Help Me Narrow Down My Dinner Options!

[#eurovirgin]

We have one night in Barcelona before the cruise departs. I've already decided on lunch at La Boqueria before we board. But for our evening meal, I'm undecided. My husband & I are big foodies, and we definitely want an authentic experience. I've combed through the RS guide, trip advisor, and several other blogs. My list right now is as follows: Blavis, Viana, Petit Pau, Cafe Manila, Bodega Biarritz, La Cova Fumada, El Xampanyet, and Quimet & Quimet. Any advice or opinions would be great!

[toseaornottosea]

My advice would be to stop researching and select a restaurant. I suffer from too much research and find too many choices and then have a difficult time deciding. Narrow it down to the kind of food you want. Chances are you won't go wrong with whatever you pick from the choices you have.

[#eurovirgin]

My advice would be to stop researching and select a restaurant. I suffer from too much research and find too many choices and then have a difficult time deciding. Narrow it down to the kind of food you want. Chances are you won't go wrong with whatever you pick from the choices you have.

Yeah I know in my heart you're right!

[mom4mom]

My boss goes overseas a lot and whenever he goes to Barcelona he goes to 7 Portes which he said is phenomenal as well as reasonable. He said you will need reservations. We plan on visiting it in Oct and will review if you still need that info. If you go before then please let me know what you choose and how your experience was so we can possibly consider adding that restaurant too

[Bobal]

With all due respect to people on these boards, this is probably not the best place to ask. I would use websites which are more inclined to restaurant reviews such as Trip Advisor. Also google the restaurant websites and see which menus appeal to you - and make sure you can get a table, some places get booked up months in advance or only open on certain days a week.

 

We've eaten in many restaurants in Barcelona and never really had a bad meal - some have been outstanding - but it's difficult to recommend somewhere unless you know a person's tastes and budget. The only place I've been to on your list is Xampanyet and you need to know that this is not a restaurant but a cava bar which serves tapas, so definitely not the place to go for a 'foodie' experience. It is, however, a great place to go for a pre-dinner drink and we always try to get there when we're in Barcelona :)

[campolady]

To be honest I think it is a great shame to worry about pre-arranging your meals; what you think you will want to eat/experience now may well change when you get there. To get a true taste of Barcelona just wander around, look at menus, see where the locals are going into and perhaps eat like many Spaniards do by having one or two courses in one place then move on to another for dessert.

 

As for getting 'an authentic experience' your best bet for this is in a back street locals restaurant rather than one of the more famous places where you often find far more tourists than locals.

 

Whatever you decide to do, have a great stay in Barcelona.

Edited January 17, 2017 by campolady

[EnricM]

Hi #eurovirgin

 

If you plan to have lunch at one of the restaurants at la Boqueria -which means having a range of tapas, majoritively fresh seafood, while seating on a very (very!) informal arrangement under the porches surrounding the market (or also "in" the market), I would think your dinner should be in quite a different environment, right?

 

If so, drop Bodega Biarritz, La Cova Fumada, El Xampanyet, and Quimet & Quimet and even Viana. Not because they're not worth it -which they certainly are!- but because I would think (apologies for assuming) that you'd like better a completely different experience than that at lunch, wouldn't you? To me, that includes a proper restaurant-like setup rather than an informal one such as in the famous Pinotxo or El Quim de La Boqueria both at La Boqueria market.

 

In that sense, there are plenty other choices depending which sort of food you like, or what are you in the mood for. Obviously, since you're visiting Catalonia -where Barcelona is capital of-, a small nation with a long distinct history, culture and heritage (and her own language too!), I would strongly suggest a restaurant serving Catalan food, the local cuisine. We Catalans do love food and ours is one of the oldest in Europe when it comes to cook books! Btw, while La Boqueria Market is considered the mecca of fresh food markets in town, is by no means, the only one... we have over a dozen more spread across the city, such as the nearby Santa Caterina Market.

 

So, as for dinner options, among many other, I also would include El 7 Portes -one of the oldest in town, serving us Barcelonians since 1836 where you can taste one of their rice dishes (yeah, there's a very wide variety of local rice-based dishes beyond paella), El Nacional near Plaça Catalunya, four restaurants sharing 3000 sq ft dedicated to fresh products, authentic national Catalan cuisine and soulful cocktails, Tapeo in El Born area is another great place to taste Catalan dishes, such as the paella's little cousin, the Fideuà... or any of the many other exquisite fine displays of our Catalan cuisine. Then, if you're a meat lover, you might want to try Asador Aranda Tibidabo, or not far from this one, Mirabé for a diner with views over the city.

 

Too many indeed to recommend just one... but I don't want to further complicate your decision!

 

Enjoy!

 

PS: Btw, if you're a history buff, you might also want to consider Can Culleretes, the oldest restaurant in town, established in 1786.

Edited January 17, 2017 by EnricM

[#eurovirgin]

The only place I've been to on your list is Xampanyet and you need to know that this is not a restaurant but a cava bar which serves tapas, so definitely not the place to go for a 'foodie' experience. It is, however, a great place to go for a pre-dinner drink and we always try to get there when we're in Barcelona :)

 

Thanks- that does help to know!

[#eurovirgin]

EnricM- yes, you hit the nail on the head. I do want dinner to be a different experience than lunch. I'll look into all those places.

[EnricM]

"As for getting 'an authentic experience' your best bet for this is in a back street locals restaurant rather than one of the more famous places where you often find far more tourists than locals."

 

Don't want to get into an argument but I disagree... the eating out scene in Barcelona is, and has always been, aimed rather 'inwards', so to speak, and that's simply for a purely market-driven reason. This has nothing to do with not welcoming foreign visitors but with the fact that, despite the city accommodating over 12 million of them every year, the 'big' market for restaurants is majoritively based on local patrons, not tourists. In the best of the Mediterranean traditions, we Barcelonians go out and socialise with friends a lot (a lot!) so the vast majority of restaurants are not "aimed" specifically to tourists but tend to cater local habits, demand, taste and trends. So it happens, most visitors 'also' frequent the same restaurants we locals do. So, at least for Barcelona, it's about time to drop the ridiculous notion of a "hidden world of restaurants where locals go that aren't touristy"... there's no such thing, most of you guys end up going to the same restaurants we do.

 

Having said that, and like in most other cities with a great influx of foreign visitors, there are a handful of restaurants -some of which are profusely mentioned in certain type of tourist guides- that indeed have evolved (or rather involuted!) towards a mediocre sort of eateries, exploiting bad stereotypes (cheap sangria, frozen paella, unpalatable tapas....), drastically reducing the quality of their product and outrageously inflating their prices in the knowledge that they only need a tiny piece of the pie (12 million visitors!) to make money and that you're only temporarily visiting so your feedback is rather unimportant. But that's a drop in the ocean among the 15000+ eateries in Barcelona. They're very easy to spot for the seasoned traveller. Find them in places like the over-hyped boulevard of Les Rambles for example. In those sorts of eateries, you'll hardly see any local, why would we want to go there having a vast array of other places to go to?

 

I simply say, go beyond what you read in that article in the NYTimes (or other sources in the mainstream foreign media, no pun intended NYTimes!) and explore, see which restaurants are more popular, look at what local patrons do, and then let your instinct guide you. In short "when in Rome.... " and don't be afraid to join in, we're quite jovial to visitors.

 

Enjoy!

[2tsquared]

Why limit yourself to one restaurant? If you want to experience an "authentic" evening of food and wine (or other drink), go to one of the back streets where tapas bars are plentiful and spend your evening going from place to place. We did this our first night in Barca a couple of years ago. It was fabulous! We had a great time and had the chance to sample several delicious "bits" of food, along with an enjoyable local experience.

[Moana Traveler]

EnricM ~

We will be in Barcelona for a few days in mid-May and I very much appreciate

your comments and recommendations on restaurants !

 

We will certainly take advantage of a couple of your suggestions.

[EnricM]

Hi Moana

 

Glad to hear... still, I hardly ever advise on restaurants because I feel it's always a very personal decision: what's worth and what's not, what does one expect when eating out? is it food only? setup and ambiance as well? etc. and don't get me started on "taste"... what's good and what's not, LOL!

 

For the reasons stated above, we Catalans like to eat out a lot so the offer on different types of eateries is rather large. This is, of course, a blessing when it comes to possibilities to choose from, but it's also a nightmare, not only because it's difficult to decide, but also because the competition is ferocious and this often drives to unreliability in many cases. Unfortunately, it's common to have a good reference about a restaurant from a previous visit but next time over one gets disappointed because the service, or the price or the quality is not "what it was" -if you catch my drift. Lastly, another hurdle is, of course, the sheer number of openings and closures in the restaurant arena!

Edited January 18, 2017 by EnricM

[dkata]

We have one night in Barcelona before the cruise departs. I've already decided on lunch at La Boqueria before we board. But for our evening meal, I'm undecided. My husband & I are big foodies, and we definitely want an authentic experience. I've combed through the RS guide, trip advisor, and several other blogs. My list right now is as follows: Blavis, Viana, Petit Pau, Cafe Manila, Bodega Biarritz, La Cova Fumada, El Xampanyet, and Quimet & Quimet. Any advice or opinions would be great!

 

Check out tast-lier. Read my review on trip advisor. 55 euro p/p. One sitting at 8 pm. You eat what chef is making that night. Dinner took 2 ½ hours to complete.

 

If your a foodie and want a special experience, This is it.