At Hoteles Silken, we invite you to discover Barcelona through your palate. We have walked its streets in search of the most authentic ingredients, flavours and chefs to suggest a gastronomic journey that you will hardly forget. We have selected traditional bars, restaurants by renowned chefs, local and international cuisines, and options for every budget. We love eating and the Catalan capital has so much to offer in this field that we pay tribute to it as if it were one of Gaudí’s architectural works. We hope you enjoy it as it deserves!
Catalan cuisine and historic venue | 4 Gats
One of the most emblematic places in Barcelona – if not the most – is this restaurant opened at the end of the 19th century that served as a refuge for artists and intellectuals, including Pablo Picasso. With a Catalan and Mediterranean cuisine where prawn tapas and dishes such as coastal fish and seafood stew are not missing, the real reason to visit is the charm of the place: modernist decoration and live music at night.
Signature tapas | Tickets
For its chef and owner, Albert Adrià – brother of Ferran Adrià – this tapas-based restaurant is not just a gastronomic proposal but a way of understanding life through good company around good food. Tickets is synonymous with elaborate tapas such as the fine shell with tomato ponzu and pickled cucumber or the artichoke sunflower with tarama and ginger caviar, but it is also a show through food that perfectly captures the spirit of the old Paralelo.
Oriental | Dos Palillos
With a Michelin star and a Bulli heritage that can be seen in many of its dishes, Dos Palillos fuses Far Eastern cuisine – mainly Japan, China and Southeast Asia – with the more local style of Spanish tapas. The most recommended option is to try the tasting menu at the bar, although diners will also find simpler options such as dim sum on the menu. Asia or Spain, tweezers or chopsticks – Dos Palillos manages to bring together two gastronomic cultures and leave you wanting more!
Brunch time | Granja PetitBo
In what was once a dairy at the beginning of the 20th century, you will now find the place every hipster looks for in a city like Barcelona: vintage-style furniture, fresh products, homemade cakes and top-quality brunch. Located on Passeig Sant Joan, near Ciutadella Park, the venue mainly offers breakfasts combined with a still limited gastronomic offer. If you manage to get a table, you will be lucky!
Michelin-starred | Disfrutar
The last three head chefs of El Bulli, Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch, have transferred part of their knowledge to this restaurant located in front of the Ninot Market in Eixample. As expected, their tasting menu reflects avant-garde and Mediterranean flavours in every dish, as well as a bold and innovative approach that is evident both in the food and in the interior design.
Vegetarian | Teresa Carles
With a majority of non-vegetarian customers, this restaurant has managed to attract all kinds of diners since 2011, when the chef from Lleida who gives the project its name began applying vegetarian cooking techniques to traditional Catalan cuisine, based on very healthy dishes and high-quality local products. To respect seasonality, the restaurant changes its menu twice a year, always offering a surprising and modern vegetarian cuisine in a cosy venue in the centre of Barcelona.
Best patatas bravas | Bar Tomás
We do not forget traditional bars, especially when they are as popular as Tomás in Sarrià, a bar that still breathes the atmosphere of traditional wine bars. Although they prepare many other specialties, the real reason to visit is their patatas bravas, a Barcelona myth (or legend) made up, as the owners themselves admit, of irregular potatoes “cut by hand”, fried to the “perfect timing” and covered with traditional aioli and the classic homemade red sauce whose recipe nobody knows.
Sandwiches | Fidel
It has been said that it is the best sandwich bar in the city – and for good reason. With more than 60 varieties of sandwiches, its endless menu combines classic ingredients – chicken, cheese, pork loin, Canary ham… – in an infinite and creative way with very crispy bread. With no coverage and few tables, this Raval classic allows you to enjoy a homemade sandwich for around €5. Just one recommendation: lactose-intolerant diners should be careful, as cheese is a star ingredient in most of its creations!
If you stay in any of the centrally located Silken hotels in Barcelona, you will be able to easily reach all these restaurants on foot or by public transport.
