There is more in Barcelona than meets the eye and these restaurants in La Rambla can prove it. Check them out!
The hectic pace of La Rambla is so stressful that, when hunger knocks your stomach, is really easy to end up in the first free table you find by chance. It is a truth that all restaurants have their charm, from the least original to the most local. However, you can’t call yourself ramblista if you have not tried certain menus. These are our recommendations:
1. Rambla Café
Address: Calle de Portaferrisa, 1
Average price: € 15
Placed at Palau Moja, one of the rare examples of La Rambla’s bourgeois past, they cook their specialities with fresh and local products. In fact, they’re the kitchen of the Catalan Heritage House. You can spend hours observing the people walking through La Rambla while discovering what real Mediterranean cuisine tastes like. It is not one of those fast food places where you come, eat and go. Here, everything is prepared to feel like home. Don’t leave without getting your teeth into the cod with samfaina or fricandó.
2. 128 Rambla Restaurant
Address: La Rambla, 128
Average price: € 25 (€21 with this 30% discount)
It’s Hotel SERSH Rivoli’s restaurant, a good place to look at La Rambla’s hustle and bustle from the top- their terrace is the envy of the street. It has suggestions for all stomachs but one their must-eat foods is their variety of rices.
3. Frankie Gallo cha cha cha
Address: Carrer del Marquès de Barberà, 15
Average price: € 20
It is a real Italian pizzeria carried out by a group of Italians who arrived to Barcelona fifteen years ago. The place is huge, with long wooden tables and the same rosguish atmosphere you perceive in the land of fettuccine and cappuccino. Their meals deserve a big Mamma Mia. Choosing a pizza variety is like deciding your favorite movie of all times: you’ll change your mind everyday. We the margheritta type.
4. Gats
Address: Carrer d’en Xuclà, 7
Average price: € 30 (21€ if you book via Atrapalo).
Gastronomic group En Compañía de Lobos, who is behind The Green Spot or Gallito, opened in 2016 a hotspot specialized in Catalan and Mediterranean cuisine. They define themselves as a “neighborhood bar”. Therefore, this place designed to feel surrounded by your loved ones. It is essential to try the grilled clams with tomato and basil and their patatas bravas.
5. Los caracoles
Address: Carrer dels Escudellers, 14
Average price: € 50
Specialized in snails in sauce since 1835, it was one of 20th century artists’ favorite bites in Barcelona. Robert de Niro, Joan Miró, Dalí, Gala or Giorgio Armani were there and of course, ordered the star dish. If you are not a snail person but still want to enjoy this historic spot, don’t worry, the menu also offers salads, sole or pollo à l’ast.
6. El Núria
Address: Rambla de Canaletes, 133
Average price: € 30
This business has been passed on from generation to generation since 1926 and has survived to a turbulent century and a fire. This nostalgia for the good old days is in every corner of the restaurant, which struggles to make locals “enjoy La Rambla as before”-as their website claims. They are masters in traditional cuisine but the customer can also ask for pizza and hamburgers. Last but not least, they have Barcelona’s first beer dispenser.
7. Amaya
Address: La Rambla, 20
Average price: € 35
Focused on Basque cuisine since 1941, relevant celebrities of the 20th century have walk through their door. In 2016 they closed down to remodel the space. They’ve received several attractive purchase tentatives but Amaya’s owners have rejected them in the name of authentic traditional cuisine. The evidence is in their menu, where you can find stewed oxtail, codfish cheeks or a good stew in the shape of a tapa.
8. Ultramarinos Santa Monica
Average price: € 25
Address: La Rambla dels Caputxins, 31
It contains all a millennial needs to feel cosmo: a New Yorker diaphanous decoration, generous and beautiful cocktails and fancy tapas. Prepare your camera (and mobile data) because here, everything can be instagrammed. Don’t get mislead by its trendy attitude, it is one of the rare business that has not succumbed to big chains and plastic food. Their meals compile flavors from all over the Spanish geography, from anchoas de Santoña to sobrasada.
