“We are just getting the stall started,” says Ton Díaz. In a corner of the Ninot market in Barcelona’s Eixample district, Tonet del Mercat—or just Tonet—has been set up for a few weeks now. It bears Ton Díaz’s name because he is the axis around which this project revolves, based on nose-to-tail cooking, such as offal and other meat by-products. “This week we are adding sweetbreads and kidneys with sherry and onions,” says a thrilled Díaz.

The Ter river is born in a spring in Ulldeter (Ripollès) and flows into the Mediterranean. Very close to the Gola del Ter there is a restaurant founded in 1961 by the Xicars family. In this location, converted into a hostel restaurant, there used to be a farmhouse where Josep Xicars' great-grandfather lived, trying to cover basic needs to help the family grow. "At eight years old, I was already peeling potatoes. The shower was a basin and we had to go to the fields to relieve ourselves. My father turned it into what it is now, and I have followed in his footsteps," comments Josep, feeling the weight of the passing years.We are in a pleasant place that is part of an enviable environment. "The river is life", as was claimed in the early 2000s in the Terres de l'Ebre in an environmental and territorial protest. The sea is right nearby. The clientele is mostly local, with some visiting practitioners of the noble sport of golf. Within a radius of very few kilometers, we find Empordà Golf and Golf de Pals, two highly renowned golf courses.We don't play around, but we really enjoy discovering places where one can eat well, wherever they may be. Knowing the virtues of the restaurant (fish, seafood, and good rice dishes), we begin the meal with some Gillardeau oysters, some steamed rock mussels with orange vinaigrette, a plate of sand eels, and an exceptional jig-caught squid. The wine that accompanies us is Els Boscals, a 2023 black garnacha from the Boscals valley, in Les Gavarres.Once we have finished the first courses, we move on to the second, in the singular. We play it safe and order a Pals rice with lobster. Everything is perfect: the ingredients, the flavor, and the cooking are at their optimal point. We can only say good things about it. For dessert, puff pastry with angel hair and communion wine, coulant of chocolate and nougat ice cream.Waiting for relief

Josep is a peculiar guy, with good conversation. We sit in the dining room, where there are paintings representing his father. “My father started by doing a bit of everything. He worked as a cook, he was a fisherman, a hunter, he had made the tables himself... He lived basically off the river environment”. Josep is not a professional cook, he is one out of necessity and because life has brought him here. “Well, for me, just like for my father, I have always liked to eat well, and that is the main basis for knowing how to cook. If you know how to eat well, you will know how to cook well, because that is the best way to satisfy the diner. You want the best for them”.He is nearing his seventies and is eager to retire, but for the moment he cannot find anyone to replace him. In the meantime, he enjoys the satisfaction of a job well done and the recognition of his customers. Sooner or later he will leave it, and we hope that life grants him many more years of health so he can live without working and enjoy a rest that he has earned since, at the age of eight, he started peeling potatoes in the family business.We, as long as we are at the foot of the canyon, will return. There are meals and people that become unforgettable.

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These are major festival days in the city (with the permission of Santa Eulàlia). So, I am taking the opportunity to make a list of highly recommended restaurants in the city of Barcelona. A question I am asked very often is “what is your top 10 restaurants in Barcelona”. I am not a big fan of rankings. Besides, there are too many factors that make them impossible to compare. To go with a partner? To celebrate an anniversary? To go with children? What budget are we talking about? So, take this compilation as a handful of restaurants that I encourage you to visit.

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The RíasKRU restaurant in Barcelona (c. Lleida, 7) "is not for sale for more than two million euros despite what a real estate agency says," states manager Borja Iglesias, who adds that he has asked the agency to remove the advertisement stating that it is for sale, and that, if they do not do so, they will take legal action." It is a fact that this year marks forty years since the Rías de Galicia was inaugurated by the Galician couple Cándido Iglesias and Purificación García. Later, their three children took charge, but during the covid pandemic they took the restaurant into insolvency proceedings, and it was bought by businessman Manuel Lao, the current owner.The RíasKru is the fusion of Rías de Galicia, which is located on the ground floor, and the Espai Kru, on the first floor, both specialized in fish and seafood, and both restaurants have marked an era of fine gastronomy in the city of Barcelona.

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Joan is 82 years old. This means that seventy years ago, when he was twelve, he started working. First in a hardware store in his neighborhood, La Barceloneta. Later, to earn a little more money, he started washing glasses on Sundays at the bar next door, Casa Pascual. The owner saw he was sharp and told him to work there full-time. He went from earning 75 pesetas a week to earning 150. Imagine what a raise and how happy they were at home! He kept working hard until one day he realized he needed to have one day off a week: Sunday. They already had two daughters with Soledad Martínez, and a third one was on the way. That is how Bar Joan was born, to be able to have 24 hours of rest.

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It is a gateway to Vietnamese cuisine for anyone who wants to discover it. Or a return door for those who already know it and miss it. This is how the co-owner of Món Việt describes his restaurant. I look around the dining room and see many Catalans, of very diverse ages. Also a Vietnamese family. A few months ago I visited Món Việt, located on Sepúlveda street in Barcelona, because as New Year's approaches, they make a special menu to let us know what is eaten during Tết, as they call the holiday in this Southeast Asian country. I was impressed by the quality of their homemade food. Without going any further, they served a whole boiled chicken. It was tender and tasty. An apparently simple dish but absolutely succulent. How did they manage to make a humble meal worthy of celebration? Since then, I have followed the trail of this restaurant and have ended up getting the answers I was looking for.

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It's funny when you've been in a property, let's say at friends' apartment, and you return some time later when other people live there. It's inevitable that your mind starts playing the game of differences, seeing what is there and what is no longer there. The same happens with restaurants – aggravatedly, I would say – because Barcelona's voracity for opening and closing businesses is greater than that of Saint George's dragon eating sheep. So you often go to places where you've been before, but with other tenants and other furniture. Today we are in a place where we've been when it was called Tickets, when it was called Teatro (a more modest change, as it was as if someone from the family had taken it over) and now, it's called Osteria Condal, and it's starting a new chapter. They have done extensive renovations, and if it weren't for the fact that it's on the same corner of Paral·lel, we wouldn't recognize the space. The investment has been significant. We see it in all the details, from the menus to the imposing open kitchen.

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Dreta de l'Eixample. We are on Bailèn street, between Mallorca and València. Here a chick is the sheriff of the corner. It is the yellow and recognizable logo of Billy Brunch, which has three locations at numbers 113, 115, and 129. In addition, its vehicles can be seen parked, red and with the chick superimposed. Between the three locations, they serve 900 people on weekends, and about 500 during the week. The one in the middle of the corner, the one at 115, is the first one that opened, out of the six in Barcelona (then two more opened in Madrid and two in Seville). This first location, which was a resounding success, has just been expanded by adding a slide and a ball pit, red and yellow, which can be seen from the street. The pool was installed after the one in Madrid in the center of the restaurant was a great attraction. This one is more discreet, though. "Adults can go in, right?", the owner tells me, inviting me to try it. In Barcelona, it seems we don't dare as much and leave it for the kids and the influencers.

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The butters of different colors like jewels, the bread cart, the impressive wine cellar, the exquisite service, the wrought-iron sculptures decorating the tables... If anyone wants to try a restaurant with class, elegance, and where all the dishes will be excellent, perfect, and well-rounded, what you are looking for is called Lasarte. This year it celebrates twenty years of existence, a not insignificant figure in current times when haute cuisine is suffering. The restaurant, located in the Monument Hotel, was Barcelona's first three-Michelin-starred establishment. Since 2017, when it achieved this, the city now has four.

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The new restaurant in Poblenou catches the eye as soon as you pass by. Located at Pujades street, 133, it occupies a single ground floor. It's part of one of those blocks of houses in the neighborhood that used to be cheap. In fact, through a side door, you access the interior of these narrow streets full of plants and their own life, away from the hustle and bustle of the main street. But let's return to the main street, we find a polished façade, cream-colored with painted letters that say: Finca Nebot 1924. The Nebot family used to be there then, hence the name, which its current owner, Leo Chechelnitskiy, wanted to revive as a tribute.

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It was during the pandemic that the Ferré family realized things had to change. “Sometimes without realizing it, inertia takes you to a place you don't want to be. When we stopped, we had time to think, and that's when we realized we had lost the essence that our father had set,” explains Sílvia Ferré. She is the owner of the iconic Gothic restaurant Els 4 Gats together with her three brothers Lluís, Ivan, and Òscar. Four brothers to tame Els 4 Gats.

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The Solomillo bar aims to be an informal space: you can sit at a high bar or at a noble, large high table, shared with other diners. Both are comfortable and cozy, and at the table, the options are simple, but it's that simplicity that many of us want: tomato salad, with real flavor, a platter of Iberian ham, Joselito, with glass bread rubbed with tomato skillfully, and if you're up for it, a beef burger, which you'll find with different combinations: I chose mine with arugula, and, of course, it comes with a bowl of French fries, which is neither too big nor too small, just enough.

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It is Friday midday and on Carrer Major in Sarrià, a few meters beyond the Foix de Sarrià pastry shop, the waiters at the Vivanda restaurant suggest to those entering for lunch whether they want to do so in the interior room, with a wooden floor and white walls, or in the garden. The answer I hear is unanimous: the garden. And I head there too. I find trees, a large palm tree, ivies, and well-distributed, spacious tables that make you think you have entered a small oasis. No traffic can be heard, there is calm, and a familiar, neighborhood atmosphere. We are at the restaurant with a green garden of the chef Jordi Vilà, the Vivanda, which he has been directing for eighteen years. As we have just started the month of June, Vilà has just changed the menu, so we will taste summer dishes.

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On April 20, 2024, the Banco de Boquerones group took over a historic restaurant in the city of Barcelona: Casa Leopoldo. And this Sunday they will close its doors, as communicated by the group's owner, Bruno Balbás, on the restaurant's Instagram. The iconic establishment in the Raval had been through a lot since its charismatic owner, Rosa Gil, passed away. It had a new period of splendor when chefs Òscar Manresa and Romain Fornell took over, but the project was cut short by the pandemic. Afterwards, a Chinese family took over, who served Asian food and dispensed with some of the architectural elements that had made the place very recognizable. This venture did not work out, and it was then that the Banco de Boquerones group – owner of other restaurants such as Casa Ràfols, Can Framis, and Casa Lolea – took on the challenge. Their intention was to bring back the original gastronomic proposal and serve the classic oxtail. In addition, they personalized two private rooms, one dedicated to Rosa Gil, and preserved the table dedicated to Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, accompanied by a commemorative plaque.

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The chef Rafa Zafra, from Seville and an adopted Barcelonian, has a pile of successful restaurants. But a few weeks ago he had to close the restaurant with his most popular cuisine located on Via Augusta in Barcelona. "Per Feina has been the most exciting project of my life. My mother used to punish me by sending me with my father on the truck. I didn't know that deep down I loved it. The truck bounced and then we stopped to eat a menu of three starters and three mains. And I was the happiest child. As an adult, I wanted to do the same, but updated," explains the chef on the day he presents another popular project: the Masia Tibidabo restaurant, at the top of the amusement park.The establishment was first located in Poblenou, on Ciutat de Granada street, but at the end of August last year it decided to move it to the upper part because it had many difficulties in making the nights profitable. In the new location, the restaurant gained a surname: "Per Feina / Per Plaer" (For Work / For Pleasure). In this case, in addition to an economical menu, a more substantial meal could also be had. Even so, it has not been enough to keep the business afloat. "I wanted to keep the prices, cheap, and the restaurant was working. We had two hundred people every day, but we invoiced 4,000 euros. And that's a table at Estimar. Or at Jondal [the restaurant Rafa Zafra has in Ibiza], I don't even need to say. We had a whole team working and running for that," explains the chef.

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The managers of BSM, the municipal company that manages the Tibidabo amusement park, have described it as a "crazy idea" and a "dream come true". The fact is that they have wanted to reinforce the gastronomic offer of this leisure space for some time. Enrique Tomàs and Christian Escribà are already present. Soon, it will be the turn of Albert Adrià, who cannot yet specify what, but they are already working on various proposals. In fact, it was Adrià himself who recommended Rafa Zafra to take charge of La Masia Tibidabo, the project that is starting this Friday and which they presented today to authorities and civil society.

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“From the entrance, you can tell this restaurant wasn’t built to be a three-star Michelin”, says Disfrutar’s chef Oriol Castro with his usual honesty, and Eduard Xatruch adds: “We didn’t have a dime or an investment fund behind us, we had to trick the bank and the landlord”, he jokes, because among those listening to him is the owner of the premises, Sandra Mira, who explains that this place – before the restaurant opened in 2014 and forever changed the history of Catalan gastronomy – was a warehouse for La Casa de las Mantas. “Do you know how much space was needed to store duvets, blankets, pillows...?” She quickly saw that the chefs were honest people eager to work, so she rented them the space. Perhaps she believed more in Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas, and Eduard Xatruch than they did themselves, because in the original design, the bar at the entrance was meant to serve tapas. And in the basement below, they wanted to put a large room “for large groups and communions”, says Xatruch. They ran out of money, and they never built that room. Luckily. Because when they had to expand the cellar and build the kitchen to develop the creative part, they needed that space. “The clients wrapped us up”, they say. They explain that the first part is inspired by Miró’s mosaic; when you cross the kitchen, into the pottery kilns, and once in the large white room, in Cadaqués, where they opened their first restaurant together: Compartir.

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The Tast a la Rambla 2026 is about to begin. It will start this Thursday and last until Sunday. We recommend going on Thursday or Friday, as they are the quieter days. What will we find there? Well, 30 restaurants and 6 pastry shops with small dishes that cost 6 euros each.

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Welcome to Mineral. This is undoubtedly one of the openings of the year and, if all goes well, it could become a landmark restaurant in the city of Barcelona, as Gresca is, for example. It has absolutely everything to succeed. Or at least I hope so, for the following reasons.

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"Bars are churches and we are parishioners," says Javier de las Muelas, owner of Casa Fernández (carrer Santaló, 46). This was the first restaurant, he opened it in 1989, and today, after a slight renovation, he has called all the press to present us this venue that continues to retain its usual essence. He explains that one of the "brilliant ideas of the interior design people" was to suggest removing the iconic mural from the restaurant on carrer Santaló. Obviously, the restaurateur refused. It is the work of the designer Carlos Rolando. A benchmark who died in 2016. "There's no question of removing the mural, it's a sign of identity. We are in an era where establishments are Port Aventura style, everything is made of papier-mâché. We want to give value to what is already 37 years old," De las Muelas states emphatically. And he recalls that venues must have soul, be welcoming and be part of people's daily lives. For him, they are one of the antidotes to one of the great evils of our society: "I like to insist on this because one of the big problems we have is loneliness".

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