As we mentioned at the beginning of our “Spain, the Beginning of it All” blog, Spain is renowned for food and drink, which is the main reason I always wanted to go. Though we ate A LOT in Barcelona, we honestly feel like we 1. Could have done better (it was our first trip) and 2. Barely scratched the surface. This is meant to dive a little deeper into some of the places we called out in the general Barcelona blog. If you’re looking for reads based solely on food and drink, this section will be the place to come to and learn from successes and from our mistakes.
Let’s get our biggest blunder out of the way. Like we said, this was our first trip together to Europe, so if you’re a first-time traveler to Europe or a bit of a novice listen up! The no, no of our dining out in Barcelona:
The tourist trap – We had a very lackluster dinner at an overly touristy restaurant on Avinguda de Gaudí. It was steps away from our Airbnb, so our first night we got lazy and ended up eating at one of the restaurants…. That was a big mistake and such a wasted opportunity. Almost all the restaurants on this main drag are catered towards tourists and they’re terrible. A couple red flags that these restaurants exhibit (along with what it seems like touristy restaurants all throughout Europe do) is 1. They have so many menus in so many languages. You’ll get a novel for a menu and it’s just different iterations translated in English, French, German, Cantonese, etc., 2. Speaking of a novel of a menu, these menus aren’t just thick because of the different versions, but these restaurants usually have massive menus. Usually a loosely based “local” cuisine section and then more of a continental section. None of the food is good, at best it’s ok. This is also a good rule of thumb for restaurants at home too. The smaller the menu, usually the better the food. 3. Another red flag for these touristy restaurants is when the servers are begging to sit you. If a restaurant is that good, you usually don’t need your staff to hound potential customers, usually the food does that itself. And lastly, 4. When you see all tourist and no locals, it’s probably not a place you want to be. If you’re traveling you most likely want to immerse yourself in the culture, so try to eat where the locals eat! There’s such great food all over the city, don’t waste a meal like we did. Learn from our mistake.
Lack of giving it a try – The one thing that we have excelled at as travelers is giving as many places a try as we can. Whether it’s a cup of coffee, a pastry or a glass of wine, we have no fear of popping in, getting the side eyed looks from the locals and ordering in more than likely a butchered local language with a Wisconsin accent. Okay that’s mainly, Jack, but he gives a go. Where I think this stemmed from was our mistake in Barcelona. We didn’t do this nearly enough. There were several times we just were go go go and wanted to get to our end destination that we more than likely walked past a hidden gem. This mistake was quickly fixed when we go to Granada, but we look back at our time in Barcelona and have so much regret. Our advice, don’t judge a book by its cover or a bar by the first person you see. Walk it, give it a whirl. It may stink, but more often than not it doesn’t, and you may find a place you want to go back to.
Now we can get to the good stuff:
Cheap breakfast option– 365 Obrador, a local breakfast/coffee/bakery (not quite sure what they would call it) in Barcelona. It was perfect for a quick and very affordable breakfast. You can grab a pastry and a coffee for around 5 euro, which is quite the steal. Their coffee (espresso) is very good, rich and flavorful. When we were there, it was a coffee drink not just a shot of espresso. So Jack got an Americano and I got a cappuccino. They also offer freshly squeezed orange juice and with Spain being a citrus sanctuary, it was incredible. The café has a machine that has the whole oranges that roll down and get squeezed making the whole establishment smell like summer. Our favorite pastries were a powdered sugar dusted puff pastry filled with pastry cream and their chocolate croissant. We were so satisfied that we stopped there every morning we were in Barcelona. Also, I think they must have a commissary kitchen or work with a local bakery because we saw them get pastry orders dropped off daily before open.
Charcuterie/Xarcuteria– We found a butcher, or a xarcuteria, called El Senglar where we stopped and picked up some cured meats and local cheeses. They are very affordable with a wide selection of local fare and have a great, knowledgeable staff. We had no idea what to get and they made a fantastic selection based on the price range we gave them. In addition to their stellar meat and cheese selection, they also have some accoutrements such as olives and other jarred and tinned goodies.
Local Bakery– Pick up some fresh bread to go with your delicious meats and cheeses at Farina & Sons, another wonderful local chain with delicious bread baked daily and beautiful pastries. This is another local chain, but it is very good. We got bread from them daily and it was always fresh and passed the crustiness test. This is a nice technique where you gently squeeze the bread, and the crust makes a crackling and snapping sound. That’s how you know it’s fresh.
Mercado de La Boqueria – One of the most popular attractions in Barcelona. It’s a huge open-air market filled with countless food vendors of all types of meats, cheeses, seafood, vegetables, fruits, as well as restaurants, and shops. Everything looks amazing and tastes even better. We ate so much while we were in the market, but one of our favorite places within the market was Boqueria 886 S.C.P. where we got all our meat cups. Meat cups is just a term we coined because it literally was paper cups of cured meat, genius. Bar Boqueria was a restaurant within the market that was one of our favorites. There we ordered a cold octopus potato salad and then papas bravas. Octopus is freshly caught off the coast of Barcelona and papas bravas is a well-known Spanish dish. It was only fitting to give these two a whirl. The octopus was so much better than I thought it was going to be. It has shockingly tender, without any sort of fishy taste to it and it paired so naturally with cold potatoes. Pretty incredible for such a simple dish. That papas bravas were unfairly overshadowed but they were very good, and it wasn’t the last time we ordered them during our trip. Note, restaurants located in the market are more expensive than most restaurants outside of it, but if you go tapas style like we did and get a couple plates you can easily get 2 plates under 15 euro. Where it gets expensive is when you order a whole meal.
Our travel advice while you’re in, Mercado de La Boqueria, snack at the stalls. There’s unlimited choices and delicious food to choose from. If you want to dine at one of the restaurants within the market, get a small plate or two to get the most bang for your buck. There can also be quite a long line for seats, especially for multiple seats together. Be patient, we were lucky, and it was an instance of right place right time, but don’t be surprised if you have to wait around an hour.
A place for wine – El Celler de La Boqueria is a shop located at the exterior of Mercado de La Boqueria that we went to, and it was such a great find. It’s by no means a hidden gem, but it was a wonderful experience. Going into the trip we wanted to bring home nice bottles of wine for our parents as souvenirs and we found that and more. They have a great selection, and an incredibly knowledgeable and kind staff. The gentleman working helped us find beautiful and affordable bottles of rioja that we gifted our parents. He recommended a bottle that was a unique vintage that fortunately (for us) didn’t sell well due to crop issues from that year. It had a fantastic taste with a great finish and was such a great recommendation stemming from his location knowledge. Funny story, our trip to Spain was in 2017 and in 2020 Jack’s mom asked him to grab a bottle of red from the basement for Christmas dinner. It was this same bottle we had bought them. Glad they enjoyed that gift 😉 but hey it allowed us to enjoy the memories. Like we said, incredible, but we were so disappointed we didn’t bring home a bottle or two for ourselves. Note to self, buy more wine abroad.
Stop and get gelato – Cremeria Siciliana. It’s very close to Sagrada Familia and we highly recommend and is one of the few glimmers of hope that’s on Avinguda de Gaudí. Going to Spain to get gelato seems blasphemous, but it was almost as good as what you get in Italy. Try the pistachio, you won’t regret it.
Barcelona cuisine with it’s Catalonia roots, especially if you avoid those tourist traps and give that restaurant off the beaten path a try. Try the coffee, try the bread and fresh produce, try the wine and most importantly, don’t forget about the gelato. Enjoy Barcelona. Salud!