Comerç

The oldest restaurant in Barcelona, which opened in 1786, is the best example of how good traditional cuisine can last over time.  It was founded by Joaquim Pujol and specialised in hot chocolate until it was bought by the Regàs family in 1890. Since then, it has served traditional dishes: cannelloni; spinach with ham, raisins and pine nuts; butifarra sausage with beans; marinated wild boar; Catalan crème brûlée and more. The good food and ‘shilling meals’ in the early 20th century made it famous. But it went through hard times after the Spanish Civil War, when the Regàs family transferred it to the guild of restaurateurs and cooks. Sisco Agut –who had worked for years with his uncle and teacher Agustí at Ca l’Agut– and Sussi Manubens took it over in 1958. It was a bit run down but they managed to earn a name once again from its hallmarks both then and now: good food at a good price. There are two secrets of Can Culleretes’ survival: its family feel and the efforts of three generations of the Agut-Manubens family. The sisters Montserrat and Alícia are currently the restaurant's co-owners, where Sisco’s five grandchildren and Alícia’s husband also work.

This gourmet temple opened in 1970 in the Raval as a restaurant purveying Catalan-Mediterranean market cuisine whose dishes featured seasonal products. This was so important to its founder, Isidre Gironès, that for more than 50 years, from Monday to Saturday at eight in the morning he headed to La Boqueria market in search of the best seasonal ingredients. The know-how of Isidre and his wife Montserrat Salvó turned Ca l’Isidre into a Barcelona landmark, while also earning their diners’ loyalty. A host of celebrities, such as Woody Allen, have sat at their tables to enjoy what is probably the best tripe in the city. However, the menu has other dishes that have become classics, such as lamb brains in black butter with capers and codfish cheeks a la llauna with Santa Pau beans. And their winelist encompasses around 200 labels. In 2017, their daughter Núria, who had combined a degree in Hotel Management with working at the family business, took over management, bringing a contemporary perspective while respecting its identity. Around the same time, the restaurant received the National Gastronomy Award from the Catalan Gastronomy and Nutrition Academy.

A landmark in Basque cuisine in the Born neighbourhood. Every day exceptional aged beef txuletones come off its grill –with the aged cuts displayed in the window– along with fresh fish which comes straight from Basque ports, without middlemen, and from the neighbouring fish market in Barceloneta. They also work with seasonal products like Tolosa beans, and with haricot beans, artichokes and organic vegetables from their own garden, which they present just right, stripped of sophisticated touches. Their bar featuring pintxos from San Sebastián is one of the liveliest in the city. It belongs to the group by the same name, founded in 1996, which seeks to go back to the culinary roots and offer food that is high quality, solid and authentic. It's a project that over time, without forgetting this philosophy, has also embraced other culinary cultures, such as Mexican and Japanese.

Norai is the Catalan term for the piece of metal located on the quay to tie up boats. It is also the name of the restaurant-café in Barcelona's Maritime Museum. Given its goal of spreading  the food culture of the sea, you can savour fish in an interesting, privileged setting: the Royal Shipyards. Plus, you will be contributing to a social and training project which allows people in situations of vulnerability in the Raval neighbourhood to access the job market. It has a lunchtime menu seven days a week that includes a first and second course and dessert, with three options of each to choose from. The second courses always include two dishes with local fish (hake, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, gilt-head bream, sea bass, etc.) and one meat dish. At night, dinners can be held for groups of at least 30 people with a set menu.

This is a Basque restaurant, run since 2010 by the third generation of the family that founded it. With roots in the Gothic Quarter since 1954, it is a  restaurant with arches, wooden beams and lamps made of demijohns and baskets. It has an informal feel, and its décor includes references to Basque pelota and rural props like farm implements. The menu blends traditional tapas and dishes without flourishes, made on the spot at economical prices. Patatas bravas, escargot, tripe, meatballs with tomato, scrambled eggs with mush-rooms, tender garlic and peppers, fried eggs with txistorra sausage, frittatas, cocido stew, caramelised pork ribs, butifarra sausage with wild mushrooms in wine sauce to sop up with bread, steak, cachopo, codfish cooked different ways and more. For dessert, goxua. Home-made patxaran. Affordable set menu at lunch in the area.

This gourmet tavern in Barceloneta –a neighbourhood that is also popularly known as ‘L’Òstia’– belongs to the third generation of a family who opened La Bombeta in the same area back in the 1920s. They tempt diners with traditional tapas and dishes that allow them to savour the Mediterranean in good company: that's their ‘tapasophy’. Crafted with fresh, local products, like vegetables, herbs and fruit from their own garden and orchard, their classics include Pepa's bomba, la rusa de la Barceloneta, breaded and fried calamari, parmentier with foie gras, egg yolk and truffle and slow-cooked pork ribs. And to enjoy yourself even more, they offer a selection of 100 wines, each chosen with care, some by the sommelier Agustí Peris. Decorated by Estrella Salietti, it has three private dining rooms, a bar and a terrace.

In the Raval neighbourhood since 1890 as Antiga Fonda Navarro and since 1940 as Ca l’Estevet, this restaurant is also known as ‘La Mariona’ in reference to the daughter of the then-owner (it changed hands in 2010) who served diners with wit and panache. It is a touchstone of quality and Catalan cuisine which foregrounds tradition and good products while bringing together neighbourhood folks and celebrities. And the semiprivate table in the back is still there, which, they say, prominent figures during the era of the GaucheDivine’ would ‘wrest or commandeer’. Its star dishes include escudella soup; the very popular escargot with salt, pepper and thyme; traditional cannelloni; pasta au gratin; crispy-fried brains; Lluçanès duck in orange sauce; meatballs with cuttlefish and prawns; and fricandeau, all of which have earned it a loyal following. 

This is an innovative concept of a ‘fast-fine’ restaurant which is reviving the tradition of the spit and sparkling wine started in 1962 by Joan Casas, the owner's grandfather, at Barcelona's Kikiriki rotisserie. Accompanied by sparkling wine in a Pompadour glass, the chicken and other local meat (pork and lamb), roasted as you watch, are served on the dish but also in sandwiches or salads –those repertoires also include smoked salmon and roasted pumpkin–. On the other hand, the bubbly –cava, Corpinnat and champagne– has been chosen by sommeliers to pair perfectly with the meat, and a few can even be ordered by the glass. They offer a variety of shareable tapas and small plates, such as croquettes and chicken cannelloni, along with deserts like spit-roasted pineapple with burnt Catalan crème brûlée and lime zest, all in a contemporary setting in the Born neighbourhood.

This is a century-old restaurant which opened to ‘feed and restore’ its customers, now with the fifth generation at the helm and the same goal as always: for people to leave satisfied with plans to come back. They achieve this with their love and enthusiasm, and by working with local products from small producers. Fish fresh off the boat, seasonal garden vegetables, artisan beer, ancestral wine, home-made vermouth. Their star dishes: the ones featuring codfish, which they offer in three versions. The restaurant’s history dates back to 1920, one year after the great-grandfather died, when his widow, who had eight children to feed at a time when women were not yet emancipated, poured in everything she had and transferred the family home-dairy she owned to sign five-year IOU's to found La Posada de La Estrella in 1924. 

They’ve celebrated ten years in the neighbourhood with their ‘mamma-style’ Italian cooking and by organising social cohesion activities and becoming the meeting point of the people who live and work there. For good reason, they believe that the bars at bars have the power to attract stories and restless souls. In their case, it may have something to do with the appetisers they serve –Spritz is the most popular drink but the menu also includes other options like Negroni and Carpano vermouth–. Food-wise, they offer the Turbo sausage and cheese board, pannini –such as the Carrera with porchetta, scamorza affumicata and mayonnaise, and the Alfa Spider with aubergine, burrata and home-made pesto– along with traditional lasagne, meatballs in tomato sauce and tiramisù. And don’t forget the terrace, where you can have a snack or savour Italian beer, wine and coffee while listening to live music and enjoying friendly service.