Any suggestions for great tapas? Staying at the Hotel Colon. Thanks.

Jim

I had great gourmet tapas at Lonja de tapas, good traditional tapas at Taller de Tapas, Cal Pep has tapas "meals" I don't know if it's worth the wait but it's very "Barcelona", all tourists now because of the guidebooks. I liked el Xampanyet next to Picasso museum because it has a lot of character and reminded me of an old school Andalucian tapas bar in Seville, nothing fancy or gourmet though. The best tapas we had was at Ciutat Comtal 15 minute walk from Colon, no tourists all locals. Bar Irati was good, anything with a Basque name seems to be good. Don't miss any of the restaurant counters in the Boqueria like Pinotxo, El Quim, all good and the Boqueria is amazing. We wished we could have tried Inopia for gourmet tapas but it was quite a ways from Barri Gotic. We stayed at the Regencia Colon and thought it was great, couldn't have chosen a better location.

Another recommendation for Taller de Tapas. It's on Argentaria, with tables outside in a little placa.

If you walk past T de T on your left, a little further on is another bar across on your right where they have a very nice looking selection on the bar. Might be worth trying - there wasn't a table free when I went there.

Jim

If you want to skip one of your hotel bkfsts....I recommend a visit to La Boqueria and bkfst at <i>Pinotxo</i> (see Egbert's post above)..little kiosk with stool seating...Juan, the bubbly counterman with the bow tie, will enthrall you with both tasty food offerings and a pleasant gift of gab. He most surely will show you his picture on the cover of a Spanish magazine...count on it.

If you're in the mood for nothing fancy "fast-food" el cheapo tapas, across from the fountain in Placa Catalunya is a large establishment with printed table mats featuring pix of the entire menu. Didn't write the name in my journal, but it's on the left, looking down the Ramblas from the fountain (nearby is the Cortes Ingles Dept store).....

Enjoy electrifying Barcelona!

stu

If you don't mind wandering a bit further into Eixample, Paco Meralgo is excellent, We dined at the restaurant part of Irati and I wished I could have been at the tapas bar. Everything looked wonderful Up a ways just off Passeig de Gracia, Tapac 24 is wonderful. We also liked Bossborn in the Born area. All of these are walkable from Colon.

Another recommendation of Taller de Tapas. Not only did we love the food, we appreciated the fact that the menu is in both English and Spanish (Catalan?).

I agree with the recommendation of Paco Merlago. Also, El Setial (c/Regomir,11) and Bilbao-Berria (Plaça Nova, 3) are both near the centre of the city and are both exellent. El Setial has a great atmosphere. Bilbao-Berria is Basque tapas and is very touristy (located right on the cathedral plaza), but the tapas are great and it's good fun for people-watching.

Do tapas restaurants open earlier than other restaurants? Or are they opened from noon to midnight (for instance)?

Tapas Bars are most always open earlier than regular restaurants. I was just in Barcelona for seven days and this was what I found. I agree that Taller de Tapas is a good choice. Also try El Bixto, near the Palau de Music. A very small but yummy tapas bar. They specialize in charcuterie and cheese from a small town in spain, Oix. When I went, the woman behind the bar spoke great English. It is a very short walk from Barri Gotic.

hi jherbert,

i always go away with the intention of finding and trying out these lovely places, but somehow we are never in the right place at the right time, or if we are, we can't find them.

but we still had a great time tasting the tapas in Barcelona last week. actually, it's hard to go wrong. just wander round til you find a bar with tapas laid out at the bar, go in, order your drink and start pointing at what you fancy. I'm sure that we missed out on some of the more gourmet treats, but we were happy.

in case you are there at the right time for you, the nicest one we found was just down from the picasso museum, on the opposite side of the street. it had blue tiles on the walls, outstanding tapas, and what was advertised as fresh beer.

and don't worry about opening times. one of the joys of going to Spain is that food seems to be availabe 24 hours a day, and certainly somewhere like Barcelona, there will always be somewhere near-by open and selling tapas. the down-side is that although individually they seem cheap, if you add them up, you may find that a 3 course " menu del dia" would actually have been cheaper.

have a great trip,

regards, ann

I have to recommend Taller de Tapas on the calle Argenteria. It is a perfect blend of traditional tapas combined with local cuisine and very reasonably priced. We loved this place and followed dinner with a few mojitos in the Born!

Hi,

Thanks again, everyone. Ran into friends at Taller de Tapas who said it was part of a chain. Whatever. It was great. The restaurant across the square with the strange name of "Cheese Me" was also great. Run by an Argentinian.

Jim

Did anyone mention Cerveceria Catalana?-outstanding- and Costa Gallega was good

The Spanish tradition is to eat tapas sometime between 5 and 7 PM, to tide one over between lunch and a later dinner. Often people do what is called tasca hopping where you go from bar to bar eating your favorite tapa with a drink. While college kids like bar crawls, this is considered a perfectly acccptably way of feeding oneself.

Down at the Placa del Pi, there are few tapas places that are pretty good.

As Stu as pointed out there is always something good to eat at La Boqueria.

My favorite breakfast is hot churros. If you can afford the poundage you can dunk them in thicker than thick hot chocoloate.

It is funny I do not think of Cal Pep as a tapas place but where one can get great samples of what they offer.

And if you get a chance you can go to the tapas capital of the world San Sebastian, where they take extraordinary pride in their food, especially tapas.