Perhaps veganism may still bring some controversy, but vegetarianism is fully installed among the usual diets. No one is surprised when someone doesn’t eat meat, and restaurants with an exclusively vegetarian offering have grown exponentially in the city. From lunch menu to the haute cuisine verde, more and more places offer an exclusively Verde cuisine, and that is why we need a list like this one to help us find the best vegetarian restaurants in the city and delve into a type of cuisine whose complexity has long since ceased to be a surprise.
Table Of Contents
- 1. Bio Center, a classic downtown
- 2. Rasoterra, green delicacy
- 3. Sesame, the beautiful vegetarian Italy
- 4. Teresa Carles, traditional... vegetarian cuisine
- 5. Xavier Pellicer, forest-colored haute cuisine
- 6. Fat Veggies, the fats that left meat behind
- 7. Cat Bar, the vegan burger bar
- 8. Virens, Michelin-starred vegetarian cuisine
- 8. Pötstot
1. Bio Center, a classic downtown
In a list of the best, the pioneers cannot be missing. Biocenter is one of them, a decades-old veggie joint deep in the Raval, for the city’s vegetarians avant la lettre. Before covid, it offered a free buffet of salads for starters and stews for main courses that made you tremble. And although the buffet has now disappeared, its offer is still outrageous, with a menu at a ridiculous price and a menu that is still vegetarian, vegan and ovo vegetarian.
The Verde hamburgers, dishes with names like “la cabra siempre tira al monte” or “me tienes frita” -which are leek and brie croquettes- and also desserts: the chocolate almond sponge cake and the carrot cake are worth a stop on the way.
📍 C/ Pintor Fortuny, 25
2. Rasoterra, green delicacy
A beautiful restaurant in a discreet location and a way of doing also discreet, but a carat cuisine (vegetables). Rasoterra is another pioneer of vegetarian cuisine in Barcelona. In their case, however, they were among the first to elevate this type of gastronomy, turning it into a truly surprising delicacy.
In the heart of the Gothic Quarter, where there only seems to be fodder for distracted tourists, Rasoterra offers a short, slow-food menu, with local ingredients, natural wines and surprising elaborations. Its lunch menu is priced as a lunch menu but gives much more than a lunch menu, and the restaurant has long been a benchmark for vegan and vegetarian cuisine in the city.
📍 C/ Palau, 5
3. Sesame, the beautiful vegetarian Italy
Italians have a thing for vegetables. The owners of Rasoterra are from the transalpine country and the founder of the slow-food movement himself, Carlo Petrini, as well. At Sésamo the owners also offer an Italian-vegetarian menu, if there is such a thing, in a cute corner on the border between Raval and Sant Antoni. In fact, we already told you that it is one of the most popular restaurants in the Raval and we confirm it. Their menu includes stuffed provolone, their arancinis, their pasta stuffed with goat cheese and caramelized onion with trumpet of death butter or their Indian curry. It also offers two tasting menus: one vegetarian and one vegan. Or as they say: Food without beasts.
📍 Sant Antoni Abat, 52
4. Teresa Carles, traditional… vegetarian cuisine
Although vegetarian cuisine is something relatively new in the West, there are restaurants like Teresa Carles that have managed to rethink tradition to adapt it to this new trend. The restaurant, open since 2011, does something halfway between creative vegetarian cuisine and traditional Catalan recipes, with the pride of making dishes that do not seek to imitate carnivorous counterparts, but to create new categories. They were pioneers in introducing products such as kombucha or jackfruit. Their menu, at 15 euros all-inclusive (slightly less if you pass on dessert), is a treat in the center of town.
📍Jovellanos, 2
5. Xavier Pellicer, forest-colored haute cuisine
Pellicer had a revelation at one point in his life. After many years dedicated to the more traditional cuisine in places Abac or Can Fabes, he realized the wear he was suffering, and began to look at other options. She discovered Ayurveda and began cooking with the energies that pass through the body and wellness in mind. From there comes his current cuisine, which has led him to win the award for Best Vegetable Restaurant in the World in 2018. Here he makes biodynamic creative cuisine, with eco, local and healthy products: what he calls Healthy Kitchen.
It has two proposals, the 55 euro formula with dishes such as fennel foam with fennel sponge and sprouts, and a 79 euro tasting menu offered in its vegan, vegetarian and omvivore versions.
6. Fat Veggies, the fats that left meat behind
Fat Barbies has made a place in Barcelona’s gastro agenda with its grilled meats, so much so that they have decided to give birth to a little vegetarian brother. Fat Veggies does the same as its big brother but with meat vetoed on the ticket. They have a tasting menu for 30 euros, but you can also order tapas and dishes that explore very interesting and complex combinations thanks to the smoke from the grill: pecorino leek galettes, a three-cooked cauliflower or grilled asparagus with pickled emulsion. Vegetarian food treated comme il faut.
📍 Paris, 168.
7. Cat Bar, the vegan burger bar
I still remember the surprise of walking into a new beer bar next to Plaza Sant Jaume with a punk look and finding only strange burgers without meat on the menu. The concept was new, and therefore surprising, but Cat Bar has survived, being one of the first to offer something as common as a burger and a beer but in its vegetarian version. Apart from the burgers, the real protagonists are the beers, with a variety of Catalan craft brands and the legendary Scottish punk beer Brew Dog at the head.
📍 Bòria, 17
8. Virens, Michelin-starred vegetarian cuisine
Virens is the Barcelona restaurant of the Michelin-starred chef Rodrigo de la Calle, which recently ranked 22nd on the list of the 100 best vegetarian restaurants in the world. His restaurant is a true fantasy, with completely vegetarian menus (but with flexitarian options) that make us forget any animal protein and discover all the magic that can be done with a simple carrot.
📍Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 619, L’Eixample, 08007 Barcelona
8. Pötstot
Catalan gastronomy, as rich as it is, has a small handicap: it is not very suitable for vegans. From the fricandó to els peus de porc, through a trinxat with cansalada, a butifarra, a rice with seafood… Catalan food is delicious, but somewhat restrictive for those who do not eat products derived from animals.
The same applies to gluten. From a picada with dry bread to the ubiquitous pa amb tomaquet the menu for celiacs is reduced. Escalivada, bravas… and so on and so forth. Hence the birth of places like Pöstot, a place of vegan and gluten-free Catalan cuisine that is holy water for those who, either by choice or by medical prescription, have to look at the cards with a magnifying glass before ordering.
can there be fricandó, els canelons, trinxat or a vegan Russian salad? Here they seem to say yes, and faced with the simplicity of flavoring a meat, fish or egg, Pötstot reveals a range of techniques to create vegan and gluten-free dishes that make you forget, or at least not long for, your original carnivores.
C/ de València, 204
20-30€
These are some of the best vegetarian restaurants in Barcelona to get our fill of eating Verde. Obviously they are not the only ones so, if you want to recommend any other vegetarian secret of the city we will be happy to hear it.