A Guide to the Classic Gastro Bars and Bodegas of Barcelona
By Nick LawEl Xampanyet. Cal Pep. Cañete. Quimet & Quimet. La Cova Fumada. If you’ve been to Barcelona and are inclined to anchor your travel experiences around food, chances are these names will be familiar to you.
And they should be, too. All are classic institutions with incredible food and deep family traditions, where Catalan and Spanish voices mix with Brits asking for translations of each item on the menu. It’s this classic status that gives them a special atmosphere: animated, anticipatory, celebratory.
But scratch a bit deeper in the city and you’ll find another type of time-honoured establishment that has its own traditions, and low-key, day-to-day magic.
There are several signifiers. An elderly bloke reading a newspaper. Vintage football scarves and team photos on wood panelled walls. An inox (stainless steel) bar. At least one TV on. Intergenerational groups. Bafflingly reasonable prices.
These are the classic bars and bodegas of Barcelona, and while “bodega” means winery or cellar, and many of them are as drinks-focused as the name suggests, owners can also be deadly with the pans.
I’ve highlighted a few of my personal favourites, and populated a map with a bunch of others. Remember to support your local.
Lalans
While the opening hours are a bit more lenient during the week, this Sant Antoni neighbourhood classic is open from 7.30am until 12.30pm on a Saturday. That means you’re having tortilla for breakfast, most likely with a glass of wine, and if you choose to start your day this way, then you have chosen pleasure.
I heard that there are 15 kg of ingredients in each tortilla. Imagine flipping that. In fact, you don’t have to imagine; here is a video of owner Jose doing it.
An individual slice of tortilla, perfectly sticky inside, and served with pan con tomate, costs €3.50.
Av. de Mistral, 44, L’Eixample, 08015 Barcelona, Spain
Celler Antonio
Set in the leafy Horta neighbourhood in the north of the city, Antonio Liarte Álvarez has helmed this bodega for 43 years.
His wife Agustina Vizcaína also runs the bar, and Antonio cooks the dishes himself, riffing on the set menu, depending on what’s fresh from the market that day.
While the bar’s general aesthetic may seem unassuming, there’s nothing regular about the food. I’m yet to try better morcilla (blood sausage), and dishes like pulpo a la Gallega (Galician octopus) and calamari with mongetes (beans) are right up there with the best on offer in the city.
Carrer de Chapí, 108, Horta-Guinardó, 08031 Barcelona, Spain
Bar Bodega Gol
Back in Sant Antoni, I was sold on Bar Bodega Gol when I first saw its signage.
The bodega was founded in 1943 by Josep Gol Solé, and operated by the same family until it was transferred to Javier Caballero in 2020. Javier used to work at La Bodega d’en Rafel, another spot nearby that’s worth your time.
The food is homemade and traditional – Catalan and Galician – with dishes direct from grandma’s repetoire. The cuisine is known as “chup chup”, which is hard to translate but basically means cooked for a long time, stewed, and they do breakfasts “de cuchillo y tenedor” or knife and fork. Read: what you’d usually have for lunch, you have here for breakfast.
Check out the cap i pota and fricandó (both beef stews in this case), and the calamari done Andalusian style.
C/ del Parlament, 10, L’Eixample, 08015 Barcelona, Spain
Gelida
You can feel the history of Gelida as soon as you walk in.
As with those above, many locals will simply drop by for a coffee, beer, vermut, a read of the papers, or a chit chat, but the food here is excellent, in an enjoyably unphotogenic sense: A single butifarra (sausage) with some chips strewn across it; albóndigas (meatballs) that roll precariously close to the edge of the plate on delivery. And fricandó. Always order the fricandó.
C/ de la Diputació, 133, L’Eixample, 08015 Barcelona, Spain
Bar Bodega Quimet
Opened in Gracia by the Quimet family in the 1950s, Bar Bodega Quimet is now run by brothers Carlos and David Montero. They opted for minimal changes, and as such it’s still a beautiful time capsule (check out the ancient wood-panelled fridge, for one) that has kept much of its existing clientele.
Wine is from local winemakers that the brothers know personally, and they serve the same house vermut as the Quimet family did all those years ago.
Some of the menu is cooked, such as an excellent pata de pulpo (octopus), but the main draw here are the conservas – tinned fish – like canned razor clams and squid. You can also order a house combination to try a selection.
Carrer de Vic, 23, Gràcia, 08006 Barcelona, Spain
El Pollo
Raval’s El Pollo has a markedly different atmosphere to those listed above.
Formerly a working men’s “manolo bar”, the lovely Aimar and team have semi-transformed it, keeping many of the original features but also re-writing the food menu, refining some of the dishes, and resultantly attracting a younger, hipper crowd.
The team has recently opened La Polla next door and if you don’t speak Spanish it’s worth asking for an explanation of both names from someone who does.
Carrer del Tigre, 31, Local 2, Ciutat Vella, 08001 Barcelona, Spain
Bar Joan
Another bar that’s impossible to leave out, but which also has a different feel to it, given its position in Mercat de Santa Caterina in the Gothic Quarter.
Joan still runs the bar that he founded in 1984 alongside his wife, sister and nephew. Still today, it’s as family-centric as it always was, though Joan’s three daughters are now part of the operation, too, which adds to the familial warmth and generosity in their hospitality.
Their positioning in the market should speak to the freshness of the food, and the menu is wall to wall classics: albóndigas with samfaina, caracoles (snails), bombas (like a croqueta with ground beef), arroz negro (squid ink rice).
Av. de Francesc Cambó, 16, Ciutat Vella, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
Header image courtesy of Bar Joan. Nick Law is the editor of The Hits, a weekly newsletter exploring the people and food history behind Barcelona’s best restaurants.