The best paella in Barcelona

Whether it's a rice broth, dry rice, fideuá, or rice with stuff: we have tasted the best paellas in the city to tell you where they are hidden.

Talking about the best paellas in Barcelona is a brown and daring thing to do. There are many restaurants where you can enjoy a good rice dish, unlike in other cities in the country, where rice (paella and/or substitutes) is made in any way you like rice with stuff, stuff with rice, that sings Camels-.


 

Therefore, what we call the best paellas in Barcelona (or rice dishes) are, in any case, our selection, and we do not dare to claim any scepter. Moreover, if you know a great paella, a good rice dish near your home or a beach bar near Barcelona where they make the best socarrat, just tell us, we will run to try it and add it to this list.


 

Paella Restaurants

  1. El Xiringo de la Barceloneta

  2. The Salty Sea

  3. 7 Portes

  4. Informal

  5. Can Ros

  6. Cruix

  7. El Racó del Mariner

  8. Arume

El Xiringo de la Barceloneta


Source: Instagram/El Xiringo

Despite its name, El Xiringo is not a typical beach bar, but a restaurant located in the alleys of the barceloneta neighborhood. Their rice dishes are incredible, but so are their portions and the exemplary treatment of their employees. The place is small so you probably have to make a reservation.

📍 Carrer de Sant Carles, 23

The Salty Sea


Source: Instagram/La Mar Salada

Just when you thought that a street as touristy as Passeig de Joan de Borbó, where the big franchises coexist with the most classic-looking restaurants, could not offer you much, you discover gems like La Mar Salada. Their paella del senyoret is perhaps the one we recommend the most. And watch out for their Thai style mussels.

📍 Passeig de Joan de Borbó, 58, 59

7 Portes


Source: 7Portes

A classic. Little more can be added. A place full of history and traditional recipes. A treat for at least once in your Barcelona life.  Parellada rice, its hallmark, is a Senyoret rice (with peeled shrimp and seafood) with denomination of origin that has been tasted by many generations of illustrious and not so illustrious Barcelonians.

Its seats, all crowned with a plaque that reminds us which famous person once sat there (Che, Robert De Niro… you decide) are just a sample of the centuries of history that a place with almost 200 years of life accumulates.

📍 Passeig d’Isabel II, 14

Informal


Source: Informal

Informal is the restaurant of Marc Gascons (we have already visited him and he told us about his bravas one of the best in the city) located in the Serras Hotel. A luxury that is paid as such, but the cuisine of Gascons, Michelin star by Els Tinars in Llagostera, never disappoints.

Its mellow rice with organic chicken La Torre d’Erbull, artichokes and broad beans or the creamy Verde asparagus and spinach pesto are two must-try dishes.

📍 Passeig de Colom, 9

Can Ros


Source: Can Ros

Another mythical place in Barceloneta that overflows with locals and some well-placed tourists on weekends, with its wooden benches, its fried fish cartridges and its black rice with cockles.  Faced with the exuberance of the great rice restaurants in the neighborhood, Can Ros is in a humble place that offers great cuisine. Fine and quality rice dishes, dry just enough and with a great product.

Oh, by the way, during the week they have a lunch menu that for less than 20 euros includes their fantastic rice dishes.

📍 Emília Llorca Martín, 7


 

Cruix


Source: Cruix

This restaurant, another contemporary classic, present in the Michelin Guide, seeks to take Mediterranean cuisine, that of a lifetime, a step further. Incredible quality cuisine from Michelin-starred chefs who now offer brutal and affordable food. His rice, like his dishes, are reversioned classics, the current one is of matured meat and picañan, and always come out with a thin layer of rice, as the canons dictate.

Your menu of the day for example, costs 16 euros, and its tasting menu 39, which makes it one of the best value for money in the city.

📍 Carrer d’Entença, 57

El Racó del Mariner


Source: El racó del mariner

Formerly located in the fishing port, El Racó del Mariner had that air of a barracks that changed when they moved to the Forum. A great weekend plan, authentic.

📍 Port del Fòrum, Carrer de la Pau, Local P-0

Arume


Source: Arume

This place, hidden in one of the streets of the Raval and installed in the building where Manuel Vázquez Montalbán was born, exudes charm with its air of a house converted into a restaurant and makes us satisfied that the legacy of the gourmet writer is in good hands.

They only have two rice dishes and here, and for us, the best, is the mellow duck and mushroom dish, although the Galician origin of the owners is evident in the Arume-style Galician seafood paella, which does not disappoint.

📍 Carrer d’En Botella, 11