Sometimes a beer and some tapas is all we need to be happy. There is always an excuse to go from bar to bar in search of the best pincho: a first date, a dinner with friends or to teach you how to to your guiri friend the best tapas in Barcelona.
After an exhaustive search, and having had to unbutton our trouser button, we have determined which are the best tapas bars in the city and what you have to order in each of them.
And success lies in specialization, so we recommend the must of each of the bars and wineries, because probably what you will be served in them you can not find anywhere else.
Whether they are pumps, croquettes, bravas o tortilla we have decided to share our best kept secret: where to eat the 17 best tapas in Barcelona.
Table Of Contents
- Anchovies with their fried raspa, the specialty of Jai-ca
- El Vaso de Oro's grilled steak with foie gras
- The pump of La Cova Fumada
- Bacallà "a bras" Bar Gol
- The tapicas mañas of La Esquinica
- Can Cargolet artichokes (and their snails)
- Can Marlau's capipota
- The bravas of Tomàs de Sarrià
- The best ciabattas are at Quimet d'Horta
- Contracorrent's Russian Salad
- The fried fish of the La Plata Bar
- The tortilla skewer at El Pollo Bar
- The croquettes of Pollería Fontana
- Quimet's canned food & Quimet, the best tapas of Barcelona
- Taste the fried eggs at Quim de la Boqueria
- Tortillas of all kinds at the Tremendo Bar
- Torrezno de La Carol
- Meatball stew in La Cañada
- Pimentel, roda al món i torna a tapejar al Born
Anchovies with their fried raspa, the specialty of Jai-ca
At first glance, you can expect a touristy place. But its history and reputation in the neighborhood precedes it, elevating it above tourist stereotypes.
Bar Jai-ca is a temple of popular, unpretentious tapas in the heart of Barceloneta . And a place like this should have a star tapa for which they are known throughout Barcelona: Cantabrian anchovies with fried raspa.
A dish that makes flag of the saying with which we started the article, since most of the time,the simplicity of a dish is what makes it truly iconic, becoming one of the best tapas in Barcelona.
📍 C/ Ginebra, 13
El Vaso de Oro’s grilled steak with foie gras
The name is funny, because proud of their own craft beer, they created a special and unique glass to throw it. Delicious canes in ‘pielsen’ glass, and on top of that, frozen.
After opening your mouth with the drink, we tell you about their food: irresistible. You can’t, you have to, try the butifarra, the bravas… and their specialty that everyone talks about in forums, the grilled steak with foie.
📍 C/ de Balboa, 6
The pump of La Cova Fumada
One of the most mythical bars in Barcelona. A tasca of all the life that opened in 1945 and that today stands out for maintaining its authenticity in a city where so many others tend to homogenization.
La Cova Fumada would be a good tavern in any other town in Catalonia, or in any neighborhood away from the center, but in La Barceloneta a bar like this fulfills a double mission: to satisfy the tourist’s desire for treasure hunting and to nourish the locals with uniqueness, quality, good prices and a bit of nostalgia .
Its artichokes, its ensaladilla, its sardines or its squid with onion are essential, but if La Cova Fumada is popularly known for something, it is for holding the title of having invented the bomb of La Barceloneta.
📍 C/ del Baluard, 56
Bacallà “a bras” Bar Gol
The Bar Gol is another of our favorites in the city. This tasca is, as we defined it before, “a house in the neighborhood of Sant Antoni”. From this place we highlight the torreznos because it’s easy to get obsessed with them or their bacallà “à brás” recipe, but you could highlight anything from their menu.
Don’t be scared off by its traditional air or its orthodox name. At Bar Gol you eat well and feel better. Their waiters are Encanto, like a family. Good vibes, good food and cold beer.
📍 C/ del Parlament, 10
The tapicas mañas of La Esquinica
As it is a local bar, everything has its -ico. Pataticas, pimienticos, or caracolicos. The essential? Well, its Aragonese and Navarrese products. In their menu you can find chistorra sausage from Navarra, ham from Teruel…
In addition, you get away a little from the center, becoming an even more authentic bar where you can escape from tourism. But beware, this does not promise you that the place will be empty, quite the contrary. You’ll have to squeeze a little, but we promise it’s worth it.
📍 Passeig de Fabra i Puig, 296
Can Cargolet artichokes (and their snails)
A mythical of the Catalan cuisine of all the life. Can Cargolet is especially famous for its snails, from the basic ones to the snails with crayfish or rabbit. But their grilled artichokes, which melt in your mouth, are something you have to try.
📍 C/ Comte d’Urgell, 17
Can Marlau’s capipota
Can Marlau is the first restaurant owned by Ferran Soler, who was head chef at Albert Adrià’s Bodega 1900. They only serve tapas and dishes with excellent seasonal products, such as their Russian salad or a tomato salad with smoked sardines and pistachio oil.
However, it’s the spoon dish is what makes this bar the official flounder’s paradise. Its capipota, is made with white beans instead of chickpeas, a technique that adds butteriness and has earned it a prestigious place among the best tapas in Barcelona.
📍C/ de Paris, 161
The bravas of Tomàs de Sarrià
Another classic that has been going on for years and years. Edu, from @bravasbarcelona he told us a lot about him when we made the route through the best bravas in Barcelona.
Edu explained to us that Tomàs was not in the number one position in his ranking because it deserved a position above, zero, the lifetime title of the best patatas bravas in town. A good all i oli and spicy oil on top. Nothing more.
📍 C/ Major de Sarrià, 49
The best ciabattas are at Quimet d’Horta
Sandwiches, tortillas and liquor. This is what attracts the attention of this typical tapas restaurant in the Plaza de Eivissa, open since 1920 .
Although back then it was called Bar del Loro (because he literally had a parrot at the door and everyone knew him) it has now become a reputable bar where you can have tapas by the bucketload, and have fun browsing their little bottles of liquor (some have counted up to 3000).
Just to see the local worth going, the facade and wooden doors are original (recovered in 2006 at the request of the City Council). But after marveling at the well-preserved, neighborhood-style restaurant, you will stay to try one of its 37 types of tortillas, or its entrepanes, which occupy up to three pages of its menu.
📍 Pl. d’Eivissa, 10
Contracorrent’s Russian Salad
The Russian salad is another of those dishes that do not serve to test the quality of a place. It seems so simple, but it is so complex. From the quality and cooking of the potatoes to the texture of the mayonnaise. From the type of vegetables chosen, to deciding between tuna or bonito or changing it for a more daring ingredient, as is the case with the one we have chosen.
It is very difficult to choose just one salad, but today we want to talk about Contracorrent, which prepares it with roast chicken. The chunks of well roasted, salted meat give a different touch to the traditional salad, but transport us to the same plane of the one we have eaten all our lives. There are others (the Superclàssic, with tuna tartar or the traditional Buenavista), but this Contracorrent is already among the tops of the city.
📍C/ de Ribes, 35
The fried fish of the La Plata Bar
That Bar La Plata continues to resist despite (or thanks to) the tourist avalanche of the streets where it is located is a surprise and a joy. A Barcelona tapas bar full of charm that charms locals, surprised that something like this can still survive in the Gothic, and tourists, delighted to stumble upon such an exotic corner. In La Plata you can (and should) order many things, but especially its fried fish.
The fried anchovies are the kings of the bar, but you should also make room for their skewer of butifarra omelette and their tomato salad.
📍 C/de la Mercè, 28
The tortilla skewer at El Pollo Bar
A renovated tapas bar in Barcelona that, for some reason, has become very fashionable. Located on the border between the Raval and Sant Antoni, El Pollo has an updated gastronomic offer in which the tortillas are its main hallmark.
The classic omelette is delicious, but they also have tuna and mushrooms with truffle, which make this tapas place a temple to the original omelette.
📍 C/del Tigre, 31
The croquettes of Pollería Fontana
This is not a poultry store (for rotisserie chickens, here); is also not in Fontana, but in the gràcia neighborhood.
What they do have in this tapas restaurant are some of the best croquettes of spectacular roast chicken, a tribute (just like the name of the restaurant) to the grandparents of its founder, Nil Ros.
📍 C/ de Sant Lluís, 9
Quimet’s canned food & Quimet, the best tapas of Barcelona
It is very commendable that a bar specializing in canned food is such a success. Quimet&Quimet is a must stop in Poble Sec.
Its small place with walls full of bottles has everything a canned food lover could wish for: from the most basic (anchovies, cockles, mussels) to its montaditos, such as loquats with anchovies or salmon, yogurt and truffled honey.
📍 C/ del Poeta Cabanyes, 25
Taste the fried eggs at Quim de la Boqueria
It is true that it is not a complicated dish. Anyone is worthy of his grandmother if he ‘knows how to fry an egg’. But having fried eggs at La Boqueria (the temple to tapas in Barcelona), accompanied by a calamari roll with wasabi mayonnaise, is a recommendation you wouldn’t expect to find on this list.
Quim Marqués took over his small territory in the Boquería a few years ago, becoming the owner of the most sought-after stools in the city. Besides fried eggs, we recommend that you let yourself be surprised by their seasonal mushrooms or eggplants.
📍 La Boqueria market, La Rambla, 91
Tortillas of all kinds at the Tremendo Bar
Close to the hustle and bustle of Plaza España, but in a hidden corner of Sants, is Tremendo, a bar that is worth the trip even if you live on the other side of the city, especially if you like tortillas.
They make all kinds of them, the last time we went we tried one with calçots and romesco sauce on top. The calçot was not inside the omelette, but you had to it in it. If you go, you can’t miss their mythical caramelized onion omelet or any of their stews, which have little to envy to those of your iaiaia.
📍C/del Consell de Cent, 12
Torrezno de La Carol
The Carol is one of those places that I wish there were more of. In fact, one of the owners is Alberto Moyano, creator of the blog Occasionally I see bars, is dedicated to reviewing wineries that he would like to see more of in Barcelona.
It is a traditional bodega, where torrezno (bacon) is the emblem of its cuisine. It is brought directly from Soria and between 25 and 30 kilos are shipped every week. You will also find skeins, chicharrón de Cádiz, and a whole assortment of sausages.
📍C/ d’Aragó, 558
Meatball stew in La Cañada
La Cañada is a pleasure. In the line of the bars of a lifetime that have been remodeled to live a second life, changing everything to change nothing, La Cañada is one of those that have left more lifelong things than new ones. Well-drawn beers, good music and a little good food are enough to make a bareta feel like a second home.
And among the few well brought tapas are the spicy Moroccan meatballs, destination of the Republican exile of the grandparents of JuanPe González (Banda Municipal del Polo Norte), the promoter of this bar together with the actor-artist Nico Baixas and Lina Ruiz. Those meatballs, along with the roast pork loin and some selected sausages from Spain, are the excuse to arrive, but the great atmosphere that is always assured, the reason why one ends up staying.
Pimentel, roda al món i torna a tapejar al Born
The Borne’s hotel and catering identity is difficult, because in a neighborhood where the city was born, there are hardly any establishments left that remind us of the city. In a gentrified neighborhood, with a large part of its hotels and restaurants dedicated to tourism, the offer is particular.
In few meters are concentrated authentic cathedrals of sweet that overshadow the original cathedral and restaurants that add quality but that are not always made to represent the local food or to serve the day to day, to those neighbors of Barcelona who seek not so much the exception of going out to eat extravagances in a central neighborhood but the everyday life of having a drink and a snack under the house on any given day.
For them, hopefully, has born a little Pimentel, a good, nice, cheap bar which is what is asked of a neighborhood bar and that is, sadly, an exception in the center of Barcelona. A bar where people cook with enthusiasm, as they did when they cooked for neighbors and not for tourists, and that, in a kitchen with young chefs, means a menu where almost everything sounds like the usual, but we feel like it’s new.
📍 C/ dels Carders, 11
You may be interested in: