Barcelona

We first visited Barcelona for a short holiday in the summer of 2015.

Back then we tried a few places, but now that we live here we have discovered others. So here is the list of our favourite places so far. Please remember that we are vegetarians!

COFFEE

As we are both Baristas and love coffee, we have researched

and tried various well known places for good coffee. Unfortunately, they are not all as good as they claim and some were seriously disappointing. We don’t like extra bitter nor sour coffee and we do not add sugar either. It’s our opinion that if you don’t like the flavour of coffee, don’t drink it!! But it shouldn’t need sugar to make it drinkable.

Be aware that most of the cafes in Barcelona are not using fresh milk but instead they use UHT, which for us has a completely different (and horrible) taste, even when used with a really good shot. So if you also prefer fresh milk, just ask before ordering your Cappuccino!
Onna coffee: this cozy place serves the absolute best coffee in town in our opinion! The owner, Anahí, sources coffee beans directly from the small fair trade producers in Costa Rica where she is from. They then roast the coffee in Barcelona and you can appreciate the results when you try it! They also have oat milk available.

They also have a selection of homemade cakes, sandwiches and salads.
Faborit: directly below Gaudi’s Casa Batlló. In this café/chocolatier you can buy lots of chocolate, enjoy a nice coffee, fresh smoothie or eat a sandwich or salad. They also have a small patio outside in case you don’t want to sit indoors.

FOOD

Teresa Carles: This vegetarian restaurant (since 1979!!) is still our favourite here in Barcelona. They have a full menu with lots of choices. Vegan and Gluten Free options too. We tried quite a few dishes from their menu and so far our favourites are:

• Corazon Partio: Artichoke hearts with caramelized onions, mushrooms and truffled oil topped with a peace of tempeh or a quail egg on each artichoke. – To die for!
• Gazpacho: Although last year they were serving it with homemade croutons, Teresa Carles’ gazpacho is still the best we have ever tried in Barcelona so far! – Full of flavour and great texture!
• Lasanyuki: Homemade whole grain flour lasagne with spinach, pine nuts, mushroom, pumpkin, cashew nut cheese and a sauce of fresh and sun dried tomatoes. – Very tasty and filling!

Teresa Carles

Flex & Kale: Teresa Carles’ Sister restaurant who also serve fish along with vegan/vegetarian and raw options. Kids meals available! Our favourites:

• Kale chips: dehydrated kale, very good healthy nibble.
• Orange is the New Healthy Cuore: spelt ravioli with cumin, carrots, almond and sweet potatoes and a delicious soft pumpkin sauce to complete the art.

El Café Blueproject: 100% Organic café with lots of vegetarian/vegan/gluten free/raw optiones! The café is part of an art foundation which you can also take a look at. Here are our favourit dishes:

• Magic Hummus: the name reflects the taste of this wonderful Hummus! It’s served with home-made Essene Bread

  

  Magic Hummus and Sandwich Amor

• Sandwich Amor: dehydrated bread with sprouted seeds, dehydrated almonds and sunflower seeds falafel with tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, kale and sprouts.
• Cosmic pizza: mini dehydrated buckwheat base and carrot pizzas with tomatoes and cashew cheese. Very tasty change from the traditional pizza! *

Rasoterra: very gorgeous vegetarian tapas place in the heart of Barcelona. The menu is unusual and creative while offering some traditional Spanish and Catalan dishes. The menu changes seasonally. On all of our visits, we have eaten at least one Dish that was outstanding. The food is very tasty!

CAKE

Spice cafe: We MUST mention this cozy place! Here you can eat the best carrot cake we have ever tried! Seriously, all the others in comparison are simply tasteless! They have a good variety of cakes (vegan included), which can vary daily. Our favourites are: Carrot cake (of course!), Brownie, Passion Fruit Cake. We also must say the service they provide is outstanding! They are educated, nice, helpful, working with a smile and happy when customers are going in to the shop. We know it sounds weird but if you have been in Barcelona you would know what we mean. Good customer service and manners are not obvious. Just open trip advisor on any restaurant/cafes and you will see how many bad reviews on customer service some places have.

We are sure there must be lots of other places that we haven’t tried yet and some others that we were not happy with so will not mention.

If you have any tips or suggestions, please leave a comment below!

* Important note on pizza in Spain (and possibly also in Italy!)

We recently discovered in Spain it is normal to use lard (pork fat) in the pizza dough also. This is not mentioned anywhere and unless you ask someone who knows in the restaurant, you will have pork fat in your vegetarian/ vegan pizza or food. It’s normal for Spanish and also some Italians to add a (they say) small percentage of pig fat in their dishes like pizza. Some of them are even surprised when some people don’t dine in their restaurant because of this ingredient (i.e. vegetarians / vegans / religious based diet).

So we personally usually eat in vegetarian/vegan places because of this and also because working in hospitality, we see how careless chefs can be and for most of them it’s not a problem for example to use the same chopping board to cut raw and cooked chicken, fish and vegetables without washing it in between. Or cooking and serving fish which was outside under the sun for half a day. Some places might also serve you microwaved paella with a bucket of salt in it.