Eating Out in Barcelona

Unlike Latin America cuisine, Catalunya cuisine and especially eating out in Barcelona is considered to be a fusion of Mediterranean cuisine with olive oil, fish, and garlic as the centerpiece.

The food is usually light in content and rich in flavour. The meals are served late, but are meant to sate the appetite without being too heavy, meaning that they use less red meat, just like the Italians and the Greeks.

Barcelona may be on the northern region of Spain, but they share much the tastes that are experienced in the rest of Spain. However, with the influx of people and cultures, there have been many changes with the cuisine and this is reflected in their restaurants.

The cuisine of Barcelona now currently enjoys some of the best creative cooks in the world and names such as Ferràn Adrià, Santi Santamaría, Fermí Puig, and Sergi Arola are getting worldwide acclaim for their inventiveness and creativity in the kitchen.

Spanish people are used to eating late; they take their meals around 10pm or later. With this culture pre-dominant throughout Spain, their restaurants normally open after 9pm and some stay open well into the early hours of the day.

There are many restaurants in Barcelona that cater for a variety of tastes to help make tourists feel at home, but in many cases, these are not the sought after restaurants. Many people want to experience what has made Barcelona and Catalan cuisine into one of the most talked about cuisines.

The few restaurants in Barcelona where you would get the true Catalan experience are; the Los Caracoles which translates to mean "The Snails" - they do cook great snails in this restaurant but there are many other dishes to be sampled in case snails are not your thing. This Barcelona restaurant is located on 14Calle Escudellers.

Another Catalan Cuisine restaurant that is worth mentioning is the Can Culleretes. It is one of the oldest restaurants in Barcelona. This is a restaurant where you can have your whole course of meals with starters and wine for as little as 30 euros. They have a wide assortment of mousses and an excellent wine house. The service is prompt and friendly.

Other restaurants include the Safra 18, Buda Bar Restaurant, Basque restaurant, the Costa Gallega restaurant and a Spanish sea food restaurant, the Cal Pep at Placa Del Olles, 8 Barcelona.

Orson Johnson writes for Holiday Velvet, a website providing listings for bed and breakfasts, villas, hotels and apartments in Barcelona