- Barcelona
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Spain
This cosy little place next to the Sagrada Familia is the only place I found in the tourist heart of the city that does not try to ruin your wallet. It has an eclectic decor with Banksy prints and about 100 pairs of sunglasses. All the tables are home made, and the food is extraordinary. It ranges from salads and soups, to burritos and nachos and covers tapas in between. The quality is very good and its not expensive at all. They have a terrace overlooking the Sagrada Familia, and if you stay there till night falls like we did it all goes a little bit crazy. How they fit that many people in the place escapes me, but the owners introduced us to about 20 new friends from all over the world. Great food, great company, good times, highly recommended
www.chillbarcelona.com
Provenca 424 (corner with Sicilia) 08025 Barcelona
+34 934762270
Google map: bit.ly/rr3eE4
Take the lift to the roof-top terrace for smashing views over the harbour. Open from 11.00 till 01.30 at the weekends and till midnight during the week you can book a meal or just enjoy a drink and the view. There’s live music and cocktails too. It’s a great place to cool off and chill out.
Passeig Colóm, 12, 08002 Barcelona
+34 93 268 90 90
www.hduquesadecardona.com/
Google map: bit.ly/pwC1kz
On the other side of the Cathedral, down Carrer de Montjuïc del Bisbe, which is to the right of the small square by the cloisters, you’ll find the Plaça Sant Felip Neri, a most beautiful square with trees and a fountain. The pock marks you can see in the stonework of the church were caused by a bomb dropped by the Italian Air force during the Civil War. All the people, mostly children, sheltering in the church crypt were killed by the concussion. The square is mostly made from buildings moved stone by stone when the Vía Laietana was opened. Across the square you’ll see the terrace of the Beautiful Hotel Neri where you can get a bite to eat and a drink from 10.00 till 23.00 and until midnight at weekends. If the square is not too busy, it’s a fine place to sit. Pop inside the hotel and wonder at the proportions of the stonework.
Sant Sever, 5, 08002 Barcelona
+34 93 304 0655
www.hotelneri.com
Google map: bit.ly/okgP2j
Café Flanders is on the corner of a pleasant square at the farther end of Gràcia, a square retaining much more local flavour than the other, more central ones. An ideal spot for relaxation and a quiet drink to regroup after shopping in Gràcia or visiting the nearby Park Güell. A fine selection of beers and wines. You can find them on Facebook.
As a curiosity, there’s a bronze statue of Rovira i Trias, one of Cerdà’s competitors in the tender for designing Barcelona’s Eixample; his plans, based on concentric developments around the old town, lie discarded at his feet.
Plaça Rovira i Trias, 1 Barcelona, 08024
+34 93 284 3070
Google map: bit.ly/pbXL76
The undisputed classic of the Plaça del Sol, the Café del Sol is a must if you’re in the area. The whole square gets jam-packed with tables and chairs to the point of making hard to tell to which bar is which. It would be a shame to miss it outside peak hours though.
Plaça del Sol 16, 08012 Barcelona
+34 934 155 663
Google map: bit.ly/mXmLRo
Located on the corner of the Plaça de la Virreina, the Bar Virreina has a great terrace with views of a modernist building by Gaudí’s assistant Francesc Berenguer and the church of Sant Joan, burned down during Barcelona’s Tragic Week in 1909. Berenguer who had built it, restored it; it was burned down again in 1936 and restored once more after the Civil War.
Back to business. The Bar Virreina has a good selection of imported beers and does a tasty sandwich.
www.virreinabar.com
Plaça Virreina, 1, 08024 Barcelona
+34932 379 880
Google map: bit.ly/rgsSxb
Exhausted and thirsty after negotiating the crowded Rambles? Tired after traipsing around the shops on Portal del Àngel? Pop into this four-star hotel on the Plaça de Catalunya itself and relax in the shade of the apsis of Romanic Santa Ana Church. (That’s two secrets in one.) Incredible as it may seem, 30 seconds from Plaça de Catalunya is a Romanic church complete with beautiful cloisters; this hotel backs onto it and you can see parts of it from the terrace. Open all day so you can have breakfast, a set lunch and a la carte dinner, as well as drinks. Don’t miss it.
www.oliviahotels.es
Plaça Catalunya 19, 08002 Barcelona
+34 93 316 87 00
A member of the same group as the Granados 83, the Claris offers cocktails and drinks on their rooftop terrace between 18.00 and 01.00. Lunch and dinner are also available. The Hotel Claris is located on the very busy Carrer Pau Claris and is a very handy refuge if you’re nearby and feeling the heat. Along with classic cocktails, El Terrat del Claris makes fine non-alcoholic cocktails for those who prefer them.
www.derbyhotels.com/en/hotel-claris/
Pau Claris, 150, Barcelona 08009. Spain
+34 93 487 62 62
Google map: bit.ly/qBo3Zl
The Hotel Condes de Barcelona occupies two buildings, on both side of Carrer Mallorca on the corner of Passeig de Gràcia. The building on the lower side is home to Alaire, a rooftop terrace serving cocktails, drinks and snacks and open to the public. You get great views over Passeig de Gràcia, Casa Milà (La Pedrera) included, and a glimpse of the Sagrada Familia in the background.
It’s a very pleasant place for a snack during the day, though not cheap, and there is live music on Wednesdays and Sundays in summer.
www.condesdebarcelona.com
Passeig de Gràcia, 73-75. Planta 8ª, 08008 Barcelona
+34 93 445 32 26
Google map: bit.ly/qBo3Zl
This roof-top retreat is a personal favourite. Relax by the small pool and enjoy a quiet restorative or snack. The bar opens from 18.00 till 01.00 during the week and till 02.00 at the weekends.
www.derbyhotels.com/en/hotel-granados-83
Carrer Enric Granados, 83, Barcelona 08008
+34 93 492 96 70
Google map: bit.ly/nbbHUp
This is a modern hotel on Carrer Roselló between Aribau and Enric Granados. To the side of the hotel are gates leading to one of L’Eixample’s interior patios. This little area is known as the Jardins Joan Brossa after the contemporary poet.
Part of the gardens is given over to the hotel restaurant and bar terrace. You can enjoy a meal or drink here in peace and quiet surrounded by greenery and the curious interior architecture of L’Eixample.
If the gates to the jardins happen to be closed –after about eight in the evening– just walk through the hotel and out the back doors onto the terrace.
However, avoid this place at all costs around five in the afternoon in term time. It quickly becomes a hell-hole of screaming brats who, freed from the tyranny of their teachers, burn off their accumulated frustrations and blast your tranquility to jagged bits.
Rosselló, 191, 08036 Barcelona
+34 93 238 63 55
www.eveniahotels.com/hotelrossello
Google map: bit.ly/qN1EpO
Now, Casa Jaime is not the sort of place visitors normally go: it’s a workingman’s bar and lunch restaurant serving simple fare. However, Jaime, the owner, is from Soria and among the tapas you can try are his Iberian cured sausages and – my special recommendation – his homemade croquetas. Now a good croqueta is never born; it’s always made from scraps of meat and vegetables from other dishes, notably stews. At Casa Jaime, the croquetas are made from the meat and veg left over from the thick chicken and meat stew known in Catalonia as escudella.
Massive and misshapen, these authentic croquetas bear little resemblance to those industrial cylinders facetiously served as the real thing in unsavoury bars devoted to tricks on travellers.
Jaime’s octogenarian mom spends a couple of hours separating and shredding the ingredients, mixing them with a thick béchamel and coating them in crumbs.
Anyone wishing to experience the genuine traditional croqueta should drop in, order a couple and wash them down with a bottle of Moritz, Barcelona’s original beer.
Moritz appeared in 1856, disappeared in the late nineteen seventies and has now made a triumphant reappearance. Its distinctive yellow and blue label, fine graphic design and superb marketing knock the hell out of Estrella Damm’s pretentious efforts to be trendy. The beer’s great, too; Moritz brings spring water from the Montseny massif and uses only the finest hop flowers in its fermentation. The beer tastes fresh, clean and delicate.
Enric Granados 107, 08008 Barcelona
+34 93 218 10 55
Google map: bit.ly/jKeLAA
After spending two weeks in arty, alternative Gràcia it’s now my favourite Barcelona barrio. Predominantly a working class area, its residents are largely university students, artists, musicians, and designers, which explains the abundance of art galleries, boutiques, ateliers, and music stores that line the narrow lanes. It’s a living breathing neighbourhood with plenty to do if you like eating, drinking, shopping, and hanging out in cafés, bars, and sunny squares. It’s a good fifteen-minute walk to Plaça de Catalunya, although you can catch the underground train and it’s faster, but this means you’ll rarely see a tourist in Gràcia, which is what I like most about it. It’s not far from posh L’Eixample, where there are chic shops and some of Barcelona’s best restaurants, and it’s close to Park Güell, which is a short hike (or bus ride) up the hill.
Google map: bit.ly/jjAPGY
The best Irish Bar in Barcelona that I've found, genuinely has a great pint of Guinness and is Irish owned and run.
Very central, not pretentious nor full of gaggling tourists, plenty of ex-pat locals on a given night. Recommended for a nice quiet pint or to start a weekend evening.
www.mccarthysbarcelona.com
44 Via Laietana, Barcelona, 08003
+34 932 681 003
Google map: bit.ly/h3sw3u
Europe's largest foodmarket is a riot of colour and sensations. Don't miss Bar Pinotxo with its charming owner.
La Boquería C/ Rambla, 91, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
+34933 171 731
Google map: bit.ly/fh1Mh7
I recommend a quick drink and a bit to eat with the kids in the Obama Bar in Barcelona. We were walking around in the rain looking for a nice place to have a drink, and by luck we came across the Obama Bar, just days before he was elected!
Gran via de les Corts Catalanes 603
08007 Barcelona
Tel: 933016524
www.obamabcn.com
Google map: tinyurl.com/y8g8j3a
A cool, funky bar which will accept you like a friend, whether you are an aristocrat or an alcoholic (or maybe both!). One of the cheaper bars in Barcelona, it may look a little rough and intimidating from the outside, but inside is a small oasis of calm, where people sit around discussing the days events, catching up with the papers, or simply whiling away a few hours, not doing much at all.
The surrounding area around Placa George Orwell is a little on the 'ghetto' side but on the numerous occasions I have been there I have never felt threatened, or uneasy.
Serves good, cheap food as well.
Carrer d'Arai (Placa George Orwell)
For uninterrupted views over Barcelona, take the tram up to Tibidabo and order an ice cold beer or a Mojito at Bar Mirablau (Bar BlueView in Catalan).
A very cool district of Barcelona, El Raval, stretches away just to the west of the Ramblas.
Not quite Barcelona's seamy underbelly, but in a decidedly chi-chi town, the next best thing.
In keeping with its working-class roots, there are still plenty of scruffy neighbourhood bars amidst the proliferating clothes shops, hip bars and restaurants.
From Placa Catalunya (north) to La Rambla (east); Ronda Sant Antoni (west) to Ronda Sant Pau (south)
What a find! Large bar/restaurant, beautifully decorated with real imagination and character. There is a very New York feel to this bar. Cool, relaxed and totally beautiful. Cocktails to die for with a varied menu to suit all tastes and very nicely priced. Staff are friendly, this is a great place for a party. Got talking with one customer who will be holding her wedding here. Not to be missed.
www.marmaladebarcelona.com/
Calle Riera Alta, 4-6, 08001 Barcelona, Spain
+34934 423 966
Google map: bit.ly/mZOAs6
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