3 Best Restaurants in Barri Gotic, Barcelona

This restaurant takes contemporary decor and fine-dining style and adds the pizzazz of open-kitchen cooking. It's known for its decadent tasting menus, and the star dish is a rich mar i muntanya macaroni with lobster, foie gras, and artichoke. The contemporary decor combines gleaming traditional copper with retro-cool mid-century modern furniture. Wine selections can be added at a surcharge per person. 

Once you find this spot, tucked inside the boutique Wittmore Hotel at the end of a tiny alley, you’ll be rewarded with a wonderfully creative menu of small plates and hearty baked pastas. Dishes are served in the lounge-like dining room or out on the courtyard patio with its twinkling lights and impressive vertical garden.

"The Four Cats" was founded in 1897 by a quartet of Moderniste artists—the bohemians of their day—whose work still graces the walls, and the building, Casa Martí (1896), by Moderniste master Josep Puig i Cadafalch with sculptural detail by Eusebi Arnau, is a treat in itself. The restaurant in back offers a range of traditional Catalan dishes, but the cooking is uninspired and overpriced so stick to the front room café, where you can linger over a drink, order some of the simpler offerings like pa de coca (thin country flatbreads with tomato and olive oil), cheese, cured ham, or pebrots de Padrón (fried green peppers), and enjoy a bit of local cultural history.