We’ve all gone out to eat traditional food in the city at some point. Family outings to Catalan restaurants where we’ve feasted on calçots, escalivades, canelons, and croquettes de carn d’olla. We’ve also celebrated birthdays with friends in a Galician or Andalusian bar, sitting at a metal table where a never-ending stream of tapas finds its place among the mountains of beer bottles.
And there’s no need to mention the other meals. From going out for pizza to getting your fingers dirty with tacos or sharing endless plates of Chinese food, Barcelona has many ways of eating that are uniquely Barcelona. But with so much variety and such diverse origins, a question arises: is there such a thing as authentic Barcelona food?
The rule in cooking is that when a dish or recipe has been consumed for three generations, it becomes traditional. Therefore, it won’t be long before dishes such as nachos, hummus, and sushi can be considered traditional Barcelona recipes. But today we don’t want to talk about new traditional dishes, but rather those that have been part of Barcelona’s cuisine since ancient times.
That’s why today, coinciding with La Mercè, we’re making an effort to find restaurants serving food that is neither Catalan nor Spanish (or not only), but Barcelona-style, attempting to draw an impossible and permeable line that will help us explore Barcelona’s gastronomic heritage and celebrate the city’s biggest festival as it should be celebrated.
Windsor
Cod with aioli. Source: Windsor Restaurant
We went to the Windsor restaurant to try its Barcelona menu, a tribute to the city by this fine restaurant serving traditional Catalan cuisine. Imitating Nestor Luján, the gastronome who dedicated his life to researching the city’s food, the Windsor has created dishes that are as Barcelonian as possible by delving into history.
The well-crafted menu skillfully navigates three common ports of gastronomy:popular home cooking, bourgeois restaurant cuisine, and privileged luxury cuisine. The intersection of this three-pointed star gives rise to the gastronomic corpus that defines us today. Take a look at the dishes in the article we wrote, and start salivating and thinking about a dinner in honor of La Mercè, and yourself.
Terra d’Escudella
Source: Terra d’Escudella
There are few gems in Barcelona like Terra d’Escudella, an establishment created with the explicit aim of preserving Barcelona’s cuisine. Roger Sánchez created this restaurant with the desire to give a home to those truly local dishes and, for this reason, in 2021 he also opened the exhibition “Anem de fonda” (Let’s go to the inn) in his restaurant, a journey through the popular inns of 19th-century Barcelona.
This restaurant, one of the great exponents of the Sants Designation of Origin, has an unbeatable lunch menu (and an evening menu) featuring an abundance of escudelles, coques, and xup-xup stews . It is an ode to Catalan and Barcelona cuisine that is worth a visit to the restaurant in its own right.
Cova Fumada
Source: Cova Fumada
Few restaurants in the world can claim to have created a dish. Even fewer are still in business. And even fewer still can say that the dish they continue to cook has become the icon of a city and has been reproduced ad nauseam. The Barceloneta bomba, that dish you’ve tried in a thousand places, was born here, in this small restaurant anchored in another era where, for a moment, Barceloneta returns to being the seaside neighborhood it once was, rather than the tourist haven it is now.
Los Caracoles
Source: Los Caracoles
The food at Los Caracoles has lost some of its luster, but if you’re in Ciutat Vella during the holidays, a visit to this restaurant is still well worth it. Its walls hold more than a hundred years of history, dating back to 1835. The restaurant, actually called Casa Bofarull (the name of the family that owns it), got its current name from the success of its star dish, so if you go, you know what to order.
Los Caracoles is a story in itself, but it is also part of the tradition of theFondes de sisos, a type of restaurant unique to Barcelona that originated in the mid-19th century, popular inns where the workers of the growing city ate. The name comes from the six reales that it cost to stay one night in these inns. Los Caracoles, one of these original fondas de sis, is practically the only one left standing in the city.
Bullanga
Source: Bullanga
And from the old inn to the current inn. Bullanga takes its name from the riots,les bullangues, that also took place in Barcelona in the mid-19th century and ended with the mass burning of churches. They also host the exhibition on theFondas dels sisos that is also in Terra d’Escudella, so that says it all.
Butifarras, capitripas (brother of the capipota), cannelloni… Everything you could ask for in a traditional Barcelona restaurant, you’ll find here. A 14-euro lunch menu, another for esmorzars de forquilla (hearty breakfasts) with dishes such as tongue with capers, baked galta (a type of meat) and sandwiches with local cold cuts and homemade tortillas. Res més a dir.
Set Portes
Source: 7Portes
We already visited Set Portes to try its famous Parellada rice, its version of Senyoret rice. The restaurant is an icon of the city, and like La Cova Fumada, it has the honor of having created not one, but two dishes that are legends in the city: the aforementioned Parellada rice and pijama, a very famous dessert.
Here they also work with traditional Catalan recipes, such as escalivadas, suquet with monkfish, cannelloni… In fact, they have created the “La Magdalena de Proust” menu, which, in their words, seeks to transport us to the different rooms of Catalan cuisine. Living history of the city in a place with more than 100 years of history .
La Sosenga
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A new discovery and, in our opinion, one of the best restaurants in Barcelona. A small, homely restaurant in the tough part of the Gothic Quarter, run by a family born and bred in the tough part of the Gothic Quarter, serving the most enjoyable and delicate Catalan and Barcelona cuisine we have tasted in recent times. 25 euros for a menu of almost 10 courses with simple but creative, intelligent dishes deeply rooted in the region. A wonderful place that runs like clockwork and which, we suspect, will soon cost more (because it is worth much more) than it does now.
📍 C/ de n’Amargós, 1, Ciutat Vella
La Palma de Bellafilla
Near La Sosenga, also in the touristy Gothic Quarter, a restaurant has opened that is a true ode to Catalan cuisine. La Palma de Bellafilla (an offshoot of the legendary Bodega La Palma) is a top-notch restaurant run by Jordi Parramon (an iconic Catalan chef) that serves everything from brains to stews such as chickpeas with clams, which are wonderful, not to mention sardines with grapes, the star dish.
A fantastic restaurant that champions Catalan cuisine to the very core of its recipe book, where not a single dish disappoints and where you can finish off your meal with, wait for it, handmade pijama, reviving the classic Catalan dessert in the best possible way.
Absis
Source: David León Himelfarb
A restaurant at the MNAC viewpoint is already a good idea, because it is one of the best viewpoints in the city, but if we are also talking about a restaurant that serves top-quality Catalan cuisine, then we can only recommend it here. This is thanks to Albert Raurich, from Dos Pebrots, a pioneer in the revival of traditional Catalan cuisine, who continues in the same vein here, with dishes such as his chicken and scallop mar i muntanya, his olive and grape escabeche, and his sepionets with light gnocchi.
Restaurant Veracruz
In the heart of the Quadrat d’Or in the Eixample district, Veracruz has been reborn not as a Mexican restaurant, but as the ultimate refuge for the most authentic and “radical” Catalan cuisine. Here , the star of the show is its eternal escudella, a pot that stays on the stove all year round and which you can enjoy at your table for only €10.50 (with galets and pilota!). Gerard Sans and his team have turned this old Galician bar into a traditional restaurant, where the produce comes directly from the best stalls in La Boqueria and La Concepció. This weekend is the perfect time to try their fricandó, chicken or monkfish croquettes, or their spectacular cap i pota. It’s a place where tradition wins out over trends, ideal for those looking for a real meal, with a spoon and substance.
📍Location: Carrer de València, 605
🗓️ Dates: Open Monday to Friday (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and Saturdays (check opening hours at lunchtime).
💸 Tickets: Average price €15-€20
Finorri
Located in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, Finorri is a restaurant and cocktail bar that proves that you can still eat well in Ciutat Vella without falling into tourist traps. Led by a team that takes extreme care with their ingredients, their menu is based on signature dishes where technique shines in every bite. You can’t pass by without trying their grilled octopus or cecina croquettes, which already have a fan club in the city.
📍Location: Carrer de la Boqueria, 23
🗓️ Dates: Reopens February 4 (closed for vacation until then)
💸 Tickets: Average price €35-€50
