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Rafael Medrán has been delighting Poblenou residents with his culinary mastery for 30 years. He cooks Mediterranean market cuisine, always choosing fresh, local products and prioritising those that come from the neighbouring Mercat de la Unió and small shops in the area. His dedication comes into clear focus in his fish and rice dishes (including Iberian pork ribs and manteca colorá, as well as soupy monkfish and red prawn), which are bound to impress any diner. The flat fish from the turbot family, brill (rèmol in Catalan) that lends its name to the restaurant does not appear on the menu but others do, like monkfish served in a casserole with pistachios and mussels. The menu also includes grilled vegetables and meat, and tapas like codfish fritters with molasses and mustard, codfish tripe, fresh ceviche-style anchovies and pork ear, octopus and pork snout. 

The Muisca are an indigenous community in the Cundiboyacense highlands and part of Colombia’s Santander Department. And in this restaurant, they want to pay tribute to their ancestors by showcasing the country’s culinary diversity, from Amazonia to Punta Gallinas. Their kitchen works with local products using contemporary techniques. Their dishes include carimañolas or yucca fritters empanadas, posta negra or black beef from Cartagena, suckling pig or the classic chicharrón pork. They get playful with the desserts: a coastal cheesecake with guava syrup or pie de mango biche (a thin sweet pastry base, layers of green mango and a delicate mango cream, lime and pepper sorbet). The menu and off-menu specials change every season. Sunday brunch with familiar dishes like frijolada and ajiaco soup, typical of Bogotá, along with cocktails.

Dreamt, conjured up, designed and brought to fruition nine years ago by an architect and a painter, this is a place of encounter and disconnection, a place to see an intimate concert, visit an art exhibition, attend a drawing and painting class... and enjoy its food offerings: all home-made and a crucible of different cultures. Their kitchen works with high-quality products from small suppliers, and the cosmopolitan menu includes shareables like picadita árabe (hummus or chickpea dip, baba ganoush or aubergine dip, and muhammara or red pepper and walnut dip), salads, wraps and sandwiches, hamburgers and dishes like couscous, grilled baby calamari and a tripe board. They have a lunchtime menu, and you can choose between the dining room and the garden.

Painstakingly prepared tapas and small plates in a recently renovated space which features premium, seasonal products from the nearby Poblenou market and neighbouring shops, such as Vida Meva (national award winner for most sustainable shop). Its owners, the couple Erola Vila (from Catalonia, in the dining room) and Beltrán Sastre (from Segovia, in the kitchen), met while stu-dying in the neighbourhood at the Culinary Institute of Barcelona, and in 2019 they decided to open a restaurant where guests could eat, drink and have a good time. Every season, they write around 20 dishes on the blackboard, from patatas bravas made of aubergine to codfish kokotxas with pil-pil sauce, along with cracklings, a calamari and butifarra sausage stew, chicken cannelloni with chanterelle and muscatel sauce... It’s 100% grassroots Spanish cooking brought up-to-date, with deep roots in the neighbourhood because it sources from its market every day. The portions are generous enough to share, but you can also order half-portions. And to drink, they offer small-batch wines. In fact, Echegaray is the vermouth imbibed from bar to bar until sundown during the Cuéllar festival (Segovia). 

Home-made cooking by Angelina, whose modestly priced menus with phrases of the day, with such celebrated dishes as pork knuckle and salmorejo soup, and hearty dishes like lentils, stews such as stewed potatoes, and piquillo peppers stuffed with codfish covered in a prawn sauce, has become well known in both the Sant Andreu neighbourhood and in the nearby industrial estate, whose workers and managers have been going there to eat daily since 2009. Other favourites are her grilled meat –cuts of Iberian pork (lagarto, abanico, secreto) and beef entrecôte from Girona, which she buys in a nearby butcher's shop– and sandwiches for a morning snack, including Serranito (pork, ham and pepper). Everything is made with fresh ingredients. Quick, friendly service. 

This restaurant has 33 years of history and new owners, who have kept the previous informal dining menu but extended it with new dishes. They offer breakfast with good coffee, a lunchtime menu that always changes and is offered at weekends too, along with tapas –patatas bravas with a special sauce, croquettes, nachos with cheese, Philippine rolls and more– and beef or vegan hamburgers, sandwiches on regular or gluten-free bread, home-made pizza on thin, crispy crust baked on stone, salads and desserts like red velvet cake and ice cream with proteins. They have a spacious terrace next to a playground, so parents can have a quiet vermouth snack without losing sight of their children. The restaurant seats 52 people and can be closed for private celebrations. 

This bar-restaurant is popularly known as ‘El Santana’. It was founded in 1977 by the mother and uncle of the current owner, who were from Cáceres. Fully involved in community life in Trinitat Vella, they help and sponsor a variety of organisations, including a football club. In fact, this restaurant was chosen by the film director and neighbourhood resident Juan Antonio Bayona to appear in the documentary Querido Fotogramas: 70 años de cinefilia. Behind its simple appearance is a way of cooking that is sure to please. They treat their customers to Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine without any pretensions other than to be delicious. Their speciality is tapas, like fried birds with garlic and parsley, pork knuckle and oven-baked sea bream, as well as seasonal game. Lunchtime menu. Their extensive opening hours enables guests to savour their food from breakfast to the evening meal. The restaurant has a terrace.

This restaurant has 33 years of history and new owners, who have kept the previous informal dining menu but extended it with new dishes. They offer breakfast with good coffee, a lunchtime menu that always changes and is offered at weekends too, along with tapas –patatas bravas with a special sauce, croquettes, nachos with cheese, Philippine rolls and more– and beef or vegan hamburgers, sandwiches on regular or gluten-free bread, home-made pizza on thin, crispy crust baked on stone, salads and desserts like red velvet cake and ice cream with proteins. They have a spacious terrace next to a playground, so parents can have a quiet vermouth snack without losing sight of their children. The restaurant seats 52 people and can be closed for private celebrations. 

This restaurant has been here since 1915 (although the plaque on the façade says that it opened in 1928), so it could speak volumes about how the neighbourhood has evolved. It is a real institution housed in an Art Nouveau building, Casa Vidal, whose underground storage room was used as an air-raid shelter during the Civil War. In another era, it was frequented by workers in the old Pegaso lorry factory, and since it opened it has aimed to please the locals. Today, it serves full breakfasts, tapas like unusual patatas bravas with spicy guacamole, tomato and chilli concassé, crispy onion and black olive sand; the Versalles sandwich (ham, cheese, egg and lettuce); a variety of flatbreads from Folgueroles; and the perennial stews. 

After having spent time in the kitchens of different restaurants, in 2012 Guillem and Maria thought it was time to materialise what they knew in their own project. So, with a great deal of excitement they opened this tapas bar of and for the neighbourhood, where they work with high-quality, local ingredients cooked with up-to-the-minute techniques, respecting tradition yet with nods to innovation. In addition to tapas with familiar names – El Xillu's olives stuffed with anchovies from L’Escala– and unusual tapas offerings like patatas reverdes and codfish with honey, they also have muffins, fried eggs and stews. Their blackboard announces daily off-menu dishes ranging from flammkuchen to grilled scallops and rice blood sausage with apple, and they offer successful desserts as well as a delicious lunchtime menu.