The best restaurants in Barcelona: the definitive guide

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Selecting the best restaurants in a city as big as Barcelona is a daunting task. And while some, like Dua Lipa, have a very clear idea of the best culinary tour of Barcelona, the rest of us need a list of top restaurants so we can check off the temples of fine dining we’ve had the luxury of trying.

It doesn’t matter what your preferences are. Whether you’re looking for the latest trendy spot or you’re a lover of traditional cuisine. Whether you’re on a mission to find the best steakhouse or you prefer vegetarian and vegan options. Sushi spots, Italian restaurants, or even pizzerias. Even beautiful restaurants, in case you believe that food and ambiance go hand in hand. This list includes all kinds of places, but with one condition: they must be worthy of being among the best restaurants in Barcelona.

Just like the “tengui” and “falti” of trading cards at Sant Antoni, we invite you to save this list so you don’t miss a single restaurant from the ones we insist you visit before you die.

Imprevisto

Photo credit: Imprevisto via Instagram

Part of the team from the restaurant Caellis (a Michelin-starred establishment) launched this project last year. Their culinary concept is defined as locally sourced, vegetable-based cuisine, with a distinct Italian touch from its founders.

Imprevisto offers two tasting menus ( El Previsto and El Imprevisto) that change with the seasons, featuring an intriguing culinary approach: the flavors are homestyle and familiar, yet the recipes are sophisticated. The dishes may seem complicated, but once they hit your palate, they feel as familiar as if you’ve been eating them your whole life. A prime example of how to cook well and without fanfare in a restaurant looking to grow.

💸 €42 per menu

📍 C/ de Bailèn, 104

Bandinis

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In the former Bandinis location, where the famous bravas of Sant Antoni Gloriós were once served, there is now a new restaurant offering delicious dishes like this lemon fish tartare or its sweetbreads with artichokes, combining the best of Mediterranean cuisine with Italian touches. A unique and surprising Italian spot in Sant Antoni.

💸 Average price: €25 per person.

📍 42 Manso Street.

Contracorrent

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Contracorrent Bar is an ideal choice for enjoying creative and affordable cuisine in Barcelona. Some of its standout dishes include the Russian salad with roast chicken, an original and flavorful take on this classic, and the octopus with red shrimp tartare, a combination of textures and flavors that delights the palate.

💸 Average price per person: €20–25.

📍C. de Ribes, 35, local 14, Eixample.

La Textil Colective

Editorial credit: Lenka Selinger. Via: @lenkas_lens

Up to 22 craft beer taps right at the bar’s entrance. If you keep going, there’s a restaurant area (with a separate, open kitchen) and even its own nightclub. Its 1,100 m² space houses its own craft beer brewery, where they also make their own soft drinks, taking their zero-waste philosophy a step further .

The tasting menu varies depending on the pairing or whether you prefer a lighter meal or one with less meat. Either way, you won’t leave without trying dishes made using a strict food-reuse process: the appetizer crackers, for example, are made with the spent grain and oats left over from brewing beer.

💸 Menu starting at €65

📍 Carrer de Casp, 33B

Âme Barcelona

Ebro Delta rice stew with duck confit and velouté. Editorial credit: Âme Barcelona.

Âme is the kind of restaurant Barcelona has always needed: an intimate spot with exquisite service, fine wines (many of them natural), and a small but carefully curated menu. Its cuisine is Mediterranean in style but with a French soul.

Most of the dishes on the menu are featured in the tasting menu, which is definitely recommended to fully experience the restaurant. It includes three courses: mushroom consommé with foie gras oil and eringi mushrooms, seafood crêpe with Palamós red shrimp pil-pil, and venison tartare with Kalamata olives and beets. To start, they offer Montseny maitake mushrooms with cashews and foie gras (undoubtedly one of the best dishes), Japanese scallops with salsify cream and citrus foam, and hamachi with sauce vierge.

For main courses, they offer a fish option (Pyrenean trout) and a meat option ( acorn-fed Pyrenean duck aged in duck jus). Also noteworthy is the Ebro Delta rice stew with duck confit and velouté (off the menu, we recommend trying the rice stew with Palamós red shrimp tartare). To round things off, a cheese selection paired with a block of foie gras with cocoa. The pre-dessert features Maresme strawberries with champagnefoam , andthe dessert is a chocolate cake with salted caramel and Tonka bean. The latter is absolutely amazing.

💸 Tasting menu €75

📍 Carrer Londres, 91

Vía Granados

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If you want to treat someone to exquisite Mediterranean cuisine in a charming restaurant, Vía Granados is the place to go. With spectacular dishes made from local ingredients and delicious recipes, you won’t want to miss the appetizers, including the patatas bravas, Padrón peppers, and homemade ham and mushroom croquettes.

💸 Menu starting at €28 

📍 67 Enric Granados St.

Sartoria Panatieri

The restaurant and the owners of Sartoria Panatieri. Source: Sartoria Panatieri

Awarded as one of the 50 best pizzerias in the world according to Top 50 Pizza last year, specifically ranked 21st. 

In addition, Sartoria Panatieri has received two other accolades. First, the Pizza of the Year 2022 – Latteria Sorrentina Award for its creation made with Cantabrian anchovies, tomato, escarole, and Kalamata olive purée.

And a second award, this time related to sustainability: the Forno Verde – Green Oven 2022, which recognizes the pizzeria’s commitment to environmentally friendly practices and its efforts to minimize food waste as much as possible.

🍲 Roasted cauliflower, gremolata sauce, and Parmesan

💸 Average price between €20 and €30

📍 Carrer de Provença, 330

Teatro Kitchen & Bar 

Editorial credit: Eugènia Guel

Teatro reopened in grand style last March in the former location of Tickets, retaining its layout with open kitchens and a low bar—which was already a show in itself.

Eating with your hands and taking bites is encouraged here. The appetizers are based on snacks (like the Iberian bacon airbaguette or the nori and tuna mille-feuille, brought over from El Bulli) that hark back to its former Tickets roots; however, the main courses have a more innovative feel. They move away from finger food and lean more toward the stews your grandmother would cook, with dishes where haute cuisine is hidden behind the most delicate preparations.

 📍 Av. del Paral·lel, 164

💸 Average price between €50 and €60

Dinner with a specialty punch at The Barcelona EDITION

The luxurious 5-star hotel The Barcelona EDITION, at the foot of the Mercat de Santa Caterina (Born), is a microcosm within Barcelona. Gastronomy, signature cocktails, entertainment, and elegance. Lots of elegance. But also impeccable dinner service. Its Bar Veraz is one of the city’s most unique speakeasy-stylerestaurants.

Meanwhile, the Punch Room adds creativity and sophistication to the experience. Accessed via an iconic spiral staircase, this speakeasy bar features local spirits and ingredients in its carefully curated menu of signature cocktails and punches, served in vintage silver punch bowls.

 📍  Avinguda de Francesc Cambó, 14

💸 €60

Fat Veggies

Editorial credit: Fat Veggies via Instagram

Almost every time we recommend this place, people pull a face. Fat Veggies is a grillwhere almost everything is cooked over an open flame, yet the menu consists entirely of vegetables. Not a single animal in sight. The result is dishes with incredible textures, smoky flavors, fresh produce, and ingredients you’ve never heard of. The star dish is their cauliflower served in various textures. 

💸 Average price between €20 and €30

📍  C/ de París, 168

Casa Maians

Editorial credit: Casa Maians via Instagram

Without a doubt the best restaurant in La Barceloneta. Roger and Fuensanta are the couple behind this small restaurant where you’d better make a reservation. There, they serve Catalan-Mediterranean cuisine prepared with the care and attention befitting a neighborhood restaurant that truly deserves a spot in every guide for international visitors. I couldn’t recommend just one dish, but the most fun is ordering their off-menu specials. 

💸 Average price between €30 and €40

📍 C/ de Sant Carles, 28

La Plata

Editorial credit: Bar La Plata via Instagram

It’s curious that a place like this—small, neighborhood-style, humble, and with a simple menu—is packed with the very same tourists who are making it increasingly difficult to find places like this in Barcelona. It’s also surprising that, given its location, its anchovies and homemade vermouth still maintain the same quality as always. Long live La Plata. 

💸 Average price between €10 and €20

📍 C/ de la Mercè, 28

Pizzeria Pummarola

Editorial credit: Pizzeria Pummarola via Instagram

This pizzeria on the border between the Raval and Sant Antoni neighborhoods is the best example of how pizza is—and can be— an affordable dish. Here, the most expensive pizza doesn’t cost more than €10, and you can get a margarita for six. If it’s too crowded, it’s always a good option to order takeout and sit down to enjoy it on the benches across the street

💸 Menu around €10–15

📍 Rda. de Sant Pau, 59

Tandoor (and its little brother, Mirch)

Editorial credit: Tandoor via Instagram

Iván Surinder is the owner of Tandoor, one of the best Indian restaurants in the city. And, if not the best, at least the most talked-about. When it comes to Indian food, you have to ask Surinder—or his mother, a woman with a radiant smile who used to run Tandoor and can now be spotted lending a hand at Mirch, Tandoor’s little brother; Indian food but with a more street-food vibe. Few curries and a couple of vada pavs, but bursting with flavor.

💸 Average price around €30

📍 C/ d’Aragó, 8

Bar Verat

I just learned the meaning of a word, and I really like the pretentiousness that comes with using rare words. That word is bicoca.Bicoca is a “thing that is considered good and that you get for little money or with little effort.” Well , Verat is the best bicoca in the whole city. Food from a Michelin-starred chef for less than €20.

💸 Price between €10–20

📍Av. Pallaresa, 104 (in Santa Coloma)

Nou Can Martí

On the outskirts of Barcelona, in Collserola Park, with a simple dining room and spectacular views of the entire city. Nou Can Martí’s location makes it accessible by public transportation. Of all the places to eat calçots, this is one of the most interesting from a budget perspective: it offers a set menu for €23.

💸 Set menu for €23

📍 Passatge de la Font del Mont, 4

Taverna La Parra

A classic restaurant with a classic concept and a surprising twist. What’s surprising? Wasabi ice cream , for example. This place is also said to be expensive, but that “it’s worth the cost.” Another interesting fact: the establishment is nearly 90 years old and, contrary to what’s usually expected, it never stops reinventing itself.

💸 Menu around €30

📍3 Joanot Martorell Street

Tasca i Vins

A classic as timeless as a jacaranda tree. It has several restaurants scattered throughout Barcelona, and they all have one thing in common: a menu based on traditional cuisine and prices suitable for every budget.

Its restaurants are known for offering fresh ingredients, slow-cooked to perfection, in a cozy , family-friendly atmosphere that encourages long , leisurely meals with friends.

💸 Average price between €20–30

📍C/ de la Indústria, 118

Koh

Let’s start by saying that free will is bullshit. Ordering here means you’ll regret it (not because you made the wrong choice) and wish you could come back. A menu that makes your mouth water just looking at it.Ramen, bao buns, and various Asian dishes at a spot that’s been open for just four days.

💸 Average price around €40

📍133 Pujades Street

Koryo

Koryo is a real treat for those of us who want to experiment with new cuisines but don’t have enough zeros to afford a flight to Seoul. And not just for that reason: Koryo is a real treat because you can eat like a Russian oligarch or go for the daily special (seriously, the daily special is highly recommended and costs just €12).

💸 Average price around €20–30

📍4 Reus St.

Els 4 Gats

Editorial credit: 4 Gats via Instagram

It opened in 1884, inspired by the cabaret atmosphere of Le Chat Noir in Paris.Its bohemian and inspiring spirit caught the attention of artists of the time, so it was soon frequented by Picasso (who designed the menu cover), Dalí, Santiago Rusiñol, and Hemingway.

It is one of the oldest and still-operating restaurants in Barcelona. A true classic frequented by both locals and tourists.

💸Average price around €40

📍C/ de Montsió, 3

Los Caracoles

You don’t have to be a genius to guess that it specializes in snails in sauce, though it also offers typical Catalan dishes. Robert De Niro, Joan Miró, Dalí and Gala, and Giorgio Armani have all dined here.Today, it’s such a Barcelona institution that you have to visit it at least once in your life, even if just to see its wood-fired chickens cooking right on the street.

💸 Average price €30

📍C/ dels Escudellers, 14

La Estrella Restaurant

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La Estrella opened its doors in 1924, and four generations later, Jordi, Pepi, and Pau continue to serve their guests high-quality Mediterranean cuisine. 

Right in the heart of the city, yet away from the tourist bustle, this restaurant offers dishes made with seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, which vary depending on the day and what’s available at the market. That’s why we recommend not only checking the menu but also asking what’s available off the menu (and saving room for dessert!)

💸 Theaverage price ranges from €60

📍C/ Ocata, 6

Disfrutar

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The best restaurant in Barcelona, according to the Michelin Guide, which ranks this restaurant as the third best in the world. The restaurant run by Oriol Castro, Mateu Casanyas, and Eduard Xatruch—star pupils of el Bulli— is a fantasy, an experience that hits your wallet hard but, if you can afford it, makes you understand why you pay what you do at this kind of place.

💸Disfrutar Classic Menu €255 (without wine pairing)

📍163 Villarroel St.

Enigma

Enigma Concept is, as defined on its website, Albert Adrià’s new gastronomic venture. The evolution of el Bulli, according to Albert, has been revived following the pandemic, but it remains an enigmatic space where great things happen, and where diners enjoy different experiences depending on the spaces they pass through.

💸 Tasting menu €220 (without wine pairing)

📍38 Sepúlveda St.

***Lasarte

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This restaurant by Martín Berasategui boasts three Michelin stars. Here, the Spanish chef with the most Michelin stars across his restaurants offers signature Basque cuisine, one of his most iconic culinary offerings. His dishes are crafted with seasonal and local ingredients, blending Catalan and Basque flavors in a unique harmony.

Lasarte is located in the luxurious Hotel Monument, and its design offers diners an experience where textures and light take center stage alongside the food, creating an avant-garde and elegant atmosphere. 

💸 Tasting menu €305

📍259 Mallorca St.

Alkimia

We’ve talked about Alkimia before: it won the SBID 2017 award for best design restaurant. Or, to put it another way, the most beautiful restaurant in the world. It stands to reason, then, that few places are more Instagram-worthy than this one. But of course, that’s not all.

Alkimia has become the go-to spot for the city’s culinary connoisseurs, a place where Catalan recipes and cuisine take center stage, but prepared to the highest standards. A place, to put it simply, for chefs.

💸 Alkimia Menu for €184

📍Rda. de Sant Antoni, 41

Jardinet d’Aribau

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A delicious menu and a unique dining experience await at Jardinet d’Aribau, one of Barcelona’s most charming restaurants. In a magical setting surrounded by nature right in the heart of the city, the menu features exquisite dishes ranging from ratatouille, mushroom risotto, and the chef’s fish special to organic beef burgers, Catalan pularda confit, and their famous “baos locos.” 

💸 Menu for one person for €25   

📍C/ d’Aribau, 133

Teresa Carles

A classic among Barcelona vegetarians. A full set menu costs€13 (quite affordable considering it’s a completely organic option). Their products—some of which you can buy, like the olive oil—are VMASS: Vegetarian, Mediterranean, Artisanal, Healthy, and Tasty.

It’s the perfect spot if you want to eathealthy without breaking the bank.

💸 Set menu starting at €13

📍 C/ Jovellanos, 2

Xavier Pellicer Restaurants

It’s the best vegetable restaurant in the world. That’s what theWe’re Smart Think Vegetables! Think Fruit! competition made clear after awarding this distinction to Xavier Pellicer. Xavier Pellicer, by the way, is the name of the chef—yes—but also the restaurant.Pellicer, incidentally, is one of Spain’s most renowned chefs.

💸 Tasting menu for €85

📍310 Provença St.

Vacka

Vacka, which means “to wake up,” is one of the most worthwhile restaurants in Barcelona in terms of concept and innovation. And that’s saying a lot.It’s a completely vegan restaurant . However , what sets it apart is that it offers gluten-free and mostly raw dishes. A must-visit for alternative food enthusiasts.

💸 Average price around €10

📍138 C/ dels Almogávers

Three social restaurants that serve more than just food:Sobres Mestres, La Pau, and She Bistró

Gastronomy is not just about food, restaurants, recipes, and chefs, and the better we understand that a meal has unexpected economic and social implications, the better it will be for everyone. These three restaurants have understood this and are exploring ways to improve society through the hospitality industry, which is why we wanted to include them in this list of the best of 2022.

Sobres Mestres is a project by Café Lleialtat in the Sants neighborhood that prepares a daily menu using fresh, high-quality ingredients that are otherwise discarded from the food supply chain for commercial reasons, giving a second chance to artisanal bread, vegetables, and fresh fruit.

On the other hand, SHE Bistró is a restaurant in Barcelona’s Zona Alta where the staff are survivors of gender-based violence and people with disabilities. Finally, La Pau is a restaurant that the Fundació Llindar has opened in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, in the city center, to provide employment for students from challenging backgrounds who are training in gastronomy at the El Repartidor school in L’Hospitalet.

In short, three establishments that show that gastronomy goes far beyond the plate, and that the further we move away from the recipe, the better we understand food and everything surrounding it.

💸 Various prices

📍C/ d’Olzinelles, 31 (Sobres Mestres) 

📍C/ de Santaló 88 (SHE Bistró)

📍10 Josep Anselm Clavé St. (La Pau)

Affordable restaurants recommended by Michelin

Source: Nairod

Fine dining doesn’t have to be expensive (or at least, not always),which is why Michelin has been awarding the Bib Gourmand prizes for years now ,recognizing restaurants that offer haute cuisine for under 35 euros.

We’ve already shown you the list, and you can choose for yourself, but without a doubt, Cruix, Nairod, and La Mundana are some of our favorites—places where we’ve enjoyed top-notch bistronomic cuisine, with affordable tapas, reinvented Catalan dishes, and exceptional meals at very reasonable prices.

💸 Various prices

📍C/ d’Entença, 57 (Cruix)

📍 C/ d’Aribau, 141 (Nairod)

📍 93 Vallespir St. (La Mundana)

Mont Bar

Source: Mont Bar

This restaurant tops our list of favorites for 2022. After all, this restaurant brought one of the latest Michelin stars to the city. After its chef won the award at the 2022 Fòrum Gastronòmic al Cuiner, the Michelin Guide recognized Mont with its first star.

A gastrobar at heart that works with fresh, seasonal, and locally sourced ingredients, where presentation is a priority. This is what the Michelin Guide says about them. In short, a restaurant that has been the talk of the town in 2022 and will likely be one of the stars of 2023.

💸 Tasting menu for €135

📍 C/ de la Diputació, 220

Casa Masala

Casa Masala’s eggplant curry. Source: Casa Masala

Not everything in Barcelona is Michelin stars and grand prizes, and we know that gastronomy is about everyday life, and often, as the saying goes, “the best things come in small packages.” It’s great to have top-rated restaurants, but it’s in the daily lunches where the real battle for a city’s culinary scene is fought.

That’s why we’re lucky to have soldiers like Casa Masala in battles like these —an Indian restaurant that serves true haute cuisine at affordable prices, proving, on the one hand, that Indian cuisine holds a complexity and refinement often hidden from us, and on the other, that great gastronomy doesn’t have to be inaccessible.

In short, Casa Masala is one of our favorites this year— a small but great restaurant where you can discover that eating well can mean eating Indian food that’s affordable and fun.

💸Price range: €30–40

📍 C/ Muntaner, 152

Festín

Source: The Fork

And if we keep walking to escape the Michelin stars, we take the path of accessible cuisine, until we arrive at a sandwich. It reminds us that food is humble, and that before the plate, the Tupperware, and the fork, bread served as a primitive yet efficient container: the food’s wrapper is its edible carbohydrate. In an era when edible straws are made to save plastic, the sandwich teaches us a lesson in humility.

🍲 Their “Pitonisa” burger, 100% vegan

💸 Average price between €10 and €20

📍 Carrer del Portal Nou, 19

Flying Monkey

Flying Monkey offers a casual culinary journey through the Mediterranean. The new restaurant by Ronit Stern, owner of another great restaurant, La Balabusta, elevates cuisine with Israeli and Middle Eastern roots to create a concept halfway between home cooking, a healthy lunch option (great lunch menu) for office workers, or a light snack that pairs well with natural wines, the establishment’s other specialty.

Also, keep an eye out for their pastries and breads, as the restaurant shares space with Oz Bakery, which prepares its dough in the open kitchen on the floor below, rounding out the venue’s offerings.

🍲 Their homemade bread sandwich with pastrami

💸 Average price between €20 and €40

📍 C/ d’Amigó, 37, 

Brabo

Beef ribeye. Source: Brabo

What do Europe’s best pizza makers eat when they put the dough aside and want to treat themselves? The answer is Brabo, the steakhouse opened by the team behind Sartoria Panatieri, recently named the best pizzeria in Europe. Brabo is a fine-dining steakhouse where everything—even the bread and butter—is grilled over an open flame, and where top-quality meats are prepared to satisfy the carnivorous cravings of any food lover.

💸 €40–60

📍 C/ de Sèneca, 28,

Windsor

Rossini Cannelloni. Source: Windsor

What dishes would you choose to sum up your own life? Or to sum up your city? Those of us who aren’t yet lucky enough to have chroniclers writing about what we’ve eaten throughout our lives have to settle for reading about what people eat in our surroundings, in our cities. We want them to talk about dishes we eat too, and thus, to speak a little about ourselves as well.

The Windsor is an example of one such restaurant, a place serving traditional and classic Catalan cuisine, with tablecloths, heavy curtains, and a cheese cart, where you can treat yourself to the feast you deserve. They offer several set menus (Tradition, Tribute to Néstor Luján…) or a seasonal menu featuring elevated cuisine, yet always with an eye toward our traditions.

💸 €60–70

📍 Còrsega 286, 08008 

La Cabrera

Ribeye steak. Source: La Cabrera

Those in the know understand that a typical barbecue is not the same as an Argentine asado, and in Barcelona—a city where everyone knows that the Argentine community is one of the largest—there are several places where you can experience the difference between the two. Few, however, compare to La Cabrera, one of the best steakhouses in Buenos Aires, which has just opened a branch in Barcelona.

The restaurant, named the best asado spot in Buenos Aires in 2018 in a city with some of the world’s best asados,isowned by grill icon Gastón Riveiro, a chef who doesn’t mess around: traditional grill, the cuts that matter, and precise preparation. Because you don’t come here to experiment, but to discover the secrets of a cooking style that has become the symbol of a country.

💸 €50–60

📍 C/ de la Diputació, 239

Terraza Martínez

There are few places that can truly be said to be everything they’re meant to be. And there are few because there are no standards or ideals for being everything one is meant to be . It’s not about fitting a mold, but about living up to the image you’ve created and projected of yourself. You can be a street stall selling hot dogs for three euros a sandwich and be everything you’re meant to be, and you can be a three-star restaurant charging 300 euros per person without ever quite making the cut.

La Terraza Martínez is one such case in Barcelona, a restaurant that is exactly what it needs to be, because you leave happy to have been there, having found what you came looking for. The place is now celebrating ten years as a landmark restaurant in the city. A place the city needs to have, because Barcelona’s hillside needs a restaurant for locals, where you can eat great rice dishes at reasonable prices and feel—as one rarely does in this city owned by the cruise ships visible from the Martínez—that the Eixample at our feet is once again a little bit ours.

Fire, at W Barcelona

Photo courtesy of: W Barcelona

At FIRE, one of the restaurants at W Barcelona where the grill and the sea take center stage, they launch a new menu every season.

That’s why the ingredients are ultra-seasonal, organic, and foraged, and here they’re combined with the unpredictable nature of fire to create a fusion of unexpected flavors.

The dishes are a blend of simple and complex, raw and cooked, meat-based and plant-focused, juxtaposing rustic bites with sauces that challenge the palate.

🍲 Lobster with grilled fennel and grape salad and citrus Beurre Blanc

💸 Between €50 and €60

📍W Barcelona, Plaça de la Rosa dels Vents. Pg. de Joan de Borbó, 1

Yuku Barcelona, top-tier quality at a secret bar

What they do at Yuku is in a league of its own.The ingredients there are of such excellent quality that it’s hard to believe anything like it could exist. Their philosophy is summed up by the concept of omakase, which means trusting the chef and leaving the menu in their hands. This is a type of menu typically served in Japanesesushiya—that is, establishments with a counter seating 4 to 10 people.

Yuku’s concept is crystal clear: to create a magical atmosphere inspired by Japanese culture within a private, closed-door space. All of this makes it one of the most unique Japanese restaurants in the city.

 Secret location.

Virens, Vegetarian Haute Cuisine

Source: Virens

Rodrigo de la Calle’s Barcelona restaurant , Virens, is among the world’s best vegetarian restaurants this year, and after trying its vegetable tasting menu, you’ll understand why.

The guide that awarded it explains that the chef’s enthusiasm “ensures that dishes featuring vegetables as the stars are always surprising, highly gastronomic, and also silence non-vegetarians,” and we can tell you that dishes like his beet gazpacho or his marinated carrot risotto have become, without a doubt, our most memorable dishes of the year.

🍲Pickled carrot risotto

💸 Starting at €50

Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 619-621

Rías Kru

From the fusion of Rías de Galicia, Barcelona’s legendary seafood restaurant, and Espai Kru, the upstairs venue that revolutionized Barcelona’s culinary scene with an all-raw menu, Rías Kru was born—a single space where both concepts merge, offering a menu that blends a top-tier traditional seafood restaurant with a refined selection of raw dishes.

Tartares, nigiri, tiraditos, and tatakis—or the famous one-sided langoustine, cooked on just one side to achieve two textures— accompany the fresh seafood brought in from Galicia or caught directly in the restaurant’s pool at the entrance. The place in Barcelona to treat yourself.

💸 Starting at €70

Carrer Lleida 7, Barcelona

Assalto, Wine Bar

The joke is on us: Assalto is taking the Raval’s food scene by storm and shaking it up, demanding it wake up—high-end cuisine is coming. Assalto is the little brother (or big brother—we’re not sure) of My Fucking Restaurant, just a few meters away, a spot dedicated to fine dining and sustainability (today they cook exclusively with vegetables). With these two spots, chef Mateo Bertozzi has created a Little Italy on Nou de la Rambla (formerly Calle Conde de Asalto, hence the name), where he runs one of Barcelona’s top kitchens from behind the scenes.

At Assalto , he has created a restaurant and wine bar with a somewhat indefinable cuisine that navigates between Spanish tradition (the Granada-style marinated meat is, without a doubt, one of the best dishes of 2024) and Asian influences, featuring eggplant in sweet-and-sour peanut sauce or Galician-style octopus with (lots and lots of) Sichuan pepper and gnocchi. The common threads are always well-balanced dishes, a wide range of flavors, and a great deal of preparation (the tomato bread, just to start, is served with a sauce made from three types of tomatoes reduced for 12 hours). A great spot that also boasts a wine cellar with 200 labels where, free from the constraints of trendy natural wine, the focus is on having great wines to pair—as Mateo puts it—with the dishes Mateo decides to prepare.

📍C/ Nou de la Rambla, 44, Ciutat Vella

💸€30–40

Ultramarinos Marín

An aspiring home cook might get frustrated at Ultramarinos Marín because it’s hard to understand why, when serving such simple dishes, everything is so absolutely delicious. That’s the secret behind this trendy Barcelona restaurant—a narrow, noisy spot with a ’70s-style bar vibe that even Ferran Adrià has recommended, where the food is served unpretentiously, focusing on ingredients prepared with great care (and many hours of culinary know-how before they hit the grill).

That’s the only way to explain how this grill bar (80% of its menu is grilled) turns a chicken thigh—something so simple—into a delicacy, or how its homemade, house-cured charcuterie is spot-on. Or how its aioli, such a basic sauce, stars in influencers’ videos. Just look at their menu, where the dishes are simply named: “potato,” “mushroom,” “squid,” “pork rind”… a testament to the fact that their names, like their recipes, speak for themselves.

📍 C/ de Balmes, 187, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi

💸€40–80

Mae

Source: Mae

There are restaurants where the cuisine is unquestionably top-notch, and Mae, a recent opening in Barcelona’s Zona Alta, is one of them. A fine-dining restaurant that offers a fusion inspired by a round-trip journey to Costa Rica, the home country of two of the three founding partners. The local touch comes from Germán Espinosa, who hails from Martí Berasategui’s Fonda Espanya, making it clear that the culinary school of the country’s most-starred chef is, too, unquestionable.

Thus, Mae (which means something like “buddy” in Costa Rican slang) offers a couple of tasting menus where you can sample starters that are absolute masterpieces and encapsulate the restaurant’s purpose, with dishes like fried egg yolk with steak tartare and bone marrow,  80-year-old sourdough bread with pejibaye butter (a Costa Rican fruit), or crispy pig’s trotters with shrimp tartare and tree tomato. The starters alone would make the visit worthwhile, but, as mentioned, the main courses (though they sometimes don’t quite fit into this eclectic journey) are absolutely unquestionable.

📍C/ de Sant Elies, 22, Sarrià-Sant Gervase

💸€60–80

Yakumanka

Walking past the counter of a fish market can be an inspiring experience, evoking endless culinary possibilities. The sight of fresh fish ready to be eaten invites you to imagine exquisite dishes, such as a delicate ceviche, which captures the essence of seafood in its purest form. This experience comes to life at places like Yakumanka, a ceviche spot in Barcelona that, in its eight years of operation, has prepared over 100,000 ceviches.

But that is Yakumanka—a place that is more seafood bar than restaurant and more haute cuisine restaurant than Peruvian. Because here, as in few other places in Barcelona, one comes to try distinctive, contemporary, and daring Peruvian food, to dip a toe in the sea and imagine what a haute cuisine experience is like in Peru on the other side of the Atlantic.

📍C/ de València, 207, L’Eixample

💸 €50–60

Batea

White asparagus, smoked bonito, tarama, escabeche emulsion, and hazelnuts. Source: Batea

It’s a shame that some of Barcelona’s great restaurants are tucked away in spots that don’t quite feel like Barcelona. Such is the case with Batea, likely one of the best seafood restaurants in Barcelona (and certainly the most contemporary), located in a hotel on the corner of Gran Via and Rambla Catalunya—somewhat hidden from view, yet in turn concealing a contemporary seafood restaurant with a pleasant atmosphere where, as in few other places, you find that unique blend of what defines a seafood restaurant (serving top-quality, almost untouched ingredients) and haute cuisine (creating dishes that make us forget the ingredients themselves so we can appreciate the final creation).

The restaurant, which eschews the traditional opulence of this type of establishment, gives no hint of the quality of its dishes. The shellfish selection is a prime example: clams in a delicate green sauce, razor clams with cod roe emulsion, and razor clams with Gilda-style dressing. The ingredients are showcased with just a touch of culinary artistry. The baby langoustines with Lourdes water, as flavorful as few other dishes, are another standout. Everything on the menu is tempting, and everything is somewhat fleeting, because here they work with the catch of the day (the chef glued to his phone talking to the fishmonger) to ensure fresh ingredients that allow the dishes to be adapted to what’s available. A great spot to celebrate seafood-style… while avoiding a typical seafood restaurant.

📍Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 605, Pl. Baja, Eixample

💸 €60–80

Casa Xica, home of Barcelona’s first bao

Casa Xica celebrates its tenth anniversary knowing it has left an indelible mark on the memories of its diners with its fusion cuisine that blends Asian recipes and Catalan ingredients. Among its most iconic dishes is the tartar, which appears on the menu of 10 iconic dishes the restaurant has prepared to celebrate this decade.

Its double-fermented bao with oxtail and its coconut and lime ajoblanco with shrimp tartare remind us why the bao and ajoblanco trends began, while other dishes like the garrinet cruixent and the butakimchi, while not bad, didn’t excite us as much—though, as we all know, taste and excitement vary from person to person.

The restaurant, located in Poble-Sec, is just that: a visit to a cozy little spot with excellent service and a terrace that invites you to linger on long nights —one we hope will last another ten years.

Tres Porquets

In the age of social media, where any long message is boring and where there’s only time to read a quick blurb highlighting a restaurant, it’s a shame not to be able to clearly express the worth of restaurants like Tres Porquets, a classic that has been hidden for 15 years behind Gran Via and at the end of Rambla del Poblenou, right where the street loses its name, offering food that makes it impossible to get a table without a reservation, no matter what day of the week it is.

Small plates and tapas like so many in Barcelona, but with a touch where flavor reigns over frills. Our favorite: the eel fritter and Jerusalem artichoke purée with meat-based mayonnaise. The umami of the eel, the creaminess of the Jerusalem artichoke, and the umami of the meat-based mayonnaise, the giant fritter, and superb frying: the essence of a restaurant that captivates with bold flavors. Double merit: to the task of finding bold flavors must be added the quest for balance so as not to overwhelm.

They do this with the confidence that comes from having spent more than a lifetime in the neighborhood. Marc is the son of Can Pineda (literally, this was his father’s and uncle’s), a historic wine cellar in El Clot, right across from Gran Via—they can almost see each other from their respective doorways. So, he’s not afraid to revisit octopus with parmnetier—which here finally stops being boring when fried—served with cassava purée and paprika oil. There’s plenty more: the home-style stews of tripe or meatballs, the carpaccio with 15 years of history… In short, go ahead and make a reservation.

📍Rambla del Poblenou, 165, Sant Martí

Casa Güell

Source: Barcelona Secreta

Casa Güell is hard to find on Google because the name, so obvious, leads us to the iconic palaces in central Barcelona catering to tourists, while we locals—who are already fed up with them—are looking for more places like this: authentic neighborhood restaurants like the one in Poblenou, with carefully crafted local cuisine designed for the locals. More Casa Güells, fewer Palau Güells.

Located across from the Beckett, Casa Güell also opens its doors wide to create a restaurant that embraces the neighborhood and fills up with locals who took less than a week to discover its Idiazabal and Iberian ham croquette—one of the best, if you ask us. All the combinations by Chef Jordi, a well-traveled cook, aim for that: strong, powerful flavors. His penchant for adding egg or truffles to dishes to enhance their richness speaks to this.

So, it’s best to skip the Asian tartare—which calls for more delicacy—and seek out the delicious heartiness of his interpretations of traditional Catalan cuisine: cep mushrooms with scrambled eggs, zucchini flowers stuffed with mató and romesco, and squid with porcini mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Everything is hearty, everything is incredibly flavorful, everything is deeply satisfying, and everything follows a clear narrative.

For the pre-dinner (which is what many come for, filling this place where joy is in the air), vermouth and top-notch cured meats (note the cured tongue) and for dessert, flan, along with the croquette, the other star of the house. In short, everything is great.

📍Carrer de Castella, 1, Sant Martí

Slow and Low

Source: David León Himelfarb

There are few greater joys for a foodie than feeling they were right when they thought a restaurant had a future. Out of vanity, but also out of love for restaurants and food, seeing a project from the very beginning—as it is born and grows to become a benchmark with a voice of its own—is a luxury, and that is exactly what has happened with Slow and Low, which we visited years ago, right when it first opened, and to which we have now returned following the awarding of its recent Michelin star.

Inside, a renovation draws your gaze to the open kitchen right before you. On the menu, a longer (and more expensive) selection that allows for more culinary magic from the chefs and better ingredients. Mexican-Spanish cuisine—eclectic, they call it; electric, we say—featuring standout dishes like tomato water served Bloody Mary-style with mussels and tajín (a real treat), or bonito with escabeche foam, or the jewel of the menu: a seafood platter prepared in a thousand different ways. A restaurant well worth visiting to understand what a Michelin star is all about.

📍C/ del Comte Borrell, 119, L’Eixample, 08015 Barcelona

💸Short menu – €115

La Palma de Bellafilla

The Gothic Quarter is regaining its footing to return to what it once was: the gastronomic heart of a Barcelona that once had its physical and symbolic—and therefore gastronomic—center in this neighborhood. Tourism has taken that spot away, but places like La Sosenga a few months ago and now La Palma de Bellafilla—a spot that is, right now, one of the best Catalan restaurants in Barcelona — are changing that.

It is so because it excels at something that seems simple but is actually very difficult: reviving traditional Catalan cuisine. But not the kind everyone else revives—the croquette, cap i pota, and cannelloni combo—but the kind that requires research: from Roman-style lamb brains to sardines with grapes that evoke nostalgia, stews like chickpeas with clams, or the Pijama dessert— a historic Catalan dessert that combines five elements (cream, flan, peach, ice cream…) and which they make by hand here, one by one, from the ice cream to the neula. It’s rarely worth visiting a restaurant just for dessert, but here it is.

The entire menu is tempting, so heading to the Gothic Quarter to get lost in its alleys and discover La Palma is once again synonymous with dining well in the city center. If there’s no room, you can head to Bodega La Palma, a historic neighboring wine bar that also cooks very well and which took over the space where the legendary Bar del Pla used to be, transforming it into La Palma under the guidance of Jordi Parramon, a legendary chef in Catalonia who is, as mentioned, living history of food in our country. A truly special place.

📍C/ de Bellafila, 5, Ciutat Vella, 08002 Barcelona

💸€30–50

Louro

Louro is, perhaps, the only good surprise that Barcelona’s Las Ramblas still holds for locals. Long-time residents of the city will recall that on the first floor of this street, hidden from the view of passersby, is the Galician Center—the embassy that Galician immigrants once had in the city—which historically housed a bar where one could eat well and affordably right on the Rambla. That embassy has gradually lost its functions, but a few years ago its restaurant was remodeled by the Galician team from Arume (and Batea, and Cera 23, Besta…), who revamped the place to turn it into Louro, a Galician restaurant that’s once again fantastic.

Its charm is as simple as its description: “Galician restaurant in Barcelona.” Traditional Galician cuisine, presented cleanly, reasonably priced. Quality seafood, some fish stews, rice dishes, and their standout beef cuts. Everything is simple, like that smoked sardine toast with Cebreiro cheese (perhaps the most successful dish), the octopus (cooked very well here—it couldn’t go wrong), the clams marinara, or the sea bass stew. Everything is flawless, everything is delicious, and everything—most importantly—tastes like home and love.

All of this, too, in a very beautiful spot that was—take note—Joan Güell’s home before he built the Palau Güell and which, therefore, connects to the old Palau, to the point that you can see the back of the palace from the window. A luxurious surprise added to a restaurant that, we can confirm, is the latest great surprise on Las Ramblas.

📍Rambla de los Capuchinos, 37, Ground Floor

💸€30–50

Topik

Adelf Morales and Eva Melès have been creating Catalan-Japanese fusion cuisine for 16 years at this restaurant, which has always operated under the radar, like an open secret among those in the know. Now, with the kitchen renovated, their recipes—ranging from expert preparations of tuna to versions ofLleida-style snails à la gormanda—are taking flight, featuring a very pleasant dining space, high-quality and highly personal cuisine (the restaurant doesn’t open if Adelf isn’t there), and a very sensitive approach to fish and seafood.

📍Carrer de València, 199, local 2, Eixample, 08011 Barcelona

💸€50–60, Tasting menu, €80–5

Absis

Albert Raurich, of Dos Palillos and Dos Pebrots, brings his refined Catalan cuisine to what must be the venue with the best views in Barcelona: the MNAC observation deck, overlooking all of Montjuïc and Plaça Espanya. Here he does just that—slightly reinterpreting Catalan cuisine but, above all, updating it to lighten, improve, and elevate it…

Hence the marinated olives and grapes, the chicken and scallop mar i muntanya, the eggplant coca with fresh cheese and mint, or—a special mention—the suquet de roger with a purée thickened with the fish broth. The Mediterranean cuisine it claims to be, of a very high standard and at a reasonable price: €60 for the tasting menu and €35 for the lunch menu, for a great Catalan meal with the best views of the city.

📍National Art Museum of Catalonia

💸€30–40, Lunch menu, €35; Tasting menu, €60

Fronda Pasaje

At Fronda Pasaje, less is more: an open kitchen, free of artifice, that draws you into the unique world of Máximo Cabrera, a biologist by training and a chef by vocation. His vegetarian tasting menu breaks away from convention with dishes that seem to have come straight out of a creative laboratory: tempeh foie gras, watermelon tiradito… An experience that combines science, flavor, and surprise.

📍Carrer dels Banys Vells, 20, Ciutat Vella, 08003 Barcelona

💸€50–70

Maleducat

Skate and Iberian ham. Source: David León Himelfarb

In a city like Barcelona, it’s hard to stand out and stay afloat with a restaurant. Even more so if your concept is the one that’s so trendy right now: that restaurant serving small plates designed for sharing—dishes that don’t quite qualify as “haute cuisine” but are certainly not everyday, down-to-earth fare. But Maleducat has not only managed to stand out and stay afloat; in our view, it’s one of the city’s finest examples of creative, accessible cuisine.

They’re celebrating their fifth anniversary with unique dishes, such as their tendon stew (does anyone else make this in Barcelona?), their toast with white shrimp tartare, or one of the best main courses of the year: a surf-and-turf made with skate, Iberian pork jus, and black garlic—a dish that alone is worth the visit to understand how this restaurant cooks and how it cooks, in general, with sensitivity, boldness, personality, and a deep connection to the region.

They now have a new offering, “At your service, chef,” a €49 tasting menu featuring 3 appetizers, 5 main courses, and 2 desserts chosen by the chef based on the day’s offerings , though diners can make requests (we, for example, insisted on the tendon) and get a glimpse, all at once and at a great price, of one of Barcelona’s finest restaurants.

📍Carrer de Manso, 54, Eixample, 08015 Barcelona

💸€50–70

Melós

Valencia is a culinary chapter Barcelona has yet to explore. The neighboring region is a delight, and here we often get stuck on its paella. We have Michelin-starred Japanese and Chinese restaurants, but until now there hasn’t been a Valencian contender for a star in Barcelona as strong as Melós— a restaurant that, in just two months , operates as if it’s been serving the high-end Valencian cuisine it now offers for half a lifetime.

If any of the dishes sound familiar, it’s because Miquel, the chef, also runs Cruix, one of Barcelona’s first casual rice restaurants. Now he’s opened its more serious, older sibling. As mentioned: white tablecloths and top-tier cuisine: Guatlla vida o mort, featuring a cured quail, a cold, deep broth that’s like a delicate game ceviche, and served with a consommé made from the vegetables the bird itself eats. A beautiful, sensitive, and—most importantly—addictively flavorful reflection on life and respect for an animal that both eats and is eaten.

The rabbit sausage to start, the Catalan-style chicken broth with crests… Melós’s menu is as if someone had gone spying on the undergrowth of the Valencian countryside to prepare it in Barcelona. There is no failed dish, only balance, which ends, obviously, with a rice dish—ours with shrimp and sea anemone. Absolutely a 10.

The desserts, two more memorable ones: of course, a citrus dish with a deconstructed mandarin , but above all , a brilliant dish—tiger nut with a mole made from its husk and fartons— which is one of the dishes of the year, thanks to its technique, flavor, and coherence between the dish and the story behind it. As I said, a restaurant with a star before the star, so hurry up.

📍Carrer de Manso, 54, Eixample, 08015 Barcelona

💸Petit Melós Menu (€80), Melós Menu (€100), Gran Melés Menu (€130)

Can Lluís

If Barcelona were a normal city, Can Lluís would never have closed and would have been on this list for a long time, but since real estate speculation has long been far more important here than the lives of the locals, this 1929 restaurant had to close in 2021 due to a vulture fund and has had to wait until 2026 to reopen with a cuisine that, in a rare exception, pays homage to what this place once was.

What a pleasure to find that in this beautiful place, history isn’t an excuse but a foundation for creating textbook Catalan cuisine: flavorful, hearty, honest, incredibly delicious, and, in our humble opinion, flawless. The signature dishes—like the cod fritter, the breaded lamb ribs, the chicken cannelloni, or the Can Lluís snails—are impeccable. You might prefer the snails with less chorizo, the cannelloni with more béchamel, or the lamb chops with a sauce, but that would be a personal preference: here the preparations are flawless, and the only “but” is the personal memory you might have of other versions you’ve tried—after all, traditional cuisine is also folk cuisine.

Other additions (always classics), such as cap i pota, garotas au gratin (what a delight, what a charming touch on the menu), or the croquettes, are also beyond reproach, and the same goes here: you may have tried others, but these are well-made. Few menus manage to be both classic and signature, while also paying homage to a restaurant that is no longer the same but lives on in spirit. The only downside is that it’s the new owners—and not the Rodríguez family, who ran the restaurant since 1929—who have to carry on the tradition. But that problem isn’t the fault of the new Can Lluís, but rather of this new Barcelona we live in.

Mesa Lobo

Every profession has its own internal codes, secret words used to refer to realities unique to the trade but also, over time, to recognize one another among colleagues. The “oído” used by chefs, which they use like the “okay” of ordinary people, is one such example. “Mesa lobo” is another; it’s used among kitchen staff to signal that there’s a VIP table in the dining room—a table that bites and needs to be treated with special care. With that idea—treating every table like a wolf—this restaurant was born, though it actually achieves something more.

Mesa Lobo is a small haute cuisine restaurant, something like a French bistro where the atmosphere is relaxed but the cuisine and service are top-notch. It’s a cuisine that travels and isn’t confined to any one style, but where the desire to create something like accessible haute cuisine clearly prevails—though without fear of using slightly more expensive ingredients and avoiding clichés like steak tartare, to name one example. There are recurring themes, such as the demi-glace with the “bikini” (a must-try), the monkfish sauces (don’t hesitate to order any similar main course—the treatment of proteins is excellent), or the emphasis on vegetables, featuring truly outstanding dishes. A very serious, very beautiful, and highly recommended restaurant.