Today is Día de Reyes (Kings’ Day), also known as Epiphany, and in Catalonia, as in many places with Catholic traditions, we celebrate the Magis’ visit to the baby Jesus with a tortell de reis(roscón de reyes in Spanish), or kings’ cake. Most people purchase their tortell at a bakery and eat it for dessert at the end of their family lunch on Dia de Reis, as it’s called in Catalan. The Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona, a Catalan association of professional bakers, estimates that some 1 million tortells will be eaten in Catalonia this year.

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.

The quick trip to France for indulgences not found in Spain is something of a tradition among the Catalan people. During the Francoist regime, many people used to drive to France to skip the dictator’s censorship and wait in long lines in the Perpignan cinemas to see classics of erotic cinema of the time – like The Last Tango in Paris – or to get books and magazines forbidden in Spain. Nowadays, you’d still be hard-pressed to find a Catalan who travels to southern France for the weekend and returns empty-handed, though now they’re like to bring back wine, an artisan pâté, or one of hundreds of wonderful French cheeses.

During our visit to Mescladís Borrel Restaurant & School, Victoria Gio, coordinator of the Mescladís program, is on the phone for a long time. She smiles and looks around trying to find someone – she has good news for one of the students. It is Ibrahima, a tall, shy student from Senegal who at the moment is concentrated on preparing bissap, a delicious hibiscus flower infusion that is served as cold refreshment in the Mescladís restaurants. Ibrahima has secured a job in a local restaurant, and together with Gio will start the process to help him to arrange all the documents he needs. We congratulate him.

It has been an endless summer in Barcelona. The temperatures are historically high and use of public air-conditioning historically low due to government-imposed energy saving measures. We are learning to live with what looks like a constant heat wave, where the best hours of the day start at night. The city is now recovering its social and cultural activity after the holidays and the urban and green spaces, with its open-air terraces and inner patios, are still the authentic heart of the city where to meet up with friends and indulge yourself with a delicious bite and a cold glass of wine.

Colmados, queviures, mantequerías, ultramarinos…there are a number of names for Barcelona’s traditional grocery shops, temples of specially curated items ranging from fine charcuterie to preserved fish and seafood, wine, spirits and cheeses. In the 19th century, Barcelona’s large neighborhood markets were the main centers of food distribution in the city, supplying consumers with fresh produce, meat and fish. Barcelona’s first colmados originally served as the place to get all the specialty delicatessen products and spices unavailable in the markets, and also supplied a variety of new jarred, packaged and canned products that 19th-century industrialization introduced to Spain.

The smell of clean clothes with a lavender sachet from grandma’s closet; the family farm in nearby Lleida province during summer with apple trees and wild aromatic herbs growing all around; peaches washed in seawater during a beach day; an afternoon snack of popsicles while playing under the pine tree in the garden. These are just some of the memories that neighbors left in the mailbox of Mamá Heladera in Barcelona’s Poblenou, where owner Irene Iborra turns them into gelato flavors – an initiative that was recently awarded by the Barcelona City Council as best new innovative business (XVII Premis Barcelona Comerç). Mamá Heladera sits next to Tío Che, a classic horchateria and ice-cream parlor on Rambla del Poblenou that opened in 1912.

Strolling down the streets of El Clot, you’ll encounter all the usual suspects of a typical residential Barcelona neighborhood: a small butcher, a multigenerational deli, a hole-in-the-wall bar and, of course, a couple of bodegas. Bodegas are the social and culinary epicenters of Barcelona – this is especially true for more residential, working-class neighborhoods like Clot, where eating out at a proper restaurant is a rare event kept for special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries. So for a casual mid-week get together, locals go to their neighborhood bodega for a small copa of nondescript red or white wine and a tapa of boquerones or some simple cold cuts.

In Spain, conservas, or foods preserved in cans and jars, are not simply a matter of economic survival or a source of basic nutrition for students, hikers, military recruits and the like. Rather, the tradition of conservas more resembles that of keeping one’s most beautiful jewelry locked safe in a strongbox – a prized possession to bring to the table on special occasions, and a unique offering that can be found in both traditional and modern bars and bodegas. It was a Frenchman named Nicolas Appert who invented the technique of canning around the beginning of the 19th century, earning a 12,000-franc prize from Napoleon for having found a way to keep the French army alive and well-fed during its long war campaigns.

Pulpo (octopus) is more than just a staple food in Galicia (the autonomous community in northwest Spain); it is an icon, a national symbol venerated by Galicians as well as Spaniards across the country. In Galicia, this cephalopod is consumed at traditional village fairs, and is sold on weekends at street stalls. These stands are usually run by women called pulpeiras, who boil dozens of octopuses on portable stoves in large pots made of copper. The octopus is then served on wooden dishes with paprika and olive oil, or plopped into plastic bags with some of the cooking water to take home.

Eight, six, or even just four hours in Barcelona’s airport are enough to take a cab or the Aerobus and jump into the city. The ride from the airport to the center takes around twenty-to thirty-minutes, and is really worth it to escape from the capsule of the airport – and that feeling of being, but not really being in a place. Here, we give you several options for different layover lengths, all with options to stay close to the bus line or to move about by cab, to maximize your time and take home a more colorful and tasty experience of your stop in the Catalan capital.

Although it would seem that much of the world imagines the inhabitants of Spain subsisting largely on paella, the truth of the matter is that it is the tortilla de patatas (truita de patata in Catalan), also known as tortilla española in some Spanish regions, that really holds the place of honor in the hearts and stomachs of Spaniards. Often translated into English on menus as “potato omelet,” this hearty round cake of potatoes, eggs, olive oil and salt has nothing to do with the traditional French omelet, nor does it have anything in common with a Mexican tortilla. At its most basic, the Spanish tortilla is made by frying up a thick mass of sliced potatoes and eggs in olive oil and then slicing it into savory wedges.

Prickly yet pretty, bitter but sweet, medicinal and succulent, at once firm and tender – it’s no surprise the multifaceted artichoke is the queen of Barcelona’s winter produce. It’s also one of the city’s most local crops, grown in fields that literally abut Barcelona’s international airport, just some 10 kilometers out of town. Originally from North Africa (most likely Egypt), the artichoke’s appearance in Spain is documented as early as the 1st century AD by Spanish-Roman agronomy writer Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, who mentions them in his work De re rustica.

When El Chato, considered to be Barcelona’s oldest Basque restaurant, opened in 1941 in El Fort Pienc, the neighborhood was a decidedly industrial one. In fact, the restaurant’s main clientele for decades were Basque truck drivers who were dropping off or picking up goods in the area. Much has changed since the 40s. El Fort Pienc is now home to office workers as well as families, lured to the area by its proximity to the center of town. Meanwhile, Basque cuisine has gone on to become one of the world’s most celebrated, its home region filled with numerous Michelin-starred restaurants.

The Catalan ensaïmada is more than just a pastry – the sweet, spiral-shaped bread covered in powdered sugar serves as a direct link to the ancient Sephardic Jewish history of Spain and, more specifically, the Balearic Island of Mallorca (Majorca, in English). Despite the Jewish connection, the name of the pastry actually comes from the Catalan word for lard, saïm, and literally means “mixed with lard.” According to recent research conducted by the Majorcan pastry chef and culinary anthropologist Tomeu Arbona, ensaïmadas are Christianized relatives of an ancient Jewish bread baked on the island, similar to braided challah.

Barcelona’s old bodegas are resilient specimens. Despite facing the forces of development and gentrification, they have had an incredible capacity for preservation, remaining one of the few businesses in the city still alive with the same energy of decades past. The strong attachment of locals in Barcelona to the magnetic personality of their neighborhood bodega is the secret of these survivors’ evolutionary strength. Bodega Josefa, located in El Farró neighborhood’s Lesseps, is one such bodega. Originally a 1920s cellar and shop for bulk wine called Casa Paco, now the bodega offers one of the best homey lunch menus and vermut aperitifs in the area, as well as stomping grounds for neighborhood FC Barcelona fans.

Every fall, traditional Catholic families join together to pray and honor the dead, bringing candles and flowers to cemeteries and sharing meals at home. For many, Mexico’s colorful Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations come to mind. In Spain, this type of holiday takes the form of All Saints’ Day, a Christian appropriation of the Celtic Samhain, the night of the dead. It has also become closely connected with the joyful and ancient pagan celebration of the end of the harvest, marked by the festival called Castanyada (in Catalonia) or Magosto (in other parts of Spain). Throughout Spain and Portugal, people gather to eat roasted castañas (chestnuts) and other seasonal foods, drink the first young wine of the year and enjoy the last warm weather before winter.

Back in the day, weary travelers in Spain could make a stop at a village fonda, a type of inn or tavern, for a hearty meal and a place to rest their heads. Today, in Latin America, fonda has a more contemporary meaning, including popular restaurants and cantinas serving food and drinks. Both rely on down-home, no-frills fare. But at Fonda Pepa in Barcelona, chefs Pedro Baño and Paco Benítez have taken this concept to new gastronomic heights. The restaurant has the easygoing vibe of a village canteen, with the flavors of a royal kitchen. It was the Covid-19 pandemic that gave the Catalan Pedro and Mexican Paco the last little push they needed to jump into a new personal adventure.

This may come as a surprise, even to locals, but Barcelona has its own “urban” vineyards and winery. Located inside an old masía (farmhouse) in Collserola Natural Park, a vast greenspace on the edge of Barcelona’s northwestern city limits, the winery – originally a project established by the Barcelona City Council – uses grenache and syrah grapes grown in those vineyards to produce an outstanding full-bodied blend. But more than simply a winery, the project, known as Can Calopa-L’Olivera, is also an effort to provide city dwellers some important lessons about sustainability and the existence of alternative economies. At the same time, it allows agricultural life to make a healing return to the urban sphere, something Barcelona locals started thinking about more seriously during the Covid crisis.

While many city folks feel the call of Mother Nature and dream of moving to the countryside, Francesco Cerutti had a different idea: “Why not bring the country to the city?” Always innovating, he is trying to “ruralify” Barcelona through an activity that has been strictly connected with pastures, shepherds and the like: cheesemaking. In 2019, Francesco opened a cheese shop in the city’s Gràcia neighborhood, but he doesn’t just sell dairy goods here. Pinullet is a workshop where customers can see, and even participate in, the rustic and ancient art of transforming simple milk into sophisticated, mouthwatering cheeses. Originally from Pavia in northern Italy, Francesco studied agricultural and livestock sciences so that he could be a veterinarian for cows and pigs.

When perusing the menu at any traditional restaurant in Barcelona, one is sure to find a range of paellas and seafood plates. A closer look will also reveal the fideuá, its main ingredient left a mystery. Sometimes done up as fideos arrosejats in Catalonia, fideuá is actually a variation of the iconic seafood paella, but in this case made with fideo (short, thin wheat noodles) instead of rice and served with an intense allioli sauce on the side. Fideuá traces its roots to the Valencian port town of Gandía. According to the Asociación Gastronómica Fideuà de Gandia, the dish was created around 1912-1914 on board the fishing trawler Santa Isabel. The boat would depart at 4am each morning and return in the evenings, meaning the six sailors on board would dine on deck.

Generations of inhabitants of the modern-day Italian peninsula may have learned the art of aromatized ices and frozen fruits and puddings from the East (China, Persia, etc.) – perhaps it was the Ancient Romans or Marco Polo or the Crusaders who introduced some variation of these cold treats. But it is the Italian Francesco Procopio who is considered to be the father of modern gelato. In 1660, he created the first machine to mix sugar, ice and fruit to make “cream.” With less fat, less air, no egg and a slower churning process than traditional ice cream, gelato has taken over from Spain’s traditional orxateries. As Barcelona residents melt under soaring August temperatures, biding their time for a holiday getaway and continuing to battle the Covid variants, the one thing that provides some relief is the city’s stellar gelato scene.

My memories of helados (ice cream) as a kid in the small Galician town of Vigo in the 80s are mostly of the signs outside kiosks advertising Colajets (a cola and lemon flavored popsicle) and Frigo Pies (strawberry ice cream shaped like a foot) – colorful, industrial fantasies on a stick. The quality ice creams of my town were represented by two unique parlors (Di San Remo and Capri), which always had long lines in the summer. However, these places were reserved for very special Sundays. Barcelona’s version of such traditional spots were the Valencian turronerías and horchaterías (orxaterias in Catalan), where locals could get tasty helados with a more artisanal bent. But as the city grows, many of these longstanding places have been disappearing, leaving Barcelona something of a dry desert when it comes to small-batch ice cream.

At Bodega Salvat in the Sants neighborhood, large wooden wine barrels perched on high shelves almost touch the ceiling, looking down on those drinking below with more than 100 years of local history. For several generations of Sants residents, this old bodega, opened in 1880 by the Salvat Vidal family as a bulk wine store, is a fixture of daily life. Now, after a few decades of being run by others, Bodega Salvat’s original owners have returned to bring a new shine to their family gem. The Salvat Vidals, who still own the building housing the more-than-100-year-old watering hole, now protected by the Barcelona City Council as an “iconic bodega,” have passed the business on to various owners over the years.

Although the Gothic neighborhood in Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella (“Old City”) district is supported by deep foundations – it’s the site of the former Roman village of Barcino – much of the quarter’s more recent history has been swept away by the rise of tourism. The few remaining old shops and businesses are often in a precarious position, exposed to the changing times, and yet they continue to stand strong. One such spot is Bodega La Palma, which dates back to at least 1909. Back then it was a shop that sold a little bit of everything as well as bulk wine; now it’s a tapas bar, one that serves as a multigenerational meeting point for locals and visitors (when they’re around).

It takes bravery and strength to swim against the flow, traits the Catalan sommelier Anna Pla and her partner, the Sicilian chef Nicola Drago, certainly do not lack. The duo opened Contracorrent (“Against the flow” in Catalan) Bar, a natural wine bar and restaurant, in November 2020, amidst a series of pandemic-induced openings and closings. In fact, it’s one of the few new culinary projects in Barcelona. But opening in these complicated times was in some ways easier for Anna and Nicola. They had been plotting this project for quite a while, but the pandemic created opportunities that had been hard to come by previously. “For us, not big business people with big fortunes, the pandemic made it possible to start something new, since more things were up for negotiation than before,” Nicola says.

Born right before the Covid-19 storm, Taberna Noroeste opened its doors in February 2020, mere weeks before the pandemic hit Spain and strict confinement forced them to close. It was a turn of events that spelled disaster for many established restaurants and food businesses, let alone one that was brand new. Yet this project from the chefs Javier San Vicente and David López has grown healthy and strong, despite the hardship, and emerged with a unique culinary identity, now known across the city for elevating the popular cuisines of Galicia and Castilla y León (Castile and León, in western Spain) while incorporating Catalan touches.

Some of my most powerful memories from 2020 are of the post-lockdown reunions with the owners of my favorite bodegas and grocery shops in Barcelona. After such a long period of confinement, it felt dizzying to move beyond the borders of my neighborhood and visit bars and restaurants again, which had newly reopened for takeaway. It was hard not to hug my friends – you know, we hug a lot in Spain. On one particularly ridiculous day in May, I remember sneaking a glass of vermut in a paper coffee cup at one of my local bodegas. The coffee cup was a disguise – any police patrolling the streets would think that I was just buying a takeaway coffee (permitted) and not having a drink inside a bar (forbidden).

Typically eaten at Christmastime in Spain, turrón (a type of nougat) originated centuries ago. Some historians believe it was a sweet paste with nuts eaten by athletes in ancient Rome, while others trace its origins to a more elaborate medieval Arab delicacy that combined various toasted nuts with spices and honey. First documented in Spanish by an Arab physician writing in 11th- century Andalusia, “turun” may have been introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by Arabs or Jews from North Africa during the period of al-Andalus. Either way, by the 16th century, the Spanish aristocracy was crazy about turrón, and its popularity eventually spread to all social classes and to other parts of Europe. Over time, this sweet with ancient culinary roots was further refined, becoming Spain’s most popular Christmas treat.

The scent of wood slowly burning is imbued with a sense of home and refuge: It calls to mind the fireplace around which people used to congregate at the end of the day, or the barbecues and grills that still commonly serve as gathering points. This feeling can also be concentrated in bites of food, like the almonds or hazelnuts that have been roasted in Casa Gispert’s wood-burning oven, a relic from 1851 that continues to roast to this day. The oldest food shop in Barcelona, Casa Gispert has both stayed stubbornly the same and slowly evolved. We’ll always remember how, 20 years ago, the beautiful shop was darker and more mysterious; locals used to line up around Christmas to buy their raw, roasted or caramelized nuts, dried fruits, spices and chocolates for their dinners and gifts.

Served as a sauce, romesco is certainly striking: It has an intense dark orange color and a dense texture that saturates and blankets whatever you dip in it. Once in the mouth, you get a piquant touch of vinegar, which is soon enveloped by the nutty creaminess of ground almonds (or perhaps hazelnuts) and olive oil. Yet the sauce’s main personality (and taste) derives from the roasted tomatoes and the rehydrated nyora peppers (ñora in Spanish), both of which are also responsible for its distinctive color. A versatile and tasty picada (pounded paste), romesco works as the base of the famous cold sauce (salsa romesco) but is also used in various dishes like monkfish romesco and mussels romesco. It has come, in its many forms, to represent the culinary culture of Tarragona, a province in southern Catalonia.

The concept of what’s near and far has gone topsy-turvy as of late. In the last decade, before the pandemic hit, far was near: We could have breakfast in Barcelona, get on a plane and arrive in time for lunch in Athens. Nowadays, the other side of one’s municipality is considered far-flung, and going there to eat at a restaurant you’ve dined at a hundred times before is a big adventure, one worth documenting on social media. While we felt that distance keenly during the state of emergency, we could also close our eyes and imagine ourselves back in our favorite restaurants, sitting down to eat our favorite dishes.

You never think that it’s going to be you. But one day, everything goes topsy-turvy, and suddenly you find yourself doing the unimaginable: searching for information on how to access donated food or meals. Thousands of individuals and families in Spain have found themselves in this difficult position during the Covid-19 pandemic. City councils in Catalonia have seen double the normal number of petitions for assistance in the last month or two, while that figure has tripled for Cáritas, the large Catholic charity in Spain. And the Creu Roja (Catalan Red Cross) has received around 10,000 new petitions per week since Spain’s state of alarm began, over 60,000 in total.

In this installment of Pantry Raid, a video series in which our walk leaders give a guided tour of the local pantry and discuss the staples that have sustained their communities over the years, watch Paula Mourenza, our Barcelona bureau chief, talk all about conservas, canned or tinned seafood. As Paula previously wrote, in Spain, conservas “are not simply a matter of economic survival or a source of basic nutrition for students, hikers, military recruits and the like. Rather, the tradition of conservas more resembles that of keeping one’s most beautiful jewelry locked safe in a strongbox, to be brought out only on special occasions.”

Normally when you cross Las Ramblas, it’s like trying to navigate a river coursing with energy; more often than not, the current is too strong. On some days, the rush is easier to manage and more enjoyable. Lately, however, a strange emptiness has descended on the boulevard – no more crowds, no more buzz. But if you listen closely, a pulse remains, that of the area’s historic resilience, which is baked into the very stones that pave this famous thoroughfare. So many things have happened here, and Las Ramblas has endured so much. As Barcelona struggles with the current pandemic, which has brought a surreal silence to the city and raises difficult questions about how to reopen and rebuild, La Boquería, the 19th-century market at the heart of Las Ramblas that in recent years had become overrun with tourists, is reclaiming its role as a neighborhood market.

“No kid without a mona” is the current refrain of Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona (the Barcelona Pastry Guild) – it’s their response to the coronavirus quarantine interrupting this Easter culinary tradition (godparents normally give the dessert as a present to their godchildren around the holiday). The guild, which includes 200 patisseries in the province of Barcelona, has launched a campaign to bring this slogan to fruition. The initiative is two-fold: first, they followed strict hygiene measures to make these delicious edible gifts that godparents ordered online or by telephone to be delivered to the homes of their godchildren last Monday, the Easter holiday called Pascua Florida.

Do I have a fever? Am I coughing more than normal? My paranoia about potential coronavirus symptoms seems to be quite widespread, judging by my family and friends. After more than one week confined inside the walls of our homes in Spain, our moods have run the whole gamut from joking and laughing in chats and on social media about toilet paper or funny protection outfits to a more intimate anguish and uncertainty. Questions keep swirling in my head: How are we going to survive this tremendous health crisis? How are we going to come back from this economic standstill? What is going to happen to all our beloved bars, bodegas, restaurants and all the other small and family businesses that will be closed for so long? How is this storm going to change us?

Anchoa, boquerón and bocarte: These names – in Spanish, Basque and Catalan, respectively – all describe the same little fish, the anchovy, and to make matters more confusing, the names also indicate how the fish is prepared, depending on what region you’re in. For a Basque native, “anchoa” refers to the fresh fish and the brown cured fillets; a “boquerón” can only mean an anchovy fillet marinated in vinegar. For other northerners, like Cantabrians and Galicians, the fresh fish is usually “bocarte,” while white, marinated anchovies are “boquerones,” and “anchoas” are only the expensive salt-cured brown delicacy preserved in olive oil.

In Spain, preserving the rituals of Lent – historically a period of 40 days of prayer, penance and pious abstinence from eating meat that leads up to Easter – was up until the second half of the 20th century mostly the responsibility of priests. Nowadays, however, it is more often the country’s chefs who are shaping the observance of Lent, by both maintaining and updating its delicious culinary traditions, which are still very much a part of Spain’s contemporary food culture. Each country where Lent was customarily practiced has its own special dishes in which meat is replaced with other protein-rich ingredients in order to fill the stomach. In Spain, the “king” of Lenten cuisine is cod (bacalao), introduced in the 16th century by Basque fishermen who had begun to catch it off the faraway coast of Newfoundland.

When we first step into Mitja Galta, a long line of matrons gaze down at us from the wall to our right. Lola, Antonia, María, Fina… the photos of these women, with their names written on them, are placed one right next to the other on a ledge. Together they watch the dishes served at the tables opposite them, like protective goddesses. They are the mothers of the owners, team members and friends who contributed their favorite recipes last year for the restaurant’s special International Women’s Day menu, which ran over the course of a week in March (the holiday is celebrated on March 8). These personal variations on traditional dishes were named after their creators.

Despite its reputation as artisanal and aesthetically complex, natural wine is not about perfection, but rather connection – to time, nature, the land, other beings. And Vella Terra Natural Wine Fair, most recently held on February 9-10 in Barcelona, continues on that theme – it’s all about making and strengthening connections within the natural wine sector. For the last five years, this pioneering natural wine fair has been a meeting point for winemakers as well as other artisanal food producers, restaurateurs, consumers, distributors and educators, allowing locals and foreigners to become better acquainted with Catalan and Spanish wines. In the process, Vella Terra has raised the profile of both local natural winemakers and Barcelona as a natural wine center.

When you hear something go crunch on the left side of L’Eixample, whether crispy bread or churros, croquettes or socarrat, the toasted bottom of paella, there’s a good chance it came from the kitchen of Miquel Pardo. The 30-year-old chef runs his own restaurant called, appropriately, Cruix (Crunch), a place to have fun with food and discover amazing rice dishes from Castellón, a province in the Valencian Community. A native of this region, Pardo mixes his granny’s sofritos with a creativity inspired by the Adriá brothers, cooking dishes that will fill the stomachs of his relatives and friends, among whom he counts the clients of his restaurant.

Think of Blavis in the Sant Gervasi neighborhood as the restaurant equivalent of the iconic Fiat 500 or Mini – perfect for a crowded city and charmingly so. Even though there are only two regular members of staff, this tiny spot packs a powerful punch. Chef and co-owner Marc Casademunt crafts tapas-style plates influenced by local and international cuisines, which are then served by Paco, the friendly waiter. When Marc and his partner, Sonia Devesa, opened the small restaurant in 2008, the financial crisis informed their initial concept: offering an affordable daily lunch menu for workers. In the beginning, they only opened for dinner two nights per week.

In 1949, when the patisserie that Josep Cudié had been working at as head pastry chef for a decade closed, his wife, Antonia Salleras, encouraged him to stop working for others and start working for himself. “Since you’re the creator of all these chocolates,” she said, “why don’t you just open your own business, making the chocolates and selling them to other patisseries?” Fortunately, he took his wife’s advice. Today, Oriol Llopart Cudié, also a pastry chef, is the third generation to run the business and – more importantly – to produce Catànies, his grandfather’s invention. Candied almonds coated with a special praline and bitter cocoa powder, these brown pearls are now one of Catalonia’s most iconic candies.

When the couple Juan Pérez Figueras and Mercè Roselló bought in 1991 what is now Restaurante Agullers, it was an old run-down bar in the inner streets of Born, a neighborhood near the Port Vell area. “When I got the place it was totally ruined,” Juan explains. They decided to keep open only a long and narrow front section, creating a small bar-restaurant that specialized in fresh fish. All food was made in front of the clients, on a tiny grill behind the bar. This miniscule spot offering grilled fresh fish really struck a chord, and by the end of its first decade in business, people were lining up at the door.

When we think of Spanish convent pastries, we imagine a group of old nuns gathered together in the dark and humble kitchen of some small Gothic or Baroque cloistered convent, hidden away in the old part of town. We picture them working quietly, baking elaborate, time-consuming treats from ancient recipes that have been passed down over the centuries by the previous nuns who lived there. Yet when it comes to the only convent in Barcelona that still makes sweets to support themselves, we should throw our biases out the window – Santa Maria de Jerusalem defies all stereotypes.

Vegetables often get short shrift at restaurants – greens, legumes and tubers are relegated to the same tired side dishes, or just one component of many in a generic main, subsumed by the dish’s other ingredients. Not so at GatBlau (literally BlueCat in Catalan), located in the Left Eixample. This restaurant is a shrine to vegetables, showing them anew in all their complexity. Here, the personality of a parsnip, a kohlrabi or any other delicious weirdo from the garden is taken to the next level, refashioned into carpaccio, cake or even rillettes.

On our Made in Catalonia walk, we partake in Barcelona’s beloved vermut tradition, symbolized by colorful, 1960s-era carbonated water siphons. Since the end of the 19th century in Barcelona, this ritual – a fresh drink accompanied by tapas composed usually of preserved food, cold cuts, cured or marinated fish or seafood – has been a way to bring people together before meals.

Naked, free, wild, raw, true, clean… natural wine has many names, except its most obvious one, just plain ol’ wine. There’s no makeup or camouflage, nor is there any sort of artificial interference – chemical fertilizers or industrial yeasts, to name a few – in the vineyards or during the vinification process. Some consider this wine to be a passing fashion, but it has more than a solid foothold in its homelands – France, Georgia and, to a lesser extent, Italy – and continues to conquer palates in new countries. One of those countries is Spain, where natural wine is proving to be a popular alternative to industrial vino, which must adhere to regulations set by the Denominaciones de Origen (D.O., the organizations that oversee the mainstream wine regions in Spain) and has a limited and fixed personality often based on artificial yeast and processes.

The classic neighborhood bodega in Barcelona is a place where customers feel at home. At Bodega Pàdua, an old bodega turned bar-restaurant in the El Farró neighborhood, part of the Sarriá-Sant Gervasi district, this quintessential spirit – usually invisible to the eye – is, somewhat surprisingly, physically manifested on the walls. The long space, which extends to a patio in the back, is decorated with mementos from the community: old photos, antique objects such as radios, cameras, and typewriters, a claviharp, written tributes to local musicians and house pets (including the bodega’s beloved parrot Ricky, who is now in a “better life” but used to say hello to the clients), and even pieces of the old iconic SEAT 600 car, which still has lots of fans in Spain.

n 2005, José Luís Díaz was thinking about retiring after working for many years in great local restaurants. He wanted to leave behind the stress of big kitchens, but still to cook the recipes that he loved with a different rhythm and with more time and care. And so he opened Sense Pressa – an antidote to the pressures and stresses of modern life. Sense Pressa (literally “Unhurried”) is a cozy, modest eatery. The narrow entry adjoins a bar that is flanked by more than 300 wine bottles and leads into a wider room appointed with round tables. The ambiance walks the line between elegant and homey, serene and lively. Each night, Díaz and his team cook around 25 covers (by reservation only) in a single, leisurely seating.

At first glance, Berbena, a restaurant in Gràcia, resembles a small, pretty tree with dazzling foliage – it offers a sophisticated and complex dining experience. But the restaurant’s delicate attributes, those pretty leaves, wouldn’t be possible without a carefully tended trunk and roots. In short, the basics matter, something that its creator, chef Carles Pérez de Rozas, decided after years spent in high-end kitchens. Carles had a culinary education par excellence: After studying at the prestigious Hofmann School, a culinary institution in Barcelona, he worked at several Michelin-starred restaurants in Catalonia, such as Drolma, Saüc, and Carmen Ruscalleda’s iconic Sant Pau. A job in the restaurant at the Hotel de Ville de Crissier brought him to Switzerland; he then spent a short and intense period in France with the great chef Michel Bras. In Japan, he trained alongside Seiji Yamamoto, in his Tokyo restaurant Nihonryori RyuGin, adding more notches of refined knowledge to his belt.

Dust, sweat, rain, and severe sun – these were only a few of the many discomforts that travelers of yore suffered as they made the long journey in horse-drawn carriages from their home provinces to Barcelona. In those days – around a century or two ago – the city was protected by fortified walls; it was outside of those walls, in an area known as Hostafrancs, part of the Santa Maria de Sants village (today the neighborhood of Sants), that many travelers and merchants found a convenient refuge – a place to recover from the journey. Taverna La Parra was one of the several inns that dotted the area.

We travel along Barcelona’s urban wine route on our Bodega walk, joining regulars who come in to fill a jug with wine straight from the large wooden barrels that line the walls and pause for a game of cards, a drink, a bite to eat and some banter.

Wooden wine barrels with taps, shabby old furniture, noisy antiquated fridges, soda siphons from the 1960s… these are the building blocks of Barcelona’s classic bodegas. Formerly shops that sold bulk wine, liquor and ice, these bodegas survived the Spanish Civil War, social conflicts, food shortages, financial crises and, of course, modernity, with their essence intact, even if they morphed into bars or restaurants along the way. The most important element of a neighborhood bodega, however, is neither readily visible nor easily captured: it’s the place of importance these spots occupy in the lives and hearts of the local residents. They are the scene of innumerable childhood memories and infinite moments shared with other locals from the block, making them a dependable point of reference in time and space.

If anything in recent history has bonded Spanish hearts, it was neither politics, language, flags nor even TV. It was the tortilla de patatas, the iconic potato omelet. In every house, bar and restaurant, the tortilla de patates is always treated with intimacy and respect, like some sort of communal great-great-grandmother. And in every Spanish city, you will find a list of the best kitchens offering this specialty. For Barcelona, one neighborhood temple devoted to the omelet is Les Truites, a small family restaurant in Sant Gervasi run by Joan Antoni Miró and his son Marc.

A former village annexed to Barcelona in 1897, the city’s Sant Andreu district was a center of industrial development throughout the 20th century, becoming home to a large population of factory workers. Today, it is a quiet residential area that feels caught between its Catalan village roots and industrial past, with buildings being renovated and repurposed, including factories transformed into creative arts complexes and parks, and a former canódromo (dog-racing track) that is now an “innovation center.” It’s not a part of town that’s considered a dining destination, but Sant Andreu’s El Congrés neighborhood now has its own gastronomic unicorn: TocaTeca, which opened in 2012. A unique establishment of its kind in the area – for now, at least – the restaurant is a gourmet endeavor sustained by a couple of professional chefs, Maria Cots and Guillem Carulla.

Our Barcelona bodega walk kicks off with a carajillo, coffee spiked with a shot of Catalan brandy. It's the best way to start a day of casual imbibing at some of the city's most iconic bodegas. 

At Pollería Fontana, a cozy restaurant inspired by the owner’s history in a poultry shop, it’s neither chicken nor eggs, but rather family that comes first. The name, which means Fontana’s Poultry Shop, is a tribute to the owner’s family business, a store selling chickens and eggs that was established by chef Nil Ros’ grandparents in 1935. But for the last six years, Pollería Fontana has been a contemporary, lovely little restaurant with an idiosyncratic personality in Gràcia, a fittingly idiosyncratic neighborhood that hosts Barcelona’s highest concentration of small independent restaurants. With old kitchenware and trinkets strewn about, numerous family photos in black and white hanging and a casual but warm atmosphere perfect for small groups and families, the space is like a contemporary tribute to the Catalan culinary neighborhood tradition.

Olivos Comida y Vinos is like an independent movie playing at a small cinema on a quiet street in Sants, a neighborhood just outside of Barcelona’s center. It leaves you with the impression of having had an unexpected, intimate connection with something personal and precious. They don’t have customers – they have fans. Decorated with plants and flowers in a comfortable setting of simple, natural materials, Olivos is full of thoughtful details (enough space between tables, no table cloths for green eating) and super-friendly service. The exquisite food follows a sustainable “slow food” philosophy, where products should be local and obtained in both a clean and ethical way, and everything is cooked with a highly professional hand. In Barcelona, where mainstream culinary trends, big hospitality groups and huge investments in interiors and PR are frequently the rule that moves the masses, the independent, honest spirit at Olivos is a treasure.

For a century and a half, the building housing Guixot has taken on many personalities – though one thing has remained the same: It’s always housed some type of bar that also served food. Now a tapas bar celebrated for its sandwiches, brothers, partners and cheery owners Francisco and José Gutiérrez Murillo have been running the iconic eatery in the Raval neighborhood since 1986. Here we can find some of the more interesting sandwiches of the Old City, along with good tapas and a lunch menu of daily specials. Exuding a relaxed, familiar and friendly atmosphere, the space still keeps an old school look with its marble tables and thin iron columns from the past century dotting the interior. It makes good use of its walls, exhibiting paintings that seem to recall its previous life – and it’s had many.

Sometimes we like to indulge ourselves and start the day off with fresh grilled scallops and sparkling cava wine, simple and lovely Catalan delicacies found on our Made in Catalonia tour in the Gràcia neighborhood. 

Stop into one of Spain’s best marisquerías (seafood restaurants) and on the menu you will find a dazzling display of the ocean’s bounty: big meaty clams of different shapes and colors, cockles, scallops, oysters, goose barnacles, spider crabs and lobsters. All will have their own with delectable consistency and texture and their own evocative flavors – from intense, sweet or floral to metallic or rich with umami. And most will likely have come from the waters off the craggy coast of northwest Spain’s untamed Galicia region, harvested by generations of artisan mariscadoras (seafood catchers), Galician women whose lives – and livelihoods – are intimately connected to the sea.

On our Bodega culinary walk in Barcelona, we visit the neighborhood bodegas where locals meet up for vermut and wine, as we learn how to (and how not to) use the porró.

Bars, cafés, taverns and restaurants have historically functioned as meeting spots for all kinds of urban communities, from intellectuals to politicians and artists – revolutions have even been planned around the table. Nowadays in Barcelona, another community, one that has flourished in numerous cities around the world, has started gathering in these types of venues: cyclists. The number of cyclists in Barcelona has increased some 30 percent in recent years, according to the City Council – in 2017 alone, 38 percent of residents moved around the city on two wheels. With more than 230 km of cycling lanes and a fleet of 7,000 brand new municipal bikes, the city is still adjusting to coexisting with so many bikes and riders.

“I missed the traditional foods I grew up with in Cádiz,” said Natalia García, a young woman with dark hair, bright red lipstick and a smattering of tattoos across her upper arm. “I was actually born in Germany, and my mother was a professional cook, so I was always around food,” she tells us. Despite the German heritage, García’s strong accent and open, friendly demeanor are pure Andalusia. “Whenever I told people [in Barcelona] I was from Cádiz, they would get excited. Everyone loves Cádiz, especially the food.” After living in Barcelona for just one year, García decided to open La Chana, a bar that reminded her of home, in the heart of the non-touristy neighborhood of Poble Sec.

A tomato is a tomato, or that’s what it might seem like to grocery shoppers in Barcelona. But Karim, who currently oversees two hectares of organic gardens in Campíns, an area northeast of Barcelona located at the foot of the Montseny mountain range, knows otherwise. “We don’t know what we eat,” he tells us. “I used to work at other places dedicated to industrial farming, and they added a powder to tomatoes to force them to mature in a couple of days. There was a storeroom where we had to put on a special protection suit before entering [the greenhouses] because the tomatoes were sprayed with harmful products that could go directly to our bones.”

Pa de Sant Jordi, bread striped with the bright yellow and red of the Catalan flag to celebrate La Diada de Sant Jordi, may be the new-kid-on-the-block of culinary traditions in Barcelona, but it’s been accepted by nearly everyone as a genuine part of the holiday. The patriotically colored bread is now a ubiquitous presence in bakeries throughout the city come April 23.

There’s something so soothing about taking refuge in a simple restaurant in the middle of a tough work day. These temples of comfort food dot Barcelona streets, with their daily specials written on a flimsy piece of paper or a blackboard. Come midday, laborers of all kinds – from blue-collar workers to executives in suits and freelancers in jeans – stream in, relaxing their minds in front of a good homey dish, one that’s free of ornamentation. In Spain, lunch is usually the main meal of the day, and most companies break for this midday meal between 2 and 4 p.m. This pause allows for a moment of spontaneous team building or a small escape; most people return to their workplace with a renewed vigor.

While English speakers “bring home the bacon,” Spaniards “bring home the bread.” Indeed, bread plays a central role in Spanish and Catalan cuisine, acting almost as an essential ingredient in its own right, rather than simply playing the role of sidekick to other dishes. In Catalonia there are hundreds of bread varieties that are readily available, yet it is the rustic pa de pagès, “farm bread,” that is king. Take the iconic pa amb tomàquet, bread rubbed with tomato, olive oil and salt, used in sandwiches and as an accompaniment for tapas and meals. While all sorts of loaves can be used for this humble yet essential dish, afficionados consider pa de pagès to be the best.

Many traditional bodegas in Barcelona are lined with bulk wine barrels, chalk marked with their content’s region of origin. But they also sell bottles of wine and other libations – vermut, draft beer and more. We get to sample these drinks, and the traditional Spanish foods that accompany them, at some of the city’s most iconic bodegas on our Barcelona Bodega walk.

Three humble ingredients – potato, cabbage and bacon – that’s all it takes to cook trinxat, the quintessential Catalan wintertime comfort dish. Potatoes and cabbage are boiled and mixed with fried bacon, and everything is cooked as a mash in a pan until it resembles a potato omelet. Its simple ingredients and even simpler preparation are exactly what make this dish so delicious. The equivalent to the British bubble and squeak, trinxat means “chopped” or “shredded” in Catalan. The relatively high altitude of Andorra and the Catalan Pyrenees brought with it harsh winters, food shortages and long periods of isolation, so in the past, people living in the region had to come up with a recipe that could help them cope with the adverse conditions.

Compared to many of the contemporary restaurants and bars in Poblenou’s 22@ district, a hub for tech companies and start-ups in Barcelona, Restaurante Leka has relatively deep roots: it first opened as a traditional truck driver’s inn and eatery in 1984. But don’t let its history fool you – this is a spot committed to the future. Reopened in 2016 as an “open source” and “honest food” restaurant, Leka creates high-quality and interesting dishes that combine local and tropical flavors, all at fair prices. Perhaps more importantly, their culinary philosophy, which is centered on creativity, innovation, environmental responsibility and openness to the international community, mirrors the spirit that Barcelona aspires to embody. The city may be on its way, but Leka is already there.

In Barcelona, a bodega is more than a corner store or bar – it is the beating heart of the neighborhood. Wine barrels, chalk marked with their content’s region of origin, line the walls. Neighbors come in and fill a jug to take it home, pausing for a game of cards, a drink and a bite to eat and some banter. We trace this urban wine route on our Barcelona Bodega walk.

La Rambla de Poblenou, the grand, tree-lined boulevard that runs through the neighborhood of the same name, is populated by young families, groups of friends and chummy neighbors who have been seduced by the peaceful village atmosphere and the proximity of the beach. In this charming setting, we find El 58, also known by its French name, le cinquante-huit, recently opened on the ground floor of an old house – formerly a traditional bodega that sold bulk wine, and now one of the most delightful tapas bars in the area.

Just as moments in time can be captured by a photograph, to savor at a later date, so too can the freshest meats and produce – almost equally as fleeting – be preserved (albeit in a can) for enjoyment later down the line. Only we can’t guarantee that they’ll last as long, given how good they taste. Prevalent in various Mediterranean countries, including Spain, Italy, Greece, France and Portugal, canning offers a sustainable way to increase the shelf life of delicate seafood and sophisticated recipes. And while many associate conservas, foods preserved in cans and jars, with student life or basic survival fare, they are in fact experiencing a golden age in Spain.

Located between the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Biscay, in the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, Galicia is a large, wild cape that almost looks like a gigantic hand stretching out into the sea, hemmed in by the beautiful estuaries of the Rías Baixas to the south and the Rías Altas to the north. Given this location, the region has long been renowned as a fishing and agriculture center (although it’s best known internationally as the site of the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of Saint James, an ancient pilgrimage route). Over the past few centuries, however, Galicia has been also been characterized by the migration of a good portion of its population to more prosperous cities and countries.

From a distance, 2018 may look like the calm after the storm in Barcelona, the tempest of 2017 being the independence referendum and its fallout. Yet this isn’t quite what we’d call calm – the city is still convulsing, swinging between action and reaction, as it struggles with gentrification and social upheaval. The independence of Catalonia is not the answer to everything anymore, but it is still a mood, a political cause and door that could be half closed or half open, depending on your perspective. Chefs are looking outside of the center, and even the city itself, in search of better opportunities. Numerous restaurants have moved elsewhere, while others have shuttered their blinds, like a skin of eateries that the city is slouching off.

Subtle or dazzling, soft or hard, made with almonds or hazelnuts, turrones (nougats) are a staple at every Christmas table in Spain. In the lead up to the holiday, we have spotted dozens of different types of turron around town. Everyone has their favorite; maybe yours is waiting somewhere in Barcelona.

El Racó de l’Agüir (“Agüir’s Corner”), a restaurant in Barcelona’s Sant Antoni neighborhood, has been a long time in the making: it represents the life’s work of the Agüir family, the culmination of their talent and experience. Two generations can be found here – parents Roser and Ferran, who have managed four different restaurants over the course of their careers, and their sons, Iván and Ferran, both of whom are now in their 40s and grew up working with their parents. Mom and dad opened El Racó de l’Agüir in 1990, but after two years their progeny took over the reins.

The Delta de l’Ebre is a magical part of southern Catalonia’s Tarragona region. A flat swampy area where the Ebro River meets the sea, the delta contains within its confines a natural park rich in fauna and flora as well as 20,500 hectares of rice fields; the ecosystem allows both to coexist in harmony. The area is perhaps at its most magical when the water rises up to cover the plots, creating what the rice producer Teresa Margalef calls a “land of mirrors.” Until the arrival of the Arabs to the Iberian Peninsula in 711, rice in Spain (and Europe) was a non-cultivated grass with Asian origins; wheat was the crop of choice. The Moors, experts in its cultivation, started to implement their planting and harvesting techniques in the swampy areas in the south and east of the peninsula.

The rain makes it feel like November, when the majority of Spain’s olive oil producers begin the harvest to make extra virgin olive oil. Yet it’s October, and we’re watching the gathering of Arbequina olives in Belianes, very close to the city of Lleida in central Catalonia. These beauties are mostly green, with a few already changing to purple. Jose Ramón Morera, one of the owners of the small company Camins de Verdor, is finishing the harvest of these green olives for Umami, their premium line of olive oil. An absorbing deep green color, the organic extra virgin olive oil is intensely aromatic and fruity, made from early harvested oils that are mechanically pressed using a traditional cold extraction method.

With almost 6,000 kilometers of coast (5,978 to be exact), Spain is the world’s second largest consumer of fish and seafood per resident (the first being, no surprise, Japan). Bathed by the cold Atlantic on one side and the warmer Mediterranean on the other, the country harbors a wide variety of habitats that have made it easy to source many different species of marisco (seafood) and fish. While these fruits of the sea are available at all kinds of Spanish restaurants and bars, the best way to guarantee a magnificent seafood feast is to go to a proper marisquería. A perfect example is La Barca del Pescador.

Low in fat and calories and rich in minerals and proteins, the snail is an old staple with a newfound popularity – while perhaps not as obsessed as the Romans were, Catalans are rediscovering all the benefits of snails: they’re nutritious, tasty and easy to raise. We sample some on our Made in Catalonia walk in Barcelona.

“The future is the past,” says Salva Serra, quoting winemaker Pepe Raventós, the latest in a long line of winemakers to run the famed Raventós i Blanc. While his lineage might not be quite as storied, Salva knows a thing or two about preserving the past – the Serra family has owned La Perla BCN, a restaurant located in the upper Poble Sec neighborhood, very close to Montjuïc Park, since 1965. It’s the type of old traditional restaurant that you only learn about from word of mouth – a friend who only went there because another friend told him about it. The wonderful area where La Perla BCN is situated, with the Poble Sec residential neighborhood on one side and the nearby gardens of Montjuïc hill, home to museums and theaters, including the Grec Theater (built for the Universal Exhibition of 1920), on the other, was not always so charming.

As the food scene in Barcelona continues to change at a rapid clip, with a constant stream of closings and openings, the city’s bodegas are an excellent example of what can be saved. These are businesses that have been updated again and again, sometimes over the course of a century, in order to preserve an essence and an identity that nobody – not now nor back then – wants to lose. La Moderna, a tapas bar and bulk-wine shop on Carrer d’Enric Granados in the Eixample Esquerra (Left Eixample) neighborhood, is a good example of this preservation model. Established in 1937, the bodega has survived just about everything, including the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).

“Now we finally have light!” a vendor excitedly tells a customer, one of many similar exclamations we overhear while wandering around the new temporary digs of the Mercat de L’Abaceria Central. Formerly housed in a historic building on Travessera de Gràcia in the Gràcia neighborhood, the market and its 56 food vendors, 43 food stalls, 13 clothing and kitchenware merchants and two cafeterias recently shifted to a nearby location as renovation work begins on the original structure.

We’re counting down the days until September, which is when many of our favorite bodegas in Barcelona will open their doors once again and we can settle in for a vermut and some of this delicious jamón ibérico.

There we are at Bodega Carlos, enjoying a homey and delicious batch of crispy fried anchovies and succulent stewed pork cheeks, when we suddenly hear birdsong. We look up, but neither canary nor nightingale can be seen flying around the high-ceilinged bodega-restaurant. But then the birdsong instantly switches to a sound we can best describe as a falling whistle, like the one that accompanies Wile E. Coyote as he falls from a cliff. Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it a smartphone ringing with infinite improvised melodies? No, it is Carlos Estrada Roig, the owner of this friendly neighborhood bodega and an expert whistler.

For some inexplicable reason, leche merengada, or meringue milk, a traditional Spanish summer drink, has fallen out of favor over the past few decades – industrial ice creams and sodas, with their multicolored flavors, bubbles and fantasy frozen shapes, have seduced local palates, making this monochrome drink pale in comparison. Well, we say that it’s time to shine the spotlight back on the démodé but delicious and nutritious leche merengada and to revive a drink that was considered opulent in numerous Spanish cities back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and documented in recipe books from as early as the 18th century.

An employee at Sirvent tops the shop’s artisanal ice cream with bright red candied cherries. Sirvent is one of Barcelona’s turronerías (also called torronerías), so-called because they dedicate themselves to making artisanal nougat (turrón) in the winter. But come summer, many flock to them for a cooling ice cream or horchata.

Cal Pep is a name you’ll find across Barcelona, but it takes on a different meaning depending on which neighborhood you’re in. In Gràcia, the name Cal Pep is synonymous with an old bar-bodega, dedicated almost entirely to the business of drinking (Carrer de Verdi, 141). The Cal Pep in Born is a famous seafood restaurant in Born (Plaça de les Olles, 8), with lines snaking out the door. In Sants, Cal Pep is affixed to a charismatic bodegueta (small bodega). Narrow, long and dimly lit, this particular Cal Pep has the atmosphere of a wine temple – including wooden casks and a vintage fridge – that has been frozen in time, with most of the original decorations from 1927 still intact.

The peripheral neighborhoods of Barcelona – untouched by tourism and with cheaper rents – are a land of opportunity for chefs seeking an affordable place to set up shop. These areas in turn attract gourmet gold seekers in pursuit of a brilliant meal at a friendly price. In the residential streets of Sants, not too far from the city’s main train station, one restaurant shines particularly bright, with its eclectic style, influences and, of course, flavors: MinE. MinE is a combination of combinations, beginning with the owner and head chef, Martin Parodi. Born in Buenos Aires, Parodi is the son of a Japanese father and an Italian mother. He grew up in Barcelona, studied in France and then worked in a number of European countries.

Horchata, a unique and deliciously refreshing concoction made from chufas (tigernuts), water and sugar and served chilled, is beloved across Spain. In Barcelona, there’s really only one place to try the stuff: Horchatería Sirvent. The faithful line up here in droves during the summer months, waiting with ticket in hand to sip the best horchata in town.

“I still don’t know where the siphon bottles for the vermut are,” says an employee of Marina, a small bar in the newly renovated Mercat de Sant Antoni. It’s clear as we’re walking around that the staff of the market’s few bars and its many vendors are still settling in and adapting to their brand new spots. At the same time, hundreds of visitors have been exploring the revamped market each day since its opening last week asking, “Where can we eat or drink something?” So far, that seems to be the question on everyone’s mind, particularly locals. But this is not another food hall, this is a proper neighborhood market focused on selling quality fresh produce and other food product

For thousands of years, snails have been an easy source of protein, particularly during lean times. But for the Romans, these slimy mollusks were more than just a back up – a meal of snails was considered an exquisite feast. The Romans were experts on the subject. They studied and classified snails; they knew where to find the edible species in the south of France, Greece, Italy and Spain, how to farm them, how to clean and prepare them and, of course, how to cook them. Records show that the snails were roasted with different seasonings, like garum, pepper or olive oil, or cooked in wine.

We practice using the porrón, a glass jug originally intended to hold bulk wine, on our Made in Catalonia walk. Pouring the wine directly into your mouth while holding the spout some distance away is no easy feat, but it is a skill worth mastering.

The easiest way to pick out a bodega in Barcelona is to look for big wooden wine barrels – they always, and we mean always, feature prominently in these taverns. Locals frequent their neighborhood bodega for myriad reasons: some come to buy affordable bulk wine from the barrels to take home, others to have a vermut (vermouth) with anchovies, or other drinks and tapas, for an aperitif. Sometimes, in those special cases where the bodega evolved to include a kitchen, they also come to enjoy a magnificent meal. These living monuments were, and still are, witnesses to Barcelona’s history, from the Spanish Civil War to the gentrification and intense “touristification” currently taking place in the city. If the walls of Barcelona’s bodegas could talk, we would eagerly listen to the stories of neighborhood life in Barcelona over the last century

Despite the big wooden casks on the wall and the creaky shelves crowded with bottles behind the bar, wine is no longer king at Cal Siscu, an old bodega (wine store and tavern) in Hospitalet de Llobregat, a city located on the periphery of the Barcelona metropolitan area. The new ruler, who has deigned to keep these old relics from an earlier era, is seafood – every day the bar’s counter is covered with trays of majestic treasures from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic like prawns, clams, barnacles and sea snails. Founded by Francisco “Siscu” Rosés in 1933, Cal Siscu originally sold bulk wine and liquors. At that time, the only seafood served came from a can. Customers frequented the tavern, which also doubled as a home (Siscu and his family used to live upstairs), to fill up their wine jugs and sip on a vermut with some olives and conservas like tuna or sardines.

Flowers may be a visual treat, but they are also a regular ingredient in the cooking of numerous cultures. It’s not uncommon to find roses, violets, orchids, chrysanthemums or any number of flowers – more than 200 in the world are catalogued as edible – adding a pop of color or a surprising flavor to a dish. Flowers have particularly deep roots in Spanish cuisine. They featured most prominently in the food of Al-Andalus, the territory of southern Spain governed by Muslims during the medieval period. Influenced by the Arabs, Andalusian cooks used rose and azahar (orange blossom) to aromatize water and make syrups, jams and pastries.

Up in Barcelona’s hills, in the El Coll neighborhood, where the city ends and the sky is cut by the spiky shapes of the pine trees in Collserola Park, Agreste de Fabio & Roser is sprouting up. Emphasizing sustainability and healthy eating, the restaurant is creating delicious dishes that merge Catalan and Italian traditions with contemporary flourishes. Room manager Roser Asensi and her partner, chef Fabio Gambirasi, created this project (the name means “bad weed” in Spanish) less than a year ago and people are already singing their praises. On a recent visit, we could hear words of admiration from different guests flying around the room over the course of our meal.

In the weeks leading up to Easter, the best confectioners in Barcelona erect astonishing and fantastical chocolate constructions, called monas de Pascua, and display them in shop windows. For some lucky children, these chocolate sculptures will be gifted to them by their godparents on Easter Sunday.

There are many legends and myths surrounding the Pyrenees. Some claim that the divine hero Hercules created the mountains by piling up rocks as a tomb for his love Pyrene, who had died in one of the area’s forests after being bitten by a snake. While a romantic story, the Pyrenees are much more than a mausoleum and a symbol of mythic love – they are also the birthplace of Basque culture and a disputed border between Spain and France, a place crisscrossed by Roman roads and sprinkled with Roman architecture, a key point in the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James) and a legendary land for the Catalans.

Cava, the Spanish sparkling wine, is an indispensable part of celebrations in Barcelona – though we’re happy to find other reasons to raise a glass of the stuff any day of the week (particularly on a dreary Monday). It’s produced using the same méthode traditionnelle that is used for French champagne: after the base wine is fermented from the pressing, it’s bottled, usually with a mixture of sugar and yeast, to undergo a second fermentation to produce that ebullient fizz.

Years ago, when it was a booming industrial center, Poblenou saw thousands of workers stream in every day to toil away at one of several factories in the neighborhood. Hearty fare was required to keep them going – sure, taste mattered, but sustenance was the most pressing concern. Poblenou may no longer be filled with factories, but there are still plenty of people who spend their weekdays in the area, working at one of the many start-ups, tech companies or communications firms that have set up shop in their place. When it comes to lunch, these 21st-century workers want the same thing that those who came before them did: lunches that fill their stomachs and satisfy their taste buds without leaving a big hole in their pockets.

The barman at La Bodega d’en Rafel always has a bottle of vermut and a glass at the ready. This spot also offers good cava, local wine, a well poured beer and traditional tapas, but we keep coming back because the people who work here make you feel that you belong – that there will be always a place for you at the bar.

In 1977, just two years after the death of Franco, the great Catalan gourmet Manuel Vázquez Montalbán published a book titled L’art de manjar en Catalunya (The Art of Eating in Catalonia). The book, as well as the prologue written by Montalbán’s mentor Néstor Luján, rang the alarm bells, claiming that authentic Catalan cuisine was in grave danger and on the brink of disappearance. As Montalbán saw it, the unique Catalan culinary identity has been reduced to a few ubiquitous dishes: pan a la Catalan (bread with tomato pulp and ham) and rabbit with aioli. This demise was due, in his opinion, to the frenzied pace of modern life, the lack of high-quality ingredients, the ignorance of both restaurateurs and tourists regarding what good cuisine, not to mention true Catalan cooking, looks and tastes like and, of course, the Franco regime’s efforts at suppressing regional identities.

The entryway of Espai Mescladís is jam-packed with people: neighbors, workers and visitors who come and go all day long, and waiters walking from the kitchen to the tables on the terrace. But there are also dozens of people staring out from black and white photos that cover the restaurant’s walls; some are alone, others in couples, families or groups, smiling and laughing. All the people pictured at one point emigrated to Barcelona, and whether they’re still living in the city or have moved elsewhere, their stories are always present at Espai Mescladís. The photos, taken by the photographer Joan Tomás, were originally part of an exhibition organized by the Mescladís Foundation, a multifaceted initiative that provides tangible and sustainable economic programs, particularly in the form of job training, for migrants and refugees in the city.

“We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun,” wrote George Orwell. He knew quite a lot about poor diets, as he came to Catalonia in 1936 to fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War. He joined the leftist political party and then a militia that fought on the Aragón front for six months, so it’s quite likely that he had tinned food at some point – but only on rare luckier days. In his war diary, Homage to Catalonia (1938), he wrote about craving food at the front as well as many other remarkable experiences that he endured in that period.

On January 6, bakeries throughout Barcelona are filled to the brim with tortell de reis (roscón de reyes in Spanish), or kings’ cake. Whoever finds the king figurine hidden inside the cake is declared king for the day and wears the gold paper crown that comes with the sweet treat.

This was an intense year for Barcelona, with a complex political situation stemming from Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain. It was a storm that the culinary scene could not help but get caught up in. Bars and restaurants have always been a temple of leisure and pleasure, but we sometimes forget that they also serve as a space for people to connect and debate. And in the spirit of debate, food and drink constitute another form of expression, an indication of a restaurant’s cultural leanings. In Barcelona this year, we could taste the continued interest in developing and strengthening Catalan cuisine, often considered an extension of Catalan identity. But we also observed the food scene’s openness to other regional cultures and global influences.

Caga Tió, Tió de Nadal No cagues arengadas Que són saladas Caga torróns Que són més bons It’s not a carol, but it is likely the most popular song in Catalonia around Christmastime. Please pardon the profanity necessary in rendering a faithful translation: “Shit, Log, Christmas Log/Don’t shit herrings/Which are salty/Shit nougats/Which are better.” You might also hear Caga Tió/Avellanas i mató/Si no cagas be,/Et dare un cop de bastó. “Shit, Log/Hazelnuts and mató [curd cheese]/If you don’t shit well/I’ll hit you with a stick.”

A vendor weighs Marcona almonds that will be used to make turrón, a delicate type of soft nougat with ancient culinary roots. It is one of Spain’s most popular Christmas treats.

These mushrooms were a sight for sore eyes on our culinary walk – they arrived a bit late to Catalonia this year because of the rains, but on the plus side, it looks like the warm weather has stretched out the season. We’re not complaining!

Saffron may be most commonly associated with Iran, currently the world’s largest producer of this costliest of spices, but it has a long and storied history across the Mediterranean, particularly in Spain. Once an important saffron producer and trading center, Catalonia has seen a resurgence in saffron cultivation in recent years. The spice, which comes from the Crocus sativus, a fall-flowering crocus, has a long history; ancient civilizations, including the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and more, put saffron in all sorts of foods and drinks, and also used it for medicinal purposes and as a dye. The common belief is that saffron was introduced to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 9th or 10th century.

I used to joke that the only thing binding together Spain is the classic tortilla española, which in Catalonia we refer to as the tortilla de patatas – a neutral name. This potato omelet is one of the very few traditional dishes that is prepared the same way (and equally beloved) throughout Spain’s Autonomous Communities, the regions created after the Spanish Constitution of 1978, a necessary step towards creating a democratic country after the end of Franco’s dictatorship. The fact that this is one of the few dishes we all have in common highlights the significant regional differences of our traditional cuisine, despite our common Mediterranean culinary culture.

Bar chats are on fire these days in Barcelona. As the controversial Catalan independence referendum draws closer, it’s not uncommon to witness spontaneous private discussions or overhear customers express passionate or indignant comments while reading the newspaper or watching the news on the bar’s TV. There is tension in the air, and bars, perennially popular agoras for debate, have become even livelier places. Many Catalans, whether pro-independence or not, will find themselves voting under difficult conditions on Sunday, October 1, in the controversial referendum organized by the Catalan government.

Our Blessed by the Mediterranean walk--which explores Barcelona's seaside neighborhoods--passes through markets like these that offer the best, freshest seafood in the city 

After last week’s horrific terror attack, Barcelona’s Las Ramblas are back to life: candles, flowers and messages written on any available surface share the place with a dense river of humanity walking along the boulevard or having a coffee in one of its terraces. Instead of giving in to fear or hate, Barcelonans have made a defiant show of sticking to their summer routine of going out and taking advantage of their city’s abundant outdoor spaces, turning them into places of healing. With this response in mind, we dedicate our guide to outdoor dining in Barcelona to the victims of last week’s attack and to the multitudes of people that, in all their cultural diversity, always were and will be the peaceful essence of Las Ramblas de Barcelona.

Sants is a working neighborhood with an industrial past and a communal present, both of which it proudly flaunts. There are the street names – like L’Espanya Industrial, Carrer Wat (dedicated to the engineer James Watt) and Vapor Vell (Old Steam) – that tell the story of industrialization in Catalonia, and the two buzzing municipal markets and the many bodegas and restaurants, like Terra de Escudella or Bodega Salvat, that serve as meeting points for an engaged community. Although shaped by a diverse set of international influences, the neighborhood’s sophisticated culinary scene is tied together by something more local: vermut culture.

One of the tenets of the Slow Food movement is that it’s impossible to make a really good meal out of industrial food. Of course certain ingredients can pass muster with diners even if they’re grown on an industrial farm. Yet sustainable farming has an obvious impact – it’s not just a matter of better tasting and healthier food but also environmental and societal benefits. In Barcelona, we are surrounded by a large number of independent, sustainable producers that, too often, are completely invisible. They work in nearby provincial areas such as El Prat, El Penedès, El Vallès, El Garraf and El Maresme that give forth a veritable cornucopia of food goods: vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, olive oil, cheese, marmalades, cereals, flours, honey, meat, fish, wine, vermut, beer and more. These producers work hard every day to remain independent and adhere to stringent standards of sustainability and quality.

The Slow Food movement may be all about slow living, but its spread around the world has been nothing short of speedy. What began as a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome in 1986 has morphed into an international organization that safeguards some of the most authentic and unique local food products in 160 countries across the world, and even receives UN recognition and support for this important work. In Spain, the Slow Food movement mainly consists of independent regional groups made up of chefs, producers and other food-related professionals, and its influence continues to grow as new initiatives are gradually launched.

On the night of June 22, a fire is lit at the top of Canigó mountain in the Pyrenees. All through the night, hundreds of volunteer torchbearers carry the flame to towns and villages throughout the four provinces of Catalonia. The arrival of the flame the next day signals the start of the Revetlla de Sant Joan (St. John’s Eve celebration). Bonfires, firecrackers and fireworks light up the night, and people while away the hours drinking, eating and dancing in public squares and beaches or at parties. Fire, noisemaking and dancing are the main ingredients of St. John’s Eve, the Christian adaptation of ancient pagan celebrations of the summer solstice.

The streets are nearly empty. As light cascades down cobbled thoroughfares, dog walkers shield their eyes and market-goers tow their rickety carts toward Mercado de la Bretxa. The market of San Sebastián sits underneath a square just a pebble’s skip from crashing waves surging up the mouth of the Urumea Itsasadarra River. Lamps glowing red illuminate butchers navigating dangling strings of txistorra, Basque chorizo, while across the aisle, an bright white storefront advertises every imaginable form of bacalao, or salt cod. Tucked in a rear corner, Bar Azkena has been crafting delicate fluffy breakfasts for nearly 20 years. Tortillas, or omelets, stuffed with surprises like squid ink and blood sausage fill the bar counter, necessitating foldout tabletops and overflow seating across the aisle.

There are certain places that experience the strange phenomenon where everything and nothing change at the same time. Take the example of El Racó del Mariner (The Sailor’s Corner), located for 40 years at the old fishermen’s dock in the port of La Barceloneta until it was forced to move when the area was turned into a marina for luxury yachts. Regardless, even at its new address in the modern Port Fórum area, reaching El Racó del Mariner requires that you cross a port police checkpoint, just as you had to at the old spot.

Inside Barcelona’s lesser-known Mercat de Les Corts is a small, unassuming bar offering up the bounty of the Mediterranean. El Bisaura opens up shop at 6:30 a.m., serving esmorzars de forquilla (hearty Catalan breakfasts like sausage and beans, tripe stew and grilled cuttlefish) to local workers. At lunch, it serves a more refined seafood menu composed of whatever owner Alfonso Puig gets from Peixateria Anna, the fish stand on the other side of the market. The fish and seafood of the day are always seasonal, local and impeccably fresh – which is no surprise, since Puig is also the owner of the fish stand.

Mornings in Barcelona start with a strong "tallat" coffee and "pa amb tomàquet" (bread with tomato) along with some "tortilla" slices fresh from the market's bar! A promising start to a rewarding culinary walk!

A flashback from the end of March where we captured the first local peas as they hit Barcelona's outdoor markets.

Sergi de Meiá, in his own words, “started in cuisine the day he was born,” growing up as he did in his mother’s restaurant. He received his first cooking lessons from her and from a family full of chefs and cooks before heading off to cooking school at 14. Nowadays, his mother, Adelaida Castells, is still a fundamental part of the team at de Meiá’s restaurant and is in charge of the most traditional recipes they make. Those dishes are part of a concept dedicated to Catalan cuisine that is, de Meiá says, “evolutionary” and “determined by nature,” a tribute to local products, mixing tradition and modernity in the same pot and in a menu that includes a few historic recipes as well as vegan options.

Barcelona’s urban sprawl makes it easy to forget that the city is adjacent to two fertile regions to the north and south, El Maresme and El Baix Llobregat, which provide numerous hyperlocal culinary treasures throughout the year. In spring as in other seasons, these treasures appear at markets and restaurants, their origins proudly displayed, sometimes even with the names of the specific villages that they come from. The coast and gently sloping mountains of El Maresme are home to numerous villages, three natural parks and beaches. Unsurprisingly, there’s an abundance of seafood here, including gamba de Arenys (Arenys prawns), scampi (escamarlans in Catalan, cigalas in Spanish) and little Mediterranean sand eels (sonsos in Catalan).

The last calçots of the season mark the beginning of Barcelona's spring. Grab a batch on our Made in Catalonia walk while you still can!

Some sociologists say that Spanish society and culture can’t be properly understood without spending time in its bars. You can find bars in mountain refuges, subway stations, on the beach and by the highway. In Barcelona, there are as many bars as taxis and ten times more bars than bookshops. In fact, a recent study by Coca-Cola found that in Spain there’s a bar for every 132 Spaniards. The same study points out that a third of Spaniards wouldn’t hesitate to leave their house keys at their local bar and that two-thirds of them are on a first-name basis with the employees there.

Jordi Piquer opened his popular restaurant in 1968 on an auspicious day: April 23, a holiday that honors his namesake saint. Saint Jordi must have been looking down on Piquer and his dedicated customers when the restaurateur decided to sell his establishment in 1986: three trusted employees banded together to buy it, keeping the Sant Gervasi neighborhood institution in business. A fine example of a classic 20th-century Barcelona restaurant, Casa Jordi is decorated in the old masía (traditional Catalan farmhouse) style over two floors but adapted to urban dimensions, meaning that there are fewer intimate corners but larger, more flexible rooms with tables for groups.

In the southwestern part of Catalonia, in the province of Lleida, lies Les Garrigues, where the gray-green foliage of compact Arbequina olive trees stretches across some 20,000 hectares of the soft, dry landscape. This is where one of Spain’s best extra-virgin olive oils is produced. The olive tree has been cultivated in Catalonia since at least ancient Roman times, although it was probably first introduced by the Greeks in 600 BCE. Its cultivation developed alongside other typical crops that flourish in a dry climate – such as almonds, grains and grapes – until growing olives and producing olive oil became the main industry of Les Garrigues in the 19th century.

We can't get enough of the Syrian shawarma, humus and falafel at Salem Kabbaz's El Cocinero de Damasco in Barcelona. Born in 1945, Kabbaz came to Barcelona in 1980 and has worked in restaurants in the city ever since.

Between two simple slices of bread exists a mind-boggling array of possibilities – something not lost on Spaniards, who have turned sandwich making into something of an art form. In Spain, sandwiches go by different names depending on the kind of bread used and local custom. The type that’s generally called a bocadillo in Spanish and entrepà in Catalan traditionally comes on pan de barra, itself a broad category of bread, with varying dimensions, qualities and more specific names, including baguette, maybe chapata (ciabatta), depending on how round the bakery makes it, pistola (pistol) in Madrid and flautas (flutes) in Barcelona if it’s short and very thin.

Coal candy (yes, completely edible) is among treats we encountered over the holidays on our Made in Catalonia walk in the heart of Barcelona's Gràcia district.

Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Morocco, Tunisia – one thing that unites this swathe of the Mediterranean is olive oil, whose use in the Fertile Crescent can be traced back to 6000 B.C.E. Olives arrived in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula around 9th century B.C.E. with the Phoenicians. Ancient Rome saw huge quantities of olive oil from Hispania Baetica (currently Andalucía) being transported throughout the Roman Empire in millions of amphorae (made in Baetica). Spain leads production of olive oil to this day, with 45 percent of the global total. The majority (65 percent) of Spanish olive oil production is sold to Italy, where this oil is mixed with others (normally of the same quality, but not always) and sold under an Italian label.

Pinxtos are tiny servings of tapas that come in countless varieties, many of which can be sampled on our Made in Catalonia walk in Barcelona's Gràcia neighborhood.

Barcelona’s food shops and colmados offer culinary treasures all year long, but the holidays are a particularly exciting time for browsing their wares. The festive window displays show magnificent gift baskets overflowing with tasty treats – with many Spanish and Catalan specialties among them. Perhaps the most desirable items in holiday gift baskets here are the seasonal sweets, which previous generations would amass in quantities that would serve as “emergency” treats for unexpected guests the rest of the new year. (Thankfully, one can now find these year-round, so there’s no need to hoard them.) We’ve written previously about artisanal turrón, which continues to be handmade by a few family-run companies.

At the beginning, Gelida was just a bodega where Joan Llopart i Figueres, who came from the village of Gelida in Penedés, offered Catalan wine, cold cuts and a few traditional Catalan dishes cooked by his grandmother, like butifarra amb mongetas (boiled sausage with beans). Llopart i Figueres and his wife worked here until they were in their 80s. They were succeeded by their two children, Teresa and Alberto, who have always been involved in the family business and who continue to run the place today alongside their respective spouses, Josep and Luci. Alberto and Luci’s son, Gerard, helps to manage the restaurant, and Laura and Santi, family friends who live nearby, joined the team in recent years as dining room manager and chef.

Escalivada and craterellus-yellow foot mushroom timbale alongside wine porrón are among the pleasant culinary experiences you'll encounter on our walk in the Barcelona neighborhood of Gràcia.

When people think of rice and Spain, they think of paella. In Barcelona there are hundreds of places to eat paella. And every Thursday you can find it on the menú del día at most restaurants across the city. There’s more to Spanish rice dishes than just paella, though. The word “paella” didn’t even appear until the 18th century; recipe books from the Middle Ages talk only of rice, and particularly the Valencian and Catalan kinds. In fact, “paella” originally referred to the pan used to cook the grain, but eventually came to describe the dish as we know it: rice prepared so that the water or broth completely evaporates and sometimes is left with a toasted layer on the bottom. But enough about paella!

Tapas of artichokes and prawns with mushroom paste in a Sant Antoni bodega are among the numerous treats encountered on our walk of Barcelona's iconic bodegas.

“I don’t want to be famous, I just want to do my best and make good food. You have to work with honesty, from the heart,” Salem Kabbaz tells us. Born in Damascus in 1945, Kabbaz is smiling and animated as he chats with friends and suppliers and walks in and out of his restaurant in the Barrio Gótico. A very small, discreet sign above the door marks his eatery, El Cocinero de Damasco – the Damascus Cook – which is devoted to Syrian specialties like shawarma, hummus and falafel. Neighboring residents and City Hall workers come for take away or to eat at the few tables inside the small eatery.

Mussels with aioli in one of the last real old taverns in La Barceloneta, alongside some cod fritters. Treats one is likely to encounter on our Blessed by the Mediterranean walk in Barcelona!

Wine and health: that was the prevailing philosophy of Joan Cusiné Hill, who in 1978 took over Parés Baltà wines, produced in Penedés, the land of cava. Cusiné Hill, who had already started working in viticulture at the age of seven, applied this philosophy first to himself – to what he ate and drank, to exercise, always with his focus on discipline and his vision. But he also applied it to his vineyards, using natural fertilization methods that included walking his sheep among the vines so that they could eat the grass and planting vines in the middle of the forest in an effort to harness the power and energy of those natural surroundings.

Despite the 1970s-era sign outside that says Granja (farm) and the red letters spelling “Bar” inside, you can’t really tell what this place is until you open the menu: a temple of “neighborhood haute-cuisine.” The food at Granja Elena sounds simple but tastes rich and complex. The restaurant is a family business, now run by the third generation – Borja, Patricia and Guillermo Sierra Calvo – in the same barrio in which it was founded in 1974, La Marina del Port. This modern neighborhood is part residential and part industrial, a bit far from Barcelona’s center, located near the merchant port behind Montjuic and on the way to the airport.

It's "vermouth hour" in Barcelona, one of our favorites times of day and an integral part of our Bodega: Barcelona Barrio Tradition, in Bulk walk.

Whales, mermaids, pirates, polar bears and even magicians and hobbits are part of our culinary route these days in Barcelona's Grácia neighborhood! And of course, music and food during the Festa Major de Grácia 2016!

At 10 a.m., Juan Trenado, head of cheese production at Finca Subaida, and his team had already been toiling for several hours. They moved efficiently through each step of the artisanal process, expertly crafting block after block of the famous Queso de Mahón on the Mediterranean island of Menorca. “By law” – Mahón has a protected designation of origin (D.O.P.) – “the cheese could include a little sheep’s milk, but ours doesn’t,” Trenado told us, as he directed a gushing stream of watery cheese curds from a wide hose into a big, waist-high stainless steel vat. Slowly, the vat filled nearly to the brim, and Trenado, along with Mònica Mercadal, Head of Cheese Maturation, and Ramon Alonso, a new hire, carefully stirred the curds, breaking them into small chickpea-sized pieces.

Bodega Manolo has an excellent wine and tapas selection and is one of our favorite spots in Barcelona. The bodega is an essential part of the city's culture, and we have an entire walk devoted to it!

Manchego cheese (made from raw sheep's milk), amazing canned razor clams and Galician empanadas are among the treats enjoyed on our Barcelona bodega walk.

Some color from the Canary Islands: papas with mojo picón (green pepper, red bell pepper and goat cheese) can be found in our Barcelona Bodegas walk!

Maybe it’s the fresh air, maybe it’s the smell of the grass and the trees or maybe our senses are more alert, but it seems to us that when we eat outdoors, food just tastes better. And Barcelona, blessed as it is with so many sunny days, a municipal market in every neighborhood, a growing number of gourmet food stores and many excellent traditional food shops and stalls, is a great city to spread out a picnic blanket for an alfresco feast. To enjoy a good meal under the blue sky, you can choose from more than 80 different green spaces:

Barcelona's Bodegas Vinito is a popular neighborhood spot that serves up excellent and reasonably-priced tapas and vermut. Did we mention it's a stop on our bodega tour?

When Edu, owner of the Barcelona wine bar Celler Cal Marino, was growing up in the 1980s in the neighborhood of Sant Antoni, he would confuse Rafel Jordana with the iconic German soccer player and coach Bern Schuster (“Schuster is in the bar, daddy!”). Jordana, owner of the bodega that bears his name, is not so famous internationally, but he is undoubtedly one of the icons of Sant Antoni and of the old-school bodega-bar culture in Barcelona. La Bodega d’en Rafel has served as a location for a number of films and television series (such as “Cites,” the Catalan version of “Dates”), a subject of many articles and profiles and an important touchstone for a larger community that connects Barcelona locals with their identity.

Halfway between a French bistro, a Nordic café and a Spanish casa de comidas (a traditional small family-run eatery where the menu changes according to season and the market), Santa Gula is the perfect place to sin – gastronomically speaking – in Gràcia. Hidden in a small and peaceful square, Santa Gula, or Saint Gluttony, is truly heaven amid Avinguda Diagonal’s commercial buzz. This cozy restaurant with its wonderful outdoor terrace (set up in spring and summer) is without a doubt one of the neighborhood’s best well-kept secrets, attracting a crowd of faithful customers, from locals and area office workers to foodies from across the city.