Bar Mut is the kind of place that, if you mention it to anyone who’s been, the response will invariably be “aaaaaah” as they go googly-eyed thinking about that excellent meal they had there. You’ll find specials on the chalkboard, but a few staples include the croquettes, steak with mushrooms or foie gras (depending on the time of year), or the lobster cooked with egg and brandy. They take reservations, but if you get there on the earlier side, you can squeeze in before the crowds take over.

This tapas bar is the kind of neighborhood spot that everyone coming to Barcelona for the first time hopes to find but rarely does. Grab a stool at the window inside or at one of the outdoor tables and order a few staples like fried calamari and Iberian jamón croquetas. Betlem also serves creative specials like steak tartare with smoked eel, and an omelet with black pudding and seasonal mushrooms, if you feel like mixing things up.

Start things off with a round of vermut or wine while making a plan for sharing plates—all typical tapas with a little creative spin. The salad with apple, edamame, and snow peas is a nice starter for those seeking a break from fried croquetas, and the duck breast sashimi is deliciously salty without going overboard. Grilled octopus on potato mash is a guaranteed table pleaser, and you’ll want to slurp up the sweet and sour green curry vinaigrette that comes with the Can Pepi Fried Chicken.

Entrepanes Díaz in upper Eixample is a sandwich spot from the Bar Mut team where all the waiters are over the age of 50, wear pressed white dress shirts, waistcoats, and bow ties, and always take the time to get your order just right. Meanwhile, the sandwiches are pure joy, overflowing with classic Iberian ingredients like morcilla, tortilla, and squid. The juicy calamari baguette is the best in town, while the oxtail with spicy mayo, parmesan, and arugula is a fantastic meatier option.

“Casa de menjars,” which roughly translates as “food house,” refers to an old-school style of Catalan restaurant that served traditional home-cooked food to the working class during breakfast and lunch. While the modern-day versions are more refined and stay open for dinner, their dedication to traditional recipes and high-quality ingredients is as fierce as ever. Maleducat is a great example of one with a short, concise menu of shared plates made from the finest local produce.

From the team behind Besta, Batea is the fish joint Barcelona needs and deserves. Their secret to success is simple: great people, great produce, and not taking yourself too seriously. Kick things off with the seafood platter full of cockles and clams, and some fresh Galician oysters before getting into mains like the bonito tuna with red pepper emulsion, or the simple and perfectly grilled Mediterranean red prawns. Stick around after dinner and chat with the maître d' over a gin and tonic.

Despite being one of the best restaurants in the world, you’d struggle to find a fine-dining spot more laid back and actually pleasant than Disfrutar. The three owners were each previously head chefs at elBulli, and they’ve brought all that expertise here, without any snobbishness. From the panchino filled with beluga caviar to the “gazpacho sandwich” and the “beet that comes out of the land,” prepare to discover that what you see on your plate here is rarely what you taste in your mouth.

There are a lot of tasting menus to choose from in Barcelona, but one of our top picks is Caelis. You'll get to feast on rich dishes like cured egg yolk tart with caviar, or lobster and foie gras macaroni, all while being in one of the city’s most stylish hotels. And since this is Barcelona, where fine dining is generally more laid-back and affordable than say, London or Paris, you can really go all out here on a 15-course meal plus a wine pairing for €158.

This is one of the few (if only) fine dining Mexican spots in Barcelona where top-notch Spanish ingredients are used with staple spices and techniques from Mexico. There are two tasting menus, the difference being which main you’ll share with the table—pick one with dishes like Iberian pork or chicken, or opt for the other that comes with steak or lobster. Each delightfully plated course is astoundingly tasty, especially with rounds of cervezas, micheladas, and in-house fermented aguas frescas.

Alapar doesn’t come across as the kind of place you’d book weeks ahead of time. But Barcelonians fall all over themselves to snag a seat at the chef’s counter of this Japanese-inspired Mediterranean tavern. The unpretentious fine-dining joint uses only locally-sourced ingredients for standouts like the eel and teriyaki nigiri, the montadito (an open sandwich loaded with squid and Iberian pancetta), and punchy mains like the red mullet Catalan fish stew with foie gras.

Between the fashionable location in El Borne, the well-dressed crowd, excellent lighting, and distressed wooden tables with bench seating, Fismuler kind of feels like a performance art studio that also happens to serve excellent food. The menu changes regularly, but staple favorites include the dorada tartare with almonds and grapes, the truffled escalopa with low-temperature egg yolk, and an ultra-gooey cheesecake that’s more cheesy than sweet.

If there’s one place you should prioritize while visiting Barcelona, it’s Besta. This newish restaurant on the traditionally less fashionable “left” side of the Eixample district mixes Galician and Catalonian influences on their constantly-changing menu. Packed with unconventional combinations using seasonal produce and fresh seafood everything here is both surprising and will make you immediately want to order it again.

Going out for Japanese food in Barcelona used to mean one of two things: either you’d have to take out a bank loan to pay the bill, or you were stuck eating forgettable noodles and mediocre raw fish. Fast-forward to 2022 and the Japanese food scene in Barcelona has never been hotter, with El Japonés Escondido on the Borne-Barceloneta border being the top spot. Start with a steaming bowl of mussels, before getting into the blue-fin tuna moriawase selection.

Albé is what happens when a Lebanese restaurateur moves to Barcelona, falls in love with the produce, and starts combining Lebanese techniques with Catalan ingredients. Dishes include everything from smoked labneh with pita, to octopus with pomegranate reduction, and Iberian pork cheek over french toast and smoked sour cream. Albé is the perfect place for a daytime business lunch, when the dining room fills with natural light, but works too for a romantic dinner.

Run by the team behind Bar Alegria, one of the oldest tapas bars in Barcelona, Casa Luz is a great place to kick off a night out with friends. The crowd here skews on the younger side, especially if you’re on the rooftop at sunset where you’ll see plenty of people wearing something by an up-and-coming local designer. The tapas options include a bright-red tomato tartare with smoked butter and a decadent truffled omelet, while the wine is mainly Catalan.

Doppietta isn’t your typical Italian trattoria, but rather a spot where you’ll find familiar favorites served tapas-style for sharing. They do hearty pastas like gnocchi with red shrimp and peas, and a superb cappelletti filled with meat, butter, and sage. Everything is served family style, and the stars of the show are the platters overflowing with cheese and cold cuts, mainly from the chef’s home region of Brescia.

The Sant Antoni district is the hottest neighborhood in Barcelona these days, and Benzina’s lively terrace is perhaps the center of the whole scene. The restaurant, which opened in 2018, serves unexpected takes on traditional Italian dishes (like eggplant parmigiana with parmesan ice cream or Sferamisu, a deconstructed spherical take on tiramisu), strong cocktails, and an excellent selection of Italian wine.

Locals come for the freshly caught seafood, hearty rice dishes overflowing with pork shoulder, seasonal mushrooms and peppers, or black squid-ink rice with cuttlefish and artichokes, plus that feeling of going over to a friend’s place for a quick bite and chat. The restaurant is only open Wednesday through Saturday during lunch (as well as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for dinner), there are ten tables, and the entire show is run by the two owners who seem to know most of their guests personally.

The mostly industrial seaside suburb of Badalona doesn’t get as much foot traffic from visitors as other parts of the city, but that’s just because more people haven’t heard of L’Estupendu. Literally translated as “the stupendous,” lunch here is just that. Expect bowls overflowing with grilled mussels and clams à la marinière, along with huge portions of different paellas, like black rice with razor clams and crab.

Nothing says Barcelona more than seafood paella on the beach, and nowhere does it better than Can Fisher. With a buzzing patio overlooking busy Bogatell Beach, this spot could easily be mistaken for a tourist trap, but, in reality, it’s the total opposite. Everyone comes here for the daily selection of grilled fresh fish and raw seafood, like oysters and red shrimp tartare, not to mention one of Barcelona’s finest selections of what locals call “arroces,” meaning rice dishes.

Everything in Spain happens late, which is why the locals start their beach days with lunch before hitting the sand. Unlike the many tourist traps at the nearby beachfront, La Zorra in Sitges isn’t the kind of place you stumble upon by accident. You’ll most likely need a reservation weeks in advance, especially during summer weekends when the day-trippers come to town, but it’s worth it since they’re serving some of the best paella around—not just in Catalonia, but in Spain.