The Barcelona table: ten dishes, wines and spirits

About The Barcelona table: ten dishes, wines and spirits

By the ULTIMATE Barcelona Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Catalan cooking sits between the mountains and the sea: mar i muntanya. It is a cuisine of good olive oil, slow sauces and ingredients bought that morning, and Barcelona eats it everywhere, from tiled taverns to MICHELIN-starred dining rooms. Here are the ten dishes to try, the wines, the drinks and the produce of the Catalan countryside.

Ten dishes to try

Pa amb tomàquet: country bread rubbed with a ripe tomato, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil. It comes with almost everything, and with good ham it is a meal in itself.

Escalivada: peppers, aubergines and onions roasted in the embers, peeled into soft strips and dressed with olive oil, often served on toast.

Mar i muntanya: Catalan cooking sits between the mountains and the sea.

Esqueixada: a summer salad of shredded salt cod with tomato, onion, peppers and olives.

Arròs negre: rice cooked with squid or cuttlefish and its ink, served with a spoonful of allioli. Its cousin fideuà, made with short noodles instead of rice, came up the coast from Valencia.

Suquet de peix: the fishermen’s stew of the Catalan coast, fish and potatoes in a saffron-scented broth thickened with a picada of nuts and garlic.

Botifarra amb mongetes: grilled Catalan pork sausage with white beans, simple and very good.

Calçots with romesco: long, sweet spring onions grilled over a fierce fire until black, then peeled and dipped in romesco sauce of peppers, almonds and garlic. The calçotada season runs from about January to April; Valls, near Tarragona, is their home, and the Calçot de Valls is a protected product.

Escudella i carn d’olla: the winter stew of meats and vegetables, served first as a soup with large pasta shells called galets. It is the traditional Christmas Day meal.

Bombas: the potato croquette stuffed with meat and topped with allioli and a spicy red sauce, born in the bars of Barceloneta.

Crema catalana: a lemon- and cinnamon-scented custard under a crust of sugar burnt with a hot iron, traditionally eaten on Saint Joseph’s day, 19 March.

Feasts and sweets

For All Saints in November, Barcelona eats panellets, little almond sweets rolled in pine nuts, with roasted chestnuts and sweet wine. Mel i mató, fresh cheese with honey, is the simple dessert of the countryside. And the city has its own chocolate milk: Cacaolat was created in 1933 by the family behind Granja M. Viader, off La Rambla.

Cava and the wines of Catalonia

Most cava, Spain’s traditional-method sparkling wine, is made in the Penedès, an hour west of the city, around Sant Sadurní d’Anoia; the DO Penedès makes still wines too. In the hills of Tarragona, the Priorat grows powerful reds on slate soils known as llicorella, and is one of only two regions in Spain to hold the top rank of qualified designation, with Rioja; Montsant, which wraps around it, offers similar wines at gentler prices. Closer to town, the small DO Alella grows fresh whites on granite slopes just north of Barcelona.

Vermouth and ratafia

On weekends at midday Barcelona goes out to fer el vermut, to “do the vermouth”: a glass of red vermouth on ice with an olive, a few anchovies, crisps and conservas, before lunch. Reus, near Tarragona, was the great vermouth town of the nineteenth century. Ratafia, a dark liqueur of green walnuts and herbs, is Catalonia’s own digestif and holds a protected geographical indication.

From the countryside

Look for olive oil from the protected regions of Les Garrigues and Siurana, the white Ganxet bean of the Vallès (DOP Mongeta del Ganxet), Llonganissa de Vic, a cured sausage with its own protected label, and pa de pagès, the round Catalan country loaf.

Where to taste

The Boqueria on La Rambla, under its iron roof of 1914, and the Mercat de Santa Caterina, with its wave of coloured roof tiles, are the places to see the produce. For cava with anchovies, try El Xampanyet on Carrer de Montcada; for vermouth and montaditos, Quimet & Quimet; for rice by the port, 7 Portes; and for the classic counter, Cal Pep. All are in this guide.

Our advice: eat as Barcelona does. Vermouth at one, a long lunch at two and, between January and April, one Sunday afternoon at a calçotada in the countryside.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with The Barcelona table: ten dishes, wines and spirits before you go.