The Best Bites in Barcelona
Barrafina owners Sam and Eddie Hart talk to Chic Outlet Shopping® about their love of Catalan cuisine.
Barcelona, on the doorstep of La Roca Village, is bursting at the seams with buzzy bars and notable restaurants. Rambling along Las Ramblas should be regularly punctuated by turning off into side streets in search of tapas. Breakfast is often taken in convivial fashion at bar counters, and eating and laughing carries on long into the night in restaurants serving Catalan cuisine. It’s entirely possible to eat out all day and all night, indeed the only difficulty is deciding on the best places on which to spend your precious time if you’re only in town for a short trip.
With that in mind, we asked restaurateur Sam Hart to recommend his favourite culinary haunts in the city he in which he once lived. Together with his brother Eddie, Sam is the owner of Fino – considered by many to be the finest Spanish restaurant in England – and of Barrafina, a tapas bar in Soho so popular that queues right into the street are a regular occurrence. Both restaurants were born out of the great enjoyment the brothers took in eating out in Spain, and they still travel there regularly, visiting Barcelona every year.
Sam Hart’s top picks for eating out in Barcelona:
Cal Pep
8 Placa de les Olles
00 34 93 3107 961
calpep.com
My favourite place in Barcelona is definitely Cal Pep. In fact when we opened Barrafina in London, Cal Pep was the inspiration. It’s tiny, just twenty-three seats with an L-shaped bar with all the cooking going on behind it. The first time we went here the atmosphere was electric. It’s just fabulous.
Botafumeiro
81 Calle Gran de Gracia
00 34 932 194 230
botafumeiro.es
This is a Galician seafood restaurant just off Las Ramblas. It’s big and glamorous and serves every type of fish, seafood and mollusc that you can imagine. It’s a great place to go to for a celebratory dinner.
Ca L’Isidre
12 Calle Les Flors
00 34 934 411 139
calisidre.com
Ca L’Isidre is very Catalan, run by an elderly couple who must now be in their seventies. They’re brilliant connoisseurs of the famous Boqueria market, where they go and source their ingredients for the day, and then cook them in an old-fashioned, utterly delicious way.
Bar Bomba
56 Calle Balurad
00 34 932 214 061
Bar Bomba, down by the port, is one of the most original, old-school places you’ll come across in Barcelona. It’s run by an old fishing family and it’s really a daytime snacking sort of place where you go for delicious bomba, which is crispy potato croquette fried with shredded oxtail in the middle covered with a spicy tomato sauce. They serve it with very cold Estrella beer.
Bar Pinotxo
Mercat de la Boqueria, Ramblas 91
00 34 933 171 731
Set right in the middle of the wonderful Boqueria market, Bar Pinotxo is a fantastic experience. You sit on stools and look onto all the bustle of the Boqueria, while being served classic Catalan dishes like Spinach with Chickpeas and Bacon. It’s an amazing spot from breakfast time onwards.
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Barrafina: A Spanish Cookbook by Sam Hart, Eddie Hart and Nieves Barragan Mohacho is published by Fig Tree
29-07-2011
