Food in Barcelona

There is nothing worse than having different preferences for eating times than the locals at your destination. Whenever we became hungry, most restaurants were closed.

I have to admit that the times we like to eat at are a little bit different than they would be for normal travellers. But we are not normal travellers as we are working on our trips. That means that we get up at 7 the latest, work for 3 to four hours, explore our surroundings and then work for another couple of hours. Normally, we like to eat breakfast at around 10 am, our main meal at around 4 pm and another snack in the evening, like fruit or veg. And exactly this pattern failed us in Barcelona.

We made our own breakfast in the apartment – no problems here. But when we were out and about in the city and felt the appetite coming it became more difficult. We didn’t want to eat in the tourist areas as prices are higher there than they are elsewhere. We ventured into the little side streets and found ourselves in front of closed doors. Many restaurants in Barcelona are closed between 15.00 and 20.00. So we often times had to look a little bit harder to find food.

In the beginning, it was also hard for us to see whether the shop we found was a bar, a snack bar, a fast food store or a restaurant. Many shops had big signs at the door with pictures of their dishes, like the ones you find almost exclusively at the doors of snack bars in Berlin. Or they had pizza boxes by the door so that we assumed they were a food delivery or takeaway place.

Only very slowly we warmed up to the idea to be a bit braver and just try something new. We ate where other guests sat and ate or where the prices were reasonable. We never really failed with this tactic. With the exception of one tapas restaurant that didn’t really win us over, we were always happy with our choice.

We tried wonderful tapas in many different, small tapas bars.
We found a vegan pizza restaurant where I had the best pizza in ages and also found a great burger place that wasn’t only quite stylish but also had delicious burgers.
My wishes for paella and sangria were granted in a little bar that was only frequented by locals.

The highlight was the meal at Jamon Enrique Tomas, a ham speciality shop, that also serves food. We observed how the waiters cut the ham. I also ate ham that actually tasted of something. The price was a little bit on the higher end of the scale and for many a little ham with bread would not have been a sufficient meal. But that was exactly what brought us back three times to enjoy the food there.

I would have liked to take some ham back home with me but it was rather bulky.