Delicious Barcelona

One more post about Barcelona today, friends! This time, the good stuff: the food, drinks and coffees we snacked on around the city. In Michael’s travel planning post, he mentioned how he likes to have options for food and drinks wherever he is in the city we’re exploring. This keeps us from getting snappy with each other because we’re hungry and don’t know where to go for a quick snack or a bigger meal. Michael did this on our trip to Barcelona and it was a life-saver, as always.

First things first, let’s start with coffee spots. We made breakfast in our apartment each morning with eggs and avocados from the market around the corner. Then we headed straight for the coffee.

We tried Satan’s Coffee Corner, Mitte, and Cafe Ona. Satan’s Coffee Corner, the first two photos in this post, pushed our limits of hipsterness, if we’re being terribly honest. The decor was cool and the coffee was delicious, but the hipster level was through the roof. They seemed to serve only donuts, chia pudding and toast. They also had a big sign that said ‘no wifi, no decaf’, so there’s that. I did love that bright yellow bench though!

Mitte was much more my speed. I thought the decor was so pretty and different from what we have in Dublin. The coffee was Spanish style and very drinkable. Mitte has a little art gallery in the front and whenever we walked by in the early evening, there were lots of people having drinks and chatting.

We tried another coffee spot, Cafe Ona, and the coffee was really yummy and specially imported from Costa Rica. Unfortunately, all three were closed on Sunday, which meant we couldn’t go back for another try! 

Now for tapas! We ate all of them. Here’s what we loved. 

We stopped at Norte for a late lunch one afternoon, when the light was streaming in and glowing off the white walls. I wore my sunglasses inside it was so bright. Also, how sweet are the little posies of holly? Next year, my whole house is going to be filled with those little guys. 

We tried this delicious white fish and lemony potatoes, which is a speciality of the region and we loved it. I ate all of the olives because Michael doesn’t like them and every time, I’m grateful I married someone with whom I never have to share olives. Yum.

The first night we arrived, the owner of the apartment we rented suggested a spot around the corner called Betlem. We tried to go back again but it was closed early on Sunday. From the minty branding to the pork belly with lemony potatoes, we loved this place. If Norte and Betlem moved to Dublin I would never cook at home. 

One night we had to eat some salads. I ordered totally the wrong one, but Milk was cheap and cheerful and had yummy cocktails. There was actually an Irish Times cut-out on the wall from a review, which cracked us up. It was a little student-y but we were grateful for the vegetables.

Another night, we ate in Tlaxcal, a Mexican restaurant with really delicious tacos. Michael tries to find at least one place he can drink nice tequila in each place we visit, and I try to go with it since I won’t say no to a margarita, no matter where I am! I took no photos, but I’d really recommend it. You will need to make a reservation, though, at least on the weekend, because it fills up and the host wasn’t so excited about walk-ins even when there appeared to be tables free. It’s in the Born neighborhood, which is really fun to wander in the evening. Lots of shops and cafes and locals.

Finally, Michael found the coolest bar for after-dinner drinks on our last night. El Nacional is kind of like an upscale market filled with bars. It’s one large, high-ceiling-ed building with different bars each with a different vibe. Some of them are restaurants as well, but we picked the most Mad Men-esque section and ordered a few old fashioneds. Can you even get over that bar wall? Everything was lit perfectly.

So we clearly didn’t go hungry on our visit to Barcelona. We were pretty excited about the range of options that weren’t as heavy as I sometimes remember tapas to be. We had lots of patatas bravas, but there were lots of interesting and light vegetable options that helped balance them out. I think we’ll have a hard time not going to just the same places when we make it back to Barcelona, we enjoyed them all that much!