Eighty years later, it remains the home of good fish and seafood in Barcelona

The decor at Carballeira is designed to transport you to the interior of a ship, but it's clear that you don't come here to sail, but rather to enjoy the finest seafood that Barcelona has to offer. The restaurant opened its doors in 1944 and, despite changes in ownership, has managed to maintain its original essence for over eighty years. Those who have been around for a while will remember that the old Barcelona customs house was located right next door. The sea is very close, as is the mouth of Via Laietana.

The diners are mostly locals. Business lunches, get-togethers with friends, couples, and family meals fill the different rooms of a restaurant that has become a true gastronomic temple. At lunchtime, finding tourists is almost a rarity. The combination of a loyal clientele and attentive service, with waiters who have decades of experience, makes it seem as if time moves a little slower than the clock indicates.

The proposition is straightforward and unpretentious: top-quality fish and seafood. And this has consequences. The product is expensive, and no compromises are allowed: everything must always be of the highest standard. Regular customers know this well, and that's why they return time and time again.

To start, we opted for an individual cold platter that offered a selection of fresh seafood classics: oysters, crab claws from the Costa da Morte, Galician prawns, and hand-caught snails. We complemented it with Andalusian-style baby squid, a surefire starter. The menu offers many temptations: seafood rice dishes or surf and turf, wild fish baked or grilled, langoustines, lobster, or sea bream from the O Grove estuary. We could continue the list, but we don't want to make our mouths water. Finally, we decided on the lobster with octopus, cooked to perfection and finished with garlic and chili pepper, one of their star dishes of recent years. We'll be back to try the rest, but this time our choice was a success.

Lunch concludes with another house classic: the "oreja de fraile" (a type of pastry), drizzled with a touch of liqueur. All of this is accompanied by an Idoia white wine from the Ca n'Estruc winery in Esparreguera, a fresh and very pleasant wine made with Xarel·lo, Garnacha Blanca, Macabeo, and Chardonnay grapes.

"Here, quality is the most important thing."

We have time to speak with Ángel Alonso, the restaurant's manager. Born in Bilbao and raised in Laredo, he joined Carballeira in 2017. "Here, the product is the star. Quality is paramount," he explains, true to the founders' spirit and with deep respect for the customers. Carballeira is a gastronomic institution with eighty years of history, a family restaurant with a very loyal, intergenerational clientele. At the next table, we find Mrs. Pepita, a lifelong customer, celebrating her ninety-fourth birthday surrounded by family. She returns every Sunday, always in good company.

The service is one of the restaurant's greatest strengths: professional waiters who know the regulars but also know how to make newcomers feel right at home. "In the last two years, five waiters who had worked here for over thirty years have retired," Ángel points out. This detail explains why Carballeira remains one of Barcelona's most iconic restaurants today.