If your plan is to eat out, because we do not always have time for the tupper, but you’re sick of having to spend a fortune, we have good news: eating well and cheaply in Barcelona, without ruining yourself, is possible.
Because yes, we all deserve to be able to eat well and at a good price despite inflation. That’s why we have selected the best cheap restaurants in Barcelona, ranging from Italian, Moroccan and Greek, to the typical neighborhood bar where you can order some good croquettes so you can fill your stomach to your heart’s content. So, the next time your stomach itches but you don’t want to scratch your pocket, we hope you will remember us.
Quick Greek: a Greek take away, good and fast
If you’re craving kebab but don’t feel like finishing a whole one, Quick Greek is what you’re looking for. Cheap, fast and dirty food, but without going overboard.
The variety of the offer of this take away is brutal for its small size (in fact they also have a store): a spectacular hummus, a gyros (pork, chicken or mixed) from 3,50€ that is ambrosia for the hangover or a hippie falafel.
📍 Carrer General Álvarez de Castro, 5
Pizzeria da Nanni,authentic Neapolitan pizza, individual size.
This Neapolitan place is called Pizzeria da Nanni and not only has the cheapest pizzas we have found in the city, but also holds a respectable position among the best in Barcelona.
Cooked in an oven that only takes a couple of minutes, here you can enjoy a margherita pizza for only 3€. The pizzas are small, individual size, about four portions, and the prices go up depending on the ingredients, but the prices are still more than affordable. For example, their delicious eggplant, smoked provola and goat cheese pizza is only 4.5€.
📍 Carrer de la Llibreteria, 10
Bismilla Kebabish: a mythical kebab in Raval
At Bismillah they cook everything. And when we say everything, we mean that they even bake their own naan bread, which we personally prefer to take it alone, as a snack, because in its kebab version it is too powerful a bomb.
For only 4€ you have one of the best shawarmas in Barcelona, a complete lunch that, for a few euros, leaves the most demanding satisfied.
📍 Carrer de Joaquín Costa, 22
Bar Sanz, luxury and cheap sandwiches in the heart of Borne
The clientele of Bar Sanz are the people of the neighborhood, the workers who stop there to eat a sandwich for between three and four euros. Its metal bar and stools are part of an increasingly unusual postcard.
They also have a daily menu and a huge dog that waits for its owner at the door every afternoon. The virtues of this place are its prices and the value of the everyday. Also the nostalgia of going back to where you’ve always been, even if you were born far away. And because yes, eating well and cheaply in Barcelona is still possible.
📍 Carrer d’Astúries, 67
La Paloma Banca, a Moroccan place to lick your fingers.
This is one of our favorite places in the Raval. The living example that you can survive without inflating prices, without Instagram, without cute dishes and with no more branding strategy than a real cuisine, great and at a good price. Here they have a round chickenpastries for just 3€ and with which you can eat.
And you can’t miss their Moroccancrepes with cheese and honey, for the reasonable price of one and a half euros.
📍 Carrer de l’Hospital, 126
Bar Monterrey, esmorzars de forquilla and hamburgers top
This is an old-fashioned bar, one of those where they serve the cortado in a crystal glass and where you can have a bikinihuevo for breakfast or a carajillo in the middle of the afternoon.
More than a bar, it is a meeting place for neighbors, families and friends to share their two star dishes: the Chicago and Hamburg hamburgers . And if you can’t decide between the two, even if it’s not on the menu, you can always join them to order a Chicahamburgo, get the best of both worlds and leave with the feeling that cheap food doesn’t always end up being expensive.
📍 Carrer Major de Sarrià, 68
Chickens and croquettes, the fantasy of many
Half a chicken for 5€ and up to eight varieties of croquettes for only 1€ a piece. Is there any meal more filling and cheaper than this? This bar is a fantasy: wooden chairs and blue vichy tablecloths make you feel at home even if it’s your first time there. And, as the name suggests, it specializes in croquettes and chicken: the dream of many of us.
If you are one of those who like the basics, you will find chicken croquettes, although we recommend that you dare to try one of escalivada and goat cheese or mushrooms with foie gras.
📍 Carrer Sant Roc, 24
Foni, gambian dishes and mojitos to wash them down.
If you want to eat well and leave drunk at a good price this is your place. At Foni you will find huge plates of typical Gambian food and, unless you want to share them, you will have to order half portions, since the full plate, which costs around 8€, can only be finished if there are two of you.
A bomb you will need to fill the tank before ordering their mojitos at three euros. We recommend that you wear baggy pants or, at least, the kind where you can unbutton the button. By the way, their mafe is also prepared in vegetable format, so cheap vegetarian food seekers, welcome.
📍 Carrer Est, 9
The Pan’s Club,quiches for all tastes.
Quiche lovers, this is your place! At The Pan’s Club you can choose from 18 different types of quiche for only 4,90€ each. So if dinner time catches you in the middle of the Born, and all the offer of restaurants at tourist prices overwhelms you, do not panic, because here you will find cheap and complete dishes.
📍 Plaça de la Llana, 16
Patatas Sultán, this one needs no explanation
If you are from Barcelona it is (almost) impossible that you don’t know the mythical potatoes at 1€ of the Raval. We don’t know if it’s the spices they add, the free ketchup bar or simply that they cost 1€, but, for one reason or another, these potatoes have been causing a furor for years among the young people of the city.
And, although we know that just a few fries are not a complete lunch, you can complete your menu with sandwiches or rice with falafel for less than 5€. Of course, at your own risk, we don’t take care of it.
📍 Carrer de Joaquín Costa, 56
Chen Ji (and other Chinese restaurants in Arc de Triomf)
A wanton soup for 4,5€ and a plate of noodles with vegetables for 6€. And menu ready. From here, the sky is the limit, and if you know how to look you will still find a Chinese restaurant in the area that offers a lunch menu, where for less than 10 euros you can take a school tray, with several compartments, and serve yourself from the buffet where they offer several choices of vegetables, stewed meats, soup and, of course, rice.
And as I said, whether at Chen Ji, or in any Chinese restaurant in the area, eating in these places is still one of the great cheap luxuries of the city.
📍 Carrer d’Alí Bei, 65, L’Eixample
Choripa
That Argentinians in Barcelona are ubiquitous is a truism, and that the empanada places (which are mediocre) are their main flag, too. But Argentine food is not only those dough crests and if these are the worst expression of the gastronomy of Messi’s country, its opposite are the choripanes, the simple snack of chorizo criollo and chimichurri that has found in Choripa, a new place in Gràcia, its best expression.
Here, for 8.5 you can eat a choripan where everything from the bread to the drink is absolutely homemade and cooked on the grill, giving it a touch. If you want to complete the menu, for 5 euros you also have their bravas. It’s a little more than 10 euros but we swear it’s worth it to get the bad taste of empanadas out of your system.
📍Travessera de Gràcia, 202
Lunch menu, the choice of kings.
Eating a lunch menu in Barcelona is the best option to eat good, nice and cheap. We are in love with the subject and that’s why we have a wonderful list with high quality lunch menus for you to enjoy it with your first, second and dessert. Enjoy!