Talking about Argentine restaurants in Barcelona is practically like talking about restaurants in Barcelona. One of the city’s most important migrant communities has established its own identity within the city, and if not, just tell that to the thousands who gathered at Arco de Triunfo to celebrate the World Cup of Messi’s Argentine national team.
Many of them would have appreciated (although they probably already know) this list of the best Argentine restaurants in Barcelona where to go for a bite after the celebration. Grilled meat barbecue, asado strip, vacuum, chinchulines, choripanes, empanadas, pizzas… The names of Argentinean gastronomy have already made their way into our dictionary and our palate, and today all butcher shops sell entraña and we all know that an Argentinean pizza is thicker and cheesier than an Italian one.
But there is more to Argentine food. From the milanesa from the Neapolitan to the lomito, passing through the concept of bodegón, that popular traditional Argentinean food tavern. Therefore, we leave you a list with the best Argentinean grill restaurants so you can find everything, and both Argentines and non-Argentines can satisfy the hunger that we have also felt just writing about them.
9 Queens
One of Barcelona’s classics. Within the migrant community restaurants there are also classes, and 9 Reinas is at the top of this list. This Argentinean “steak house”, as they define themselves, is one of the most sought after. Perhaps because of its location, close to Passeig de Gracia or perhaps because of the prestige that has been built by maintaining an Argentinean grill with grills in sight in the middle of the room and with prime cuts that are made daily, to keep them fresh.
Argentinean meat of the best quality and the usual suspects: empanadas, chorizos, entrails and all the cow review for the greater glory of the World Cup country. And yes, obviously, the name refers to the well-known movie starring Ricardo Darín. And yes, the restaurant is owned by former Barça player Javier Mascherano.
📍C/de València, 267, L’Eixample, 08007 Barcelona, Spain
La Cabrera
Those in the know know that a barbecue is not the same as an Argentinean asado, and in Barcelona, a city where the Argentinean community is one of the largest, there are several places where you can learn the difference between the two. Few, however, like La Cabrera, one of the best steakhouses in Buenos Aires, which has just opened a branch in Barcelona.
The restaurant, named best steakhouse in Buenos Aires in 2018 in one of the cities with the best steakhouses in the world, is owned by grill icon Gastón Riveiro, a chef who doesn’t do cartwheels: Traditional grill, the cuts they touch and the exact elaborations. Because here you don’t come to experiment, but to learn the secrets of a way of cooking that has become the symbol of a country.
📍 C/ de la Diputació, 239, L’Eixample, 08007 Barcelona
Laurel
Anyone who likes movies has passed by the Laurel and the most famous Argentinean empanadas among Barcelona’s movie buffs are served right in front of the Laurel floridablanca cinema and more than one and more than two of us have fallen for them after a movie or have considered not going to the movies after trying those dumplings filled with pumpkin and curry or eggplant with honey and ginger.
In the evening they offer a combo of three empanadas, salad and drink that satiates any hunger and leaves us ready for any movie that comes our way.
- 📍 Floridablanca, 140
The Branch
If grilled meat, empanada and pizza are the three points of the cross of any sanctified Argentinean, milanesa is the fourth extreme of any porteño who sanctifies himself thinking about food. The milanesa is just breaded meat, some will say, but like so many simple dishes that some countries turn into insignia, the milanesa has its secret, and in Argentina it has been sublimated.
That of the Branch, emblem of the Sant Antoni it is textbook, with the meat well pounded to leave it tender and a thin batter, served with baked potato and salad, it is as easy as rich, but the magic comes when you order the Neapolitan Milanese, or other combinations, which cover the breaded steak with cheese, tomato and ham (in the case of the Neapolitan) or other delicacies depending on the version, but that make that “so simple” of breaded steak in a work of art.
📍 Floridablanca, 115, Barcelona
Salta Food
Those who are familiar with Argentinean gastronomy will know the concepts of Argentinean grill or asador, but those who have dived a little will also know the idea of bodegón, those traditional and popular taverns of Buenos Aires and other cities where the important thing is the content and not the continent. Home-cooked, hearty and tasty food, bustling surroundings and soul-nourishing locals. That is a bodegón and that is Salta Food, a neighborhood bodegón… in Sants.
Do not be confused by its anglicism in the name. Salta (northern province of Argentina) serves authentic Argentinean food in a place that has no glamour, but it does have essence. On the menu all the classics: empanadas, pizzas (with that divine invention from Argentina, the pizza fugazzetta), meat sandwiches or milanesas, which here are also served Neapolitan style (with cheese, tomato and ham) or on horseback, that is, with two fried eggs on top so that nothing is missing that day. In other words, a popular luxury.
📍Bassegoda, 31
The Argentine
The obviousness of its name is the same as the rotundity of its proposal. No subtleties here, the Argentino is one of the most classic Argentine steakhouses in town. First class cuts (entraña, tenderloin, chorizo steak, vacuum, sirloin or asado de tira), wines from the southern country to accompany and a menu of traditional Argentine food that never fails.
Also cocktails at the bar and live music on weekends. Reservations are recommended, however, as it tends to fill up.
📍 Calle Aragón 224 Barcelona
Don Asador
One of the best rated in the city. They already say it: “non-stop grilling”. What more do we want? In the perennial embers of Don Asador, the grills that are an emblem of the house are cooked all day long and include everything. The classic one includes vacuum, entraña, roast strip, rump steak, boneless chicken thigh, chorizo and black pudding, and the special one, 1KG of selected meats, with sirloin steak, eye of beef, entraña, roast strip, vacuum, Iberian secret, chorizo and black pudding. All of them, obviously, accompanied by chimichurri.
By the way , the parrilladas can be ordered individually, so if you are on a whim, you can indulge yourself and finish with those Argentinean gochos desserts full of dulce de leche, such as panqueque, flan or chocotorta.
📍Carrerdel Comte d’Urgell, 111, L’Eixample, 08011 Barcelona, Spain