ingeniously simple ideas, it works wonderfully. Catalans wax lyrical about it, and you will soon be hooked.

Catalan cuisine is marked by taste combinations that seem at odds with each other; red meat and fish are cooked in the same dish, nuts are pulped for sauces, poultry is cooked with fruit, pulse (bean) dishes are never vegetarian, there is not one part of a pig that is not consumed, and imported, salted cod is the favorite Catalan fish. Concoctions popping up on menus time and time again include zarzuela (a rich fish stew), botifarra amb mongetes (pork sausage with white beans), faves a la catalana (broad beans with Iberian ham), samfaina (a sauce of eggplant/aubergine, peppers, and zucchini/courgette), esqueixada (a salted cod salad), fideuà (similar to a paella, but with noodles replacing the rice), and mel i mato (a soft cheese with honey). It's hearty and more elaborate than other food of southern Spain.

Vegetarian restaurants are on the increase. Apart from tortillas, few traditional tavernas serve veggie food, and always double-check: The Catalan word carn (carne in Spanish) only refers to red meat. Asking for a dish "without" (sens in Catalan, sin in Spanish) does not guarantee that it will arrive fish-or chicken-free.

In its most traditional form, Catalan cuisine doesn't suit light appetites, which is why many locals have only one main meal a day, normally at lunchtime, with perhaps a supper of a torrada in the evening. Breakfast is also a light affair: A milky coffee (café con leche in Spanish, café amb llet in Catalan) with a croissant or doughnut.

Tipping in Barcelona

Tipping always confuses visitors as some restaurants list the IVA (sales tax) separately on the bill. This is not a service charge; in fact, it is illegal for restaurants in Barcelona to charge for service. As a general rule, tips (in cash) of about 5% should be left in cheap to moderate places and 10% in expensive ones. In bars, leave a few coins or round your bill up to the nearest euro.