Category: Barcelona Restaurant Reviews

Mont Bar bistro in Barcelona’s Eixample successfully combines superb,  star-quality cooking with an informal, everyday atmosphere. Restaurant review: Mont Bar, Eixample, Barcelona Informal fine dining is hard to do well. Without the traffic signals of traditional formal service to guide them, restaurateurs often take a wrong turn. Diners are driven into a nightmarish no-man’s-land where…

Gouthier, in the uptown district of Sarrià, is Barcelona’s go-to bar for top-quality oysters. Review: Gouthier bar-restaurant, Sarrià, Barcelona Gouthier oyster bar is in Sarrià, an uptown Barcelona district that still feels like the separate village it once was. Its terrace spills out onto a pretty square far beyond the roaming range of most tourists. No…

UPDATE: Opera Samfaina is now permanently CLOSED.  Review: Opera Samfaina bar/restaurant/food experience, Grand Teatre del Liceu, Les Rambles, Barcelona I was convinced I was going to hate Opera Samfaina. Its website is full of phrases like “gastronomic fantasyland” and ” multisensory trip”. It made me shudder. When I was invited to go and review it, I…

Green Spot is a vegetarian restaurant in Barcelona that everyone can enjoy, with gorgeous interior design and fun dishes. Review: Green Spot vegetarian restaurant, Barceloneta, Barcelona Barcelona isn’t the best city for vegetarians. This is a city built by, and for, meat eaters. There are vegetarian restaurants of a tolerable standard but nothing that really makes…

Barcelona’s 5-star Mercer hotel changes its restaurant chef yet again. Harry Wieding goes back to basics with a very good menu of produce-led Catalan cuisine. Review – Mercer Restaurant, Hotel Mercer, Gothic Quarter, Barcelona The Mercer’s kitchen seems to have been fitted with a well-oiled revolving door. The late, great Jean-Luc Figueras was the first…

Dos Pebrots – the new restaurant in Barcelona’s Raval by former El Bulli head chef Albert Raurich – is a masterclass – and  history class – in Mediterranean cooking. Review: Dos Pebrots restaurant, El Raval, Barcelona A confession: I didn’t walk into Dos Pebrots with an open mind. Every since I heard about chef Albert Raurich’s plans for…

4amb5 Mujades, a promising new restaurant in Barcelona’s Raval, makes local vegetables the focus of its refined and refreshing non-vegetarian dishes. Review: 4amb5 Mujades restaurant, Raval, Barcelona “WTF is ‘4 amb 5 mujades‘ supposed to mean?” was my first question. I felt embarrassed about my poor Catalan vocabulary until I realised that my Catalan wife didn’t know…

Family-friendly tapas restaurant Bobo Pulpín, near the cathedral in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, puts octopus in prime position but offers something for everyone.   Review: Bobo Pulpín tapas bar and restaurant, Barri Gòtic,  Barcelona With apologies to Dickens, this is a tale of two densities. Traditional Spanish tapas dishes are typically heavy. There’s a lot of deep frying…

La Castanya in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter serves smart, creative tapas giving local ingredients an Italian twist. Review: La Castanya creative tapas bar and restaurant, Barri Gòtic, Barcelona I knew for sure that La Castanya would be good as soon as I saw the chef arrive. But I was already pretty confident by then. Why? Well, the…

Le Cucine Mandarosso is an authentic southern Italian restaurant in Barcelona serving big flavours at bargain prices. Review: Le Cucine Mandarosso southern Italian restaurant, Sant Pere, Ciutat Vella, Barcelona Le Cucine Mandarosso – just off Via Laietana, a few metres from the Palau de la Música Catalana – has been open since 2008 and on…

This new supperclub/pop-up restaurant in Barcelona by Scottish cook and food writer Philip Dundas skilfully combines Caledonia with Catalonia to produce robust, hearty flavours. Review: Radish Barcelona pop-up supperclub Barcelona, like many cities, is in the grip of a supperclub boom. Platforms like EatWith are connecting record numbers of tourists (and, I suppose, some locals)…

Bardeni ‘meat bar’ near la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is a carnivore’s dream: top-quality tapas in informal surroundings. Review: Bardeni ‘El Meatbar’, Eixample, Barcelona Bardeni ‘el meatbar’ impressed me when I visited in 2014 (see here). I’m also a fan of its sister restaurant Caldeni, located next door. Knowing that Bardeni had been fully renovated, and keen…

UPDATE: CLOSED An ambitious new Michelin-star contender opens in the Mercer Barcelona hotel: Kresios Barcelona adds a welcome Italian element to the city’s fine-dining mix. Update: Kresios didn’t last long. The restaurant is again called the Mercer and has a new chef: Click here for my review of the latest iteration of Mercer restaurant.   Review:…

2017 edit: chef Emanuele has now left Mikkeller and started his own Italian restaurant, Il Birrino. Mikkeller Bar Barcelona puts quality Catalan-Italian food on tap alongside excellent but expensive Danish craft beer. Review: Mikkeller Bar, Eixample, Barcelona Danish brewer Mikkeller is to European craft beers what Apple once was to tech: a brand that’s kept its…

Catalan chef Sergi de Meià takes all-local, almost-all-organic ingredients and creates contemporary but rustically redolent dishes that evoke a strong sense of place. Review: Sergi de Meià restaurant, Eixample, Barcelona When I read about Sergí de Meià restaurant last year, it went straight onto my ‘must-try’ list. Run by a young chef from Espluges via the small…

The baby brother of one of Barceloneta’s classic rice restaurants grows up; El Nou Ramonet gets its own identity with creative new takes on traditional favourites. Review: El Nou Ramonet restaurant, Barceloneta, Barcelona Can Ramonet used to be my go-to Barceloneta restaurant for paella in the late 90s. It was always packed, which is why, in…

UPDATE: The old Caldeni is no more. It is now an expanded Bardeni.  A top-value meat feast for discriminating diners: by far the best restaurant near Barcelona’s la Sagrada Familia. Review: Caldeni restaurant, Barcelona I sometimes complain that there are too many tourist traps and not enough good restaurants around the Sagrada Familia and the…

Under the media radar and off the beaten track, this elegant and accomplished Sarrià restaurant is well worth seeking out.  Review: Tram-Tram restaurant, Barcelona It’s fair to say that Tram-Tram does not rely on passing trade. Located on a narrow street high in the uptown Barcelona neighbourhood of Sarrià, near the end of an old…

For top-quality tapas in Barcelona city centre, this crowded basement bar is still hard to beat. Review: Tapas 24 restaurant, Barcelona The only thing that’s underground about Tapas 24 is its location. The word has been well and truly out about Michelin-starred chef Carles Abellan’s little basement bar near Barcelona’s Passeig de Gràcia ever since it opened…

Not quite vegetarian, not quite vegan, but entirely invigorating; a demonstration of the heights humble produce can reach in the hands of a great chef.    2018 Update: Céleri is now PERMANENTLY CLOSED. Review: Céleri restaurant, Barcelona When a chef whose CV glitters with Michelin stars decides that what he really, really wants to do is cook simple vegetable dishes,…

A recommended beachfront go-to for sea views, seafood and organic paella in Barceloneta. Review: Barraca restaurant, Barcelona As casual beachfront rice shacks go, Barraca has a serious culinary pedigree. It was set up in 2013 by Xavier Pellicer, protegee of the late lamented Santi Santamaria at the three-Michelín-starred Can Fabes, in partnership with Guido Weinberg, whose Tribu Woki…

Elegant modern cooking, cocooned an intimate underground dining room, keeps Coure’s many fans coming back for more. Review: Coure restaurant, Barcelona Passatge Marimon, a tiny oasis of calm just off the traffic armageddon of Avinguda Diagonal, is becoming a beacon for discerning Barcelona diners. As well as the Michelin-starred Hisop, there is Xavier Pellicer’s superb latest…

Bold flavours, good service and a fun, boisterous atmosphere make Llamber a solid choice for creative tapas in El Born. Review: Taverna Gastronómica Llamber Barcelona I reviewed Llamber in 2013 and was impressed with its lunchtime menu, interior design and service. Returning for an evening visit revealed a different side to the restaurant, as it…

Classic Catalan cuisine at its best: a masterful lesson from the old school in how to put hospitality at the heart of the dining experience.   Review: Ca l’Isidre restaurant, Barcelona ‘Classic’ is a much-overused word in restaurant reviewing but if anywhere in Barcelona merits the description then it is surely the Raval restaurant of Isidre…

Local, lyrical, ingredient-led modern cooking of the highest calibre; a sensational city-centre showcase for the best the Catalan countryside can produce.  EDIT 2019: Cinc Sentits has moved to new premises. Read the updated review here. Spoiler: it’s still superb. Review: Cinc Sentits restaurant, Barcelona I was there, sort-of, when Cinc Sentits was born. It’s easy…

Adrift in a sea of Barceloneta tourist trap restaurants that serve reheated rice and iffy fish, La Mar Salada is a welcome island of quality. Review: La Mar Salada restaurant, Barcelona It’s hard to believe now, as you run the gauntlet of touts coercing you in the direction of kizzened paellas and defrosted prawns, but Passeig…

A traditional seafood restaurant trawls deeper creative waters for a borderless bounty of contemporary – and mainly uncooked – dishes.  Review: espai Kru by Rías de Galicia restaurant I’ve long known about Rías de Galicia, probably Barcelona’s premier money-no-object marisquería. It’s the sort of place where bodyguards lurk outside with fingers pressed to their earpieces and…

Sky high in both location and quality, this is cooking with deep roots that reaches for the heavens. Review: Dos Cielos restaurant, Melia Sky Hotel, Barcelona The elevator ride from the lobby of the Melia Sky Hotel to the restaurant of twin brothers Sergio and Javier Torres on the 24th floor has a similar trajectory…