Great views, superb steak and slick service at this rooftop restaurant overlooking Barcelona’s Port Vell.  Restaurant locations in Barcelona don’t get much better than this. The Basque-Catalan 1881 Per SAGARDI (Plaça de Pau Vila 3, Barcelona; Tel. +34 932210050) perches atop the waterside Museu d’Història de Catalunya, at the crook of the old harbour where the former fishing district of Barceloneta juts away from…

Inventive and impassioned cooking from a charismatic chef whose personality shines through in every dish in his restaurant, making it one of the finest in Barcelona. Note: This review is based on a visit in January 2014. Chef Jordi Herrera isn’t, at first glance, the kind of guy you might expect to delicately arrange exquisite…

Tragaluz’s stunning glass roof, stylish interior and high-quality but play-it-safe cooking make it an ideal choice for entertaining business guests or taking a break from designer shopping sprees on Passeig de Gràcia. It was raining hard and the sky above Barcelona was black when I set out for Tragaluz (Passatge de la Concepció 5, Tel. +34 934…

The three-Michelin-starred Sant Pau, a short train ride up the coast from Barcelona, offers one of Catalonia’s greatest dining experiences. UPDATE: October 2018: Chef Carme Ruscalleda has closed Sant Pau to concentrate on other projects. I’m leaving this post up as a memento of the wonderful meal I enjoyed there in early 2014.  Thanks to…

Rice done right: L’Arrosseria Xàtiva in Les Corts and Gracia is one of Barcelona’s best bets for paella Like having your wallet stolen on the Metro, bad paella is more a question of ‘when’ than ‘if’ for unwary visitors. In every part Barcelona you’ll find tourists wearing expressions of profound disappointment on their sunburnt faces as…

Snack in style at the Roca brothers’ Barcelona gastrobar, annexed to their Michelin-starred Roca Moo restaurant in the luxury Hotel Omm. 2018 Update: Roca Bar is now PERMANENTLY CLOSED.   Barcelona is an informal, unstuffy city, where jackets and ties are always optional. Even in five-star hotels in Barcelona there are always a few tourists…

Jordi Vilà’s Alkimia (C/ Industria, 79, +34 93 207 6115, closed weekends) is a lot of people’s favourite restaurant. Vilà himself is one of Barcelona’s gastronomic stars: a prodigy who worked under some of the city’s greatest chefs including the recently departed and much-missed Jean Luc Figueras. He opened Alkimia with his partner Sònia Profitós…

Anywhere that describes itself as a ‘meat bar’ is already halfway to a place in my heart. Low-carb lunches are often a bleak prospect but Bardeni (c/ Valencia 454, no reservations, closed Mondays) promised to put a high-protein smile on my face with a meat feast of tapas. I hoped it would distract me from…

Fine food and a fantastic terrace? A winning combination and, you’d think, a concept restaurateurs in Barcelona would regularly seize upon. There are, however, relatively few places where you can eat outstandingly well while enjoying the warm weather; lots of good places, certainly, but not many you’d describe as excellent. A notable entrant in this…

Actually I revisit Gresca (C/ Provença 230, (+34) 934 516 193, website) as often as I can, which isn’t as often as I’d like. I tend to send people there a lot, however, when they ask me: ‘What’s your favourite restaurant in Barcelona’. In fact, Gresca isn’t my favourite restaurant, but it’s my favourite that just about…

Carpe mensam – seize the table. I’m sure my Latin’s all wrong but hopefully you can understand the hurry I was in to book a restaurant when an unexpectedly child-free evening arose in May as the result of an impromptu babysitting offer. It was short notice but I decided to try my luck at Hisop,…

I always love exploring Barcelona’s Raval; it’s constantly changing. Every time I go to the neighbourhood I find new ideas, new languages, new shops… but not always new restaurants. Or at least, not ones worth getting excited about. Barcelona’s most multicultural barrio has not yet produced any truly outstanding ethnic restaurants (that I’m aware of)…

Igueldo (c/Rosselló 186, 08008 Barcelona (between Enric Granados and Balmes)), +34 93 452 25 55) is a modern Basque restaurant with a growing reputation in the Eixample district. If you don’t mind traffic fumes, or if you’re a smoker, it has a neat little street terrace where you can eat; most visitors, however, will pass through…

Sometimes all this fine dining and foodie community stuff can make you a bit crazy. You lose perspective and start to think that everyone is like you; that they’ll travel miles then tolerate appalling service or horrendous decor or cripplingly uncomfortable chairs, just for the sake of a sensational mouthful that makes you go ‘Mmmmmm.’…

UPDATE: Tradición Moderna is now PERMANENTLY CLOSED. The good news is that another Peruvian restaurant, El Chalaco, has taken over the premesis. It’s less elaborate but good, no-frills traditional food.   I feel a bit guilty about this review. I know, obviously, that for reasons of time, money and stomach capacity that I can’t check out…

Appearances can be deceptive. At first glance it would be easy to write off Llamber (Carrer de la Fusina 5, +34 933 196 250) as just another example of the many stylish-but-bland tapas sheds which have sprung up across the city in recent years. It sits directly opposite the Mercat del Born cultural centre, perfectly placed to snare tired…