Sun-drenched beaches, architectural marvels, all-night parties, and tapas, tapas, tapas – that’s the seductive fantasy of Barcelona. But for locals, the reality is, as always, more nuanced. The city is bursting at the seams with tourists drawn in by boring paellas and chain restaurants around La Rambla and humdrum tapas in the Gothic Quarter. But the real Barcelona thrives in its family-run joints, independent market stalls, and tucked-away bodegas where local flavors get innovate twists. Food is more than a meal – it’s a celebration of the Catalan identity and the ever-flowing wheels of change, a story told through humble suquet de peix (fish stew) passed down through generations or calçots sold only in season. For almost a decade, our Barcelona bureau chief Paula Mourenza has been uncovering these stories – writing about the real Barcelona, bite by delicious bite. In this guide, we’ve rounded up her essentials: the places we return to time and again, no matter the hype.

The culinary scene in Barcelona has seen a slow and steady resurgence since the 1980s, when Spanish cuisine was still being reduced to paella and sangria in the popular imagination. With rampant growth in tourism, Michelin-stars being awarded to local kitchens left and right, and renewed interest in traditional wine-making techniques, Catalan cuisine in particular has become a force in its own right. So, where to find the best traditional Spanish and Catalan food in Barcelona’s many kitchens? Culinary Backstreets has you covered. Our local guides reveal the must-try dishes and drinks of the Catalan capital, and where to track them down, from tapas to top-quality vermouth at an old-school bodega to unforgettable seafood at a family-run marisquería.

With its sloping streets and large, narrow buildings on the outskirts of the city, the Sant Gervasi-Galvany area once served as the site for the summer houses of the 19th-century Barcelonean bourgeoisie. These days, among a seemingly infinite number of cute little shops and kids running around dressed in private-school uniforms, Sant Gervasi-Galvany is a densely woven fabric of office buildings, top medical clinics, consulates, advertising agencies, extravagant cultural spaces, art galleries, decadent old mansions and an assortment of lovely gardens like the Turó Park, Monterols or Moragues. Between a steady demand from locals willing to spend their money in gourmet shops and office workers ready to pay a bit more for really good meals come lunchtime, the neighborhood is also a top-tier food destination.

These days, we can feel a change in Barcelona’s food scene. On one hand, the local cuisine is continually enriched with intercultural dialogue, blended recipes, fusion ingredients or crossroads dishes. Frequently, Catalan restaurant owners pair with partners and team members from around the world, fostering the kind of creativity and collaboration that we love to see. On the other hand, Barcelona’s culinary traditions are being reclaimed by a whole generation of trained chefs who glorify their grandmother’s cooking and local recipes, seeking to elevate and share them. Innovation is supported by tradition, and the culinary experience here continues to grow with the addition of sophisticated techniques, an eye toward sustainable and local ingredients and historical concepts.

The post-punk cultural movement of the 1970’s could be described as a period of breaking with traditional elements, embracing the avant-garde and mixing a variety of different influences. It’s also how chef Felipe González describes his restaurant, Otra Cosa Taberna (which translates to “Something Else Tavern”), located in the neighborhood of Sant Andreu. “I like to define Otra Cosa Taberna as ‘post-punk market cuisine’ because is very much a market cuisine; we buy what the neighborhood has to offer,” Felipe explains. “But we’ll also do with these products whatever we want. The interpretation of cuisine, for us, is super free and very ambiguous. You might be eating a Peruvian causa but with octopus and a mayo with olivada, and we totally flip it to present it in a completely different way. The game has no limits.”

The buriti, which grows in wet riversides and swamps, is among the most splendid of South American palms. This tree has special significance in Brazil: it is even an unsuspecting main character in the Brazilian epic novel The Devil to Pay in The Backlands, written by João Guimarães Rosa. For the Guaraní, an indigenous group of the southwest of the country, the buriti palm is a generous being from which each element can be used: fruit, bark, leaves, oil – it’s why its name means “Tree of Life.” Now, a new Buriti has flourished in Barcelona, just a stone’s throw from the shore in the beachside Poble Nou neighborhood. A Brazilian restaurant full of nostalgic flavors prepared with great skill and served in portions to share tapas-style, but with an authentic Brazilian taste.

An old star from the previous century still shines brightly in Port Vell. Renovated in 1992 and again in 2016, La Estrella 1924 is a classic restaurant that serves simple, refined Catalan dishes, thoughtfully prepared from quality local products. The atmosphere is formal but relaxed, quiet and friendly, and time is kept by the discreet sounding of the clocks hanging upon the wall. It feels like eating in someone’s home – and, in a way, it is. Josefa Chiquillo, great-grandmother of the current owner, Jordi Baidal, opened La Estrella in 1920 as a kind of travelers’ inn, located in the Born neighborhood near the old train station Estació de França.

Life can take some unexpected turns. This is how Adrián Rubio – originally from Aragón province, where he studied cooking – ended up in Barcelona. Perhaps it was the strong wind known as cierzo, which blows from the Pyrenees and down through his native land to the southwest , that carried him here to open a restaurant where the recipes change every day. A chef has to be tough and creative enough to face such a powerful force. Adrián Rubio is just that kind of chef, and he decided to name his new personal project, opened in 2017, after that wind.

Hermós Bar de Peix is the new fish bar by Alexis Peñalver, owner of our longtime Gràcia neighborhood favorites La Pubilla and its tapas-focused little sibling Extra Bar. It might sound a little self-flattering, but the bar’s name (which means “Beautiful” in Catalán) is, in fact, a powerful local symbol. Hermós is the ironic nickname of the homely, humble fisherman of the book El Quadern Gris by the famous Catalan journalist and food writer Josep Pla. Hailing from L’Empordà on the northern Catalan coast, the character’s only relief for the pains of life are the suquets the peix – fish stews. Hermós the bar is a tribute to the magnificence of the Catalan fishing tradition, celebrated here with fire, casseroles and bottles of wine in a little bar inside La Llibertat Market, right next to its fishmonger.

“It is a recipe similar to a meat stew that originally was made with game or fish. We do it with beef cheek – a very traditional ingredient now in Catalunya, but which in those days was not so frequently used. It goes with several herbs and spices like parsley, thyme and marjoram, plus cinnamon and clove, all cooked with lard and honey from the Sierra de Cádiz, made by Tania’s family.” This, in words of the chef Marc Pérez, is a Sosenga, a medieval dish and the name of the restaurant he recently opened in the Gótic neighborhood with his partner in life and work, Tania Doblas.

Cheese has a very long, storied past in Catalonia, as we wrote in the previous parts of this series. But what do the present and future of Catalan cheesemaking look like? The 21st century has seen cheesemaking flourish dramatically in Catalonia, thanks to increasing interest in and appreciation of culinary traditions and trends worldwide, not to mention the financial crisis of 2008, which led many people to make career changes or to take up a more DIY ethos. All of this, combined with that old Catalan inclination toward modern design and creativity, has made for a heady mix. The new generation of cheesemakers comes from a wide range of professional backgrounds; many are college-educated and well-traveled, and accordingly, they have specific aesthetic, gastronomic and nutritional criteria.

Denassus can be found in a narrow space on Blai Street in Barcelona’s Poble Sec neighborhood. Here, the bar occupies nearly half the room, with little tables lining the other side. Upon entry, we are greeted by the jubilant god of wine himself: the giant face of Bacchus, covered in grapes, looks down on us from the wall above. He presides over the scene: a warm, relaxed atmosphere in which to enjoy natural wines and thoughtful dishes. It’s not easy to find a place that blends quality and fair prices, tradition and modernity, identity and open vision, all into one easy-going style. Denassus has this touch.

After two quiet years in Barcelona’s culinary scene due to the pandemic, it felt like in 2022 a storm of energy was released to shake up the city. On the more mainstream side, we saw bright re-launchings such as Teatro, a reincarnation (with new owners) of the Adriá-Iglesias brothers’ famous Tickets, and the resurrection of Albert Adrià’s Enigma after being closed for 27 months. There was also lots of movement in smaller neighborhood kitchens as local chefs fought heroically to adapt and survive, resulting in creative new partnerships like that of Bodega d’en Rafel and Celler Florida, or the forthcoming project at Mercat de la Llibertat from Alexis Peñalber of La Pubilla.

Mushroom hunting has an irresistible, magical pull. Composer John Cage, an avid mushroom collector, found them an integral part of his creative process, once writing: “Much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.” Every fall, thousands of Catalans likewise find themselves under the mushroom’s spell, following the elusive fungus’s silent melody into the woods, a rustic wicker basket in one hand and – more and more these days – a GPS-enabled smartphone in the other. This practice is an old tradition in Catalonia that begins in the forest and ends at the dinner table. Nowadays, the tradition has become a hugely popular pastime for aficionados, called boletaires in Catalan.

Horta, which means “vegetable garden,” is an old neighborhood in the hills of Barcelona. When it was still a vilage, it was known for its many water streams and resulting farms and vegetables. It is very close to Collserola Natural Park, a large green space in the northern part of the city. From the top of this park, you can enjoy incredible views of the city, and behind its skyline, the sea, far in the distance. But you don’t have to go far for great fish and seafood dishes. Horta’s authentic fish corner, El Racó del Peix, is the neighborhood go-to for amazing dishes direct from the market. Arturo Garzón and María José Millán are partners in both life and business, each with a long history in the market of Montserrat in the Nou Barris neighborhood. There, Arturo’s family has owned a fruit and vegetable stall for three generations.