The Best Places in Spain

Heaps of fried potatoes crowned with a runny egg and chorizo land on tables while regulars wash down their stewed tripe with a cafe con leche and a small draught beer, sometimes at the same time. Gelida is an old-school Catalan restaurant in Eixample that keeps the tradition of the "fork breakfast" alive, the kind of hearty early meal built around veal, snails, or pig's trotters that modern Barcelona mostly forgot.

A modern American diner in Eixample run by a Mexican American Angeleno and her partners, Gringa All Day keeps things simple: fluffy pancakes, crispy bacon, a hearty breakfast burrito, and bottomless filter coffee from Three Marks. In a city where brunch spots often lean on the aesthetic and quietly hope you don't notice the food, this one takes the opposite approach. No reservations, so expect a line on weekends.

A sleek bar built around Madrid's aperitivo hour, which is basically a city-wide agreement that vermouth and pickled things are a perfectly reasonable way to spend an afternoon. The design here swapped out the old-school tiled-bar aesthetic for something considerably sharper, which the locals approved of so enthusiastically that a second and third location followed. Cold cañas, gildas, cockles with chile sauce, and the crowd that never quite leaves.

The bomba, that fried potato croquette stuffed with ground beef and hit with aioli and hot sauce, was invented here, and you'll find its descendants on menus all over Barcelona. This old-school Catalan tavern in La Barceloneta keeps the original alongside grilled squid, summer sardines, and cap i pota for anyone who wants tripe and veal trotters in tomato. Cash only, no reservations, and the line out front is part of the deal.

A broiler-caramelized pasta gratin named after someone's grandmother Alberta sets the tone at this Gràcia neighborhood spot. La Fonda de Pirenaicas is a casual Catalan dining room built around the kind of slow-cooked, braised, and stewed food that home cooks used to make before everyone got busy. The Spanish omelet that made the parent shop famous shows up here too, and the room fills with locals who already know the menu by heart.

Gildas, those briny olive-anchovy-pepper skewers named after the Rita Hayworth film, are the whole thesis here. La Gildería is a vermouth and aperitivo bar in La Latina, near the Rastro market, devoted to the kind of standing-around eating that Madrid does quietly well but rarely formalizes. Canned mussels, razor clams, a potato salad from Murcia, an octopus sandwich with Basque chile mayo. Vermouth pours from Galicia to Cataluña, served on the rocks or with a splash of gin.

A neighborhood restaurant in Sants that slides easily between a quick beer and tapas and a full multicourse dinner, which says something about how comfortable it is in its own skin. The kitchen pulls from Catalan, Mediterranean, French, Asian, and Latin American traditions all at once, yet nothing on the plate reads like a concept pitch. Regulars fill the room on weeknights without consulting the menu.

No reservations, ever, which means you'll be waiting alongside the construction workers and shop owners who fill this old-school Madrid comedor every lunch. La Sanabresa is a neighborhood dining room doing straightforward Spanish home cooking, the kind that rarely leaves the house, at prices that feel almost accidental. The ensaladilla rusa and stewed oxtail are the things to know.

Consommé served from a silver samovar is either the most theatrical thing in Madrid or the most sensible, depending on your mood. Lhardy is an old-school institution steps from Puerta del Sol, serving traditional Spanish cooking with French undertones in a room that time seems to have negotiated around. The cocido madrileño and oxtail bring regulars back; younger ones come knowing it from a C. Tangana video and stay for the croquettes.

The restaurant takes its name from a small island deep in the Bay of Bengal, and the cooking follows that logic: coastal India, light on the cream, heavy on coconut, fresh herbs, and seafood. The menu roams beyond the island to pull in dishes from shorelines all across the subcontinent. The room is chic enough for a date but relaxed enough for lunch, and the kitchen is unusually good to vegetarians and vegans without making a fuss about it.

The red banquettes, popcorn stucco walls, and tile-clad bar look like they belong in an Almodóvar film, but this tortilla specialist on the pedestrianized stretch of Consell de Cent is a recent arrival wearing vintage clothes well. The menu runs sixteen personal-sized Spanish omelets, from the classic to the quietly unhinged, with truffle and Thai curry sharing space alongside chorizo and manchego. A narrow focus, executed with real conviction.

A Greek chef cooking Mediterranean on a narrow, tree-lined slope of Montjuïc, Margarit is a sit-down dinner spot where the open kitchen turns out dishes rooted in Hellenic tradition without feeling like a taverna theme park. The wine list leans into natural bottles and some potent Greek reds you won't find most places. It's the kind of room where the food tastes like it comes from somewhere specific, which is rarer than it should be.

A Mediterranean wine bar in the Poblenou warehouse belt where the 250-bottle list leans hard into Eastern European natural wines you won't find anywhere else on the menu. The food rotates with the seasons and roams freely, seabass crudo with mandarin oil one moment, a kimchi grilled cheese the next. The crowd comes to hang, not to impress, and the music is loud enough that nobody's whispering about tannins.

Chef Tan built this Northeast Asian restaurant out of pandemic-era private dinners and lunchbox deliveries, which explains why it feels less like a project and more like someone's actual cooking finally finding a room. The Eixample spot pulls from Northern China, Japan, and Korea without making a theme park of it. Lunch is a fixed-price spread; evenings go à la carte and sharing-friendly, with natural wines from small European producers alongside.

The pitas come straight from a wood-fired oven inside what used to be a parking garage, the signage deliberately subtle enough that you feel clever for finding it. This is a fast, casual Levantine and Mediterranean spot where the menu roams from falafel and lamb kofta to chicken tandoori, with North African and South Asian detours along the way. The long communal table fills with Eixample office workers at noon, so go early or embrace the wait.

An old-school colmado in Eixample that somehow found room for a dining room behind the storeroom doors, Queviures Múrria has been stacking 200-plus cheeses and serious conservas since forever. The kitchen, guided by the chef behind Alkimia, turns that pantry tradition into Catalan cooking that leans elegant without losing the nostalgia. Come for the shelves, stay for the lamb.

A fried chicken sandwich shop in Eixample where everything, the brioche buns, fermented pickles, herb breading, dipping sauces, and brownies, comes out of their own kitchen. The menu is refreshingly short: a handful of sandwich styles, nuggets, twice-cooked fries, and coleslaw in two camps (vinegar or mayo, pick a side). Corn-fed Catalan chicken is the through-line, with jackfruit and tofu options that don't feel like an afterthought. Craft beers round it out.

Behind an electric-blue façade on a quiet Chamartín street, this old-school bistro has been drawing Madrid's chefs on their nights off for decades, which tells you most of what you need to know. The dining room runs to black-and-white prints, white tablecloths, and wooden chairs kept simple on purpose. Classic French-ish fare anchors the menu: onion soup, sole meunière, pig's ear, and a steak tartare that regulars treat as non-negotiable.

The dough starts with local organic flour, and the toppings go somewhere unexpected from there, sobrasada with honey, pork jowl with Brazil nuts, apple with bleu cheese. This Eixample pizzeria describes itself as "farm to pizza," which sounds like marketing until you taste how seriously they mean it. The house-made salumi is worth ordering alongside. Expect a wait, because the rest of Barcelona has already figured this out.

A ramen and soup dumpling shop in Gràcia where the shoronpo, the Japanese take on xiaolongbao, come stuffed with everything from classic minced pork to foie gras to chocolate with olive oil and sea salt. The tantanmen, a sesame-laced, creamy chicken broth with ground pork and springy noodles, draws a devoted following. Ten ramen varieties are on offer, with vegetarian options among them. Book online; walk-ins are optimistic at best.

The corner space in Eixample has been a bar for longer than anyone can remember, and Soma slipped into it without disturbing the bones. It's a Catalan tapas spot with a strong Italian lean and a Parisian-style terrace, where the kitchen turns out things like risotto cooked until it gets the crispy bottom of a paella. The crowd that fills it skews local and opinionated, which in Barcelona means you're probably doing something right.

David Muñoz of three-Michelin-starred DiverXO runs this loud, open-kitchen street food spot tucked inside the El Corte Inglés on Serrano. The menu swings between Asia and Latin America, the chefs cook everything in plain view, and the club sandwich turns out to be a steamed pork bun crowned with a fried quail egg. Lines stretch an hour or more, so arriving early is less a tip than a survival strategy.

A wave-like mirrored ceiling does most of the decorating at this self-described "irreverent seafood tavern" in Ciutat Vella, where the day's catch sits on ice at an open bar and a robata grill does the heavy lifting. The menu runs from cured horse mackerel to braised tuna cheek, and the oyster-infused dry martini has developed its own small reputation. A handful of tables keeps it intimate, which is a polite way of saying book ahead.

Platters of pintxos line the well-polished bar here, but the real move is opening the menu and ordering from the longer list of Basque classics behind them. This old-school Basque bar and restaurant in Eixample feels airlifted from Bilbao, down to the jai alai baskets on the walls and the sour cider on the bar. The after-work crowd packs the entrance; quieter tables in back are where the roasted hake and txultetón tend to land.

The sharing plates rotate with the seasons, but the vibe stays fixed: a light-filled, high-ceilinged room on a quiet Poble Sec street where natural wines from small local producers do most of the talking. Tiberi Bar grew out of a creative events collective, and the food still has that spirit, riffing on Catalan staples with genuinely unexpected turns. The kind of casual Mediterranean spot where you order more than you planned to.

The nickname El Comunista tells you most of what you need to know before you even sit down. This old-school casa de comidas in Chueca has been around forever, and the menu reads like a time capsule: stews, squid in its ink, migas with grapes. The kind of dishes that disappeared from most Madrid kitchens a generation ago still show up here at lunch, shared by the bohemian regulars who fill the place like they own it.

Noodles with kimchi mayo and raw red tuna put this small La Latina restaurant on the map, and the dish hasn't left the menu since because nobody will let it. Toga is a compact, casual spot where the cooking moves between Nikkei, Japanese, and Latin American without making a fuss about the itinerary. The room fills fast enough that the team opened a second location to handle the overflow, which tells you something about the regulars.

A small open kitchen and a communal table inside Mercado de Vallehermoso, where a chef mixes Spanish, Asian, and Latin flavors into shared plates that don't really ask for your approval before arriving. The format is market stall, but the cooking has a tasting-menu sensibility, and you can go either route. Bold combinations, tight space, and strangers eating next to you who are probably also confused in a good way.

A cocktail bar in Malasaña where the menu arrives with the casual aside that they can also make most other classics, in case the several pages of signatures and standards weren't enough. The room is rustic and worn-in rather than sleek, and the regulars who prop it up on weeknights give way on weekends to curious out-of-towners, at which point the basement opens up, high tables, banquette, and a caged stockroom as decor.

An open fire grill sits at the center of the room, visible from the dining room, where dry-aged Iberian oxen get the kind of focused, unhurried attention that is almost meditative to watch. This is a Basque steakhouse in central Bilbao, polished but not stiff, rooted in txuleton tradition while the room's clean lines and curved seating push it somewhere more contemporary. It ranked 44th on the World's Best Steak Restaurants list.

The queue snaking down Calle de Tudescos is how you find this cocktail bar, since there's no other obvious sign. The owner has gone on record saying you probably won't remember the drinks a year from now, which is either a refreshing admission or very good marketing, depending on your mood. What people do remember is the night itself. Check Instagram for the password before you go, or just join the line and hope for the best.

Elephant tusks curl around a carved mahogany fireplace that looms behind the bar, which tells you immediately what kind of room this is. The lounge bar and roof terrace above Boca Grande's ground-floor café lean hard into opulent boudoir territory, all oversized pendant lamps and high shelves of serious spirits. The crowd dresses for it, which seems only fair given the room dressed first.

Thick stone walls and exposed beams frame an open fire that does all the real talking at this Basque steakhouse in a historic Gipuzkoan town. The chuleta, a dry-aged bone-in cut cooked over charcoal and wood, is the point entirely. The team reads heat, humidity, and fat with the kind of quiet confidence that comes from doing one thing for a long time. It ranks among the World's Best Steak Restaurants, which should settle the debate about whether to make the drive.

The charcoal oven and open fire grill do most of the talking at this serious steakhouse in Costa Adeje, where chef Babacar Fall runs his own in-house butchery to control aging before anything reaches the flame. Spanish and Wagyu beef, dry-aged on site, gets treated with the kind of reverence usually reserved for Basque country institutions. Ranked among the World's Best Steak Restaurants, it makes a strong case for Tenerife as a destination for fire cooking.

The wine bottles lining the walls aren't decoration so much as inventory, and on a busy night you'll be standing among them. This compact little wine bar sits across the square from Santa Maria del Mar, and the room is refreshingly scruffy for a place with a list this good, cavas and sherries alongside an eclectic international rotation. Grab a stool at the marble counter if one opens up; otherwise, glass in hand, you're on your feet.

A cocktail bar in El Born that spent decades as Gimlet before the current team renamed it Marlowe, a nod to Raymond Chandler's gimlet-sipping detective. The Philip Marlowe connection is a bit of a wink given the original bar's legacy, and regulars still order gimlets even though the drink rotated off the quarterly menu. Small, unhurried, and staffed by people who clearly enjoy what they're doing.

The bar counter here was custom-built to one level so every bartender works the same station, which tells you something about how seriously Kevo Jacoby runs the room. This snug cocktail bar in the Salamanca neighborhood is built around classics, with signatures that riff and twist rather than reinvent. The owner is usually your bartender, which, after stints pouring drinks across several countries, makes him someone worth talking to.

Carved pharmacy panels salvaged from near the Alhambra line the back bar, giving this basement cocktail lounge a feel that's part Moroccan souk, part Andalusian apothecary. It sits beneath Ocaña on Plaça Reial, past the busier bar upstairs and down into a vaulted, double-height catacomb hung with Persian rugs. The kind of room that makes you order a second drink just to keep looking at it.

A brass porthole in an otherwise blank door is the only tip-off that this rum bar exists, tucked down a narrow back lane in a building that's been standing since the Middle Ages. Inside, the dark wood paneling is lined with glass cases of antique cocktail shakers and Cuban souvenirs, and the room is barely wide enough to change your mind. Order rum, and embrace feeling like you found something.

A cocktail bar on the 26th floor of the W Hotel, with the kind of panoramic sweep across Barcelona that makes you forgive the scene happening around you. Ricardo Bofill handled the interiors, and the crowd arriving after dark is exactly who you'd expect. Go early enough to catch the sunset before the DJs and the queue in the lobby below make the whole thing feel like a very stylish inconvenience.

Blue-tiled walls, marble tables, and a zinc bar that has been pouring house cava since before anyone can remember: El Xampanyet is an old-school tapas bar on one of the prettiest streets in the Born. Anchovies in vinegar and fat green olives are the moves here, paired with cold glasses of cava. The kind of place where tourists and regulars agree for once, which is its own small miracle.

Wood paneling, a mahogany counter, worn seats, and a cut-out of a bowler-hatted man peeping through blinds: GMT lands somewhere between a Fleet Street pub and a noir detective's waiting room. The cocktail bar took its name from a shortening of Gimlet, not the time zone, which tells you something about how seriously they take the bit. Soft jazz and low lighting keep the mood intact for anyone who shows up in a trench coat, ironically or otherwise.

Sherry bars don't come more committed than this one: no beer, no wine, no water, no tips, and absolutely no photos. The ban on cameras dates, according to local lore, to the Franco era when spies used them to identify enemies. A chalk tally on the bar keeps track of what you've drunk. Order fino, manzanilla, or oloroso, let the black cat wander past, and don't ask for anything that isn't sherry.

The curved white marble bar, brass rail, and pressed linen make this basement cocktail bar feel like it's been here since the trams ran. Jazz drifts through a room that reads like the lower deck of a very elegant ship, and the bartenders match the setting, efficient and serious about their craft. The entrance, garish enough to give you pause near Plaça de Catalunya, is doing nobody any favors, but the room below it is the whole point.

The reception desk, the bar, and the restaurant share one open floor at Hotel Omm, so Moo Bar is less a room than a mood: metal-mesh curtains, rough stone walls, and low lighting that makes the whole lobby feel like an afterparty you stumbled into with a good sense of direction. The cocktail list keeps to the classics, made carefully and brought over by staff who seem to mean it. A quietly confident hotel bar.

Ordering a beer here would probably count as a minor offense. Old Fashioned is a compact cocktail bar tucked into Gràcia, where the gin and tonics flow freely and the house cocktails lean vintage without feeling costume-y. Swing, Charleston, and old-school jazz play low enough to still hear yourself talk. The room is small, the bar team is passionate, and showing up with a vague "something classic" request is genuinely all the invitation they need.

A cocktail bar in the La Torrassa neighborhood of L'Hospitalet, well past the tourist radius and closer to the airport than the Ramblas. The owner runs the local bartenders' guild, which explains both the quality of the drinks and the off-duty industry crowd that fills the wood-paneled rooms on a given night. Friendly locals make up the rest, and nobody seems to mind that you found the place.

Crystal globe lamps hang from a pegboard ceiling washed in lilac light, and the whole room reads like a design-school brief that actually worked. Valuart is a cocktail bar in the Eixample that leans into its own aesthetic without apology. After midnight, tables get pushed aside and a DJ takes over downstairs, so the line between cocktail bar and club is more of a suggestion than a boundary.

Pink marble pillars rise from black granite floors to a gold-leaf vaulted ceiling inside this cocktail bar at the Hotel Casa Fuster on Passeig de Gràcia. The effect is somewhere between a grand European café and a very well-appointed crypt, softened by wavy burgundy banquettes and chairs that look lifted from a Paul Smith window display. A good spot for a drink when you want the room to do most of the talking.

Pinball machines and dart boards share space with serious cocktail making in this converted Barcelonan townhouse a taxi ride from the centre. Torre Rosa is a cocktail bar that wears a social club costume convincingly, with bright, garnish-heavy menus that undersell what's actually coming out of the bar. The room is enormous and loud in the best neighbourhood-hangout way, which makes the craft feel like a happy accident rather than a performance.

The name is a nod to the old cotton-beating process, which is a clever way to remind you that you're drinking in a converted mercantile palace. Inside, though, the cocktail bar skips the grandeur for something quieter: timber, leather, and low light while the Eixample buzzes outside. The list runs classic to seasonal signature, the kind of bar where you can order either without embarrassment.

A cocktail bar tucked into a corner of Palma's old market square, its name borrowed from the hobo code used during Prohibition, a secret sign that alcohol was hidden nearby. About twenty seats inside and a small terrace keep things close, which suits a place where every drink is made with housemade ingredients and the team has strong opinions about not chasing trends. Order something off the signature list and let them explain it.

The kitchen calls it "Bastard Italian Cuisine," which at least tells you upfront this won't be a Nonna's-recipe situation. The chef, who once cooked at the Argentine presidential residence, runs a tight à la carte that pulls Italian cooking toward something more personal and Argentine-inflected, keeping the flavour while ditching the trattoria formula. The rice-base pizza alone is worth the detour to Chamberí.

A discreet door off the street opens into a dim, velvet-and-shadow cocktail bar styled after the private haunts of 1970s New York's moneyed class. The concept is unabashedly theatrical, and the drinks lean into it: the team uses fine-dining technique to render things like tiramisu and cinnamon rolls as cocktails, which sounds gimmicky until you're two in and reconsidering your life choices. Difford's Guide has taken notice.

A cocktail bar on Calle de las Huertas where the espresso martini comes with a sustainability footnote, made with vanilla beans recycled from other productions and cold brew steeped for a full day. The philosophy, as the team puts it, is product, service, and experience in harmony, which sounds lofty until the drink arrives and the argument makes itself. Difford's Guide has taken note.

Bartenders in white chef's coats shaking Gimlets behind a bar dressed in polished plaster, blackened wood, and lipstick-red seating: the room looks like a Manhattan lounge but runs like a neighborhood spot. This cocktail bar in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi is the uptown sibling of a downtown original, now under the ownership of the team behind the famous Dry Martini on Aribau. Locals of all ages come in without ceremony for classic cocktails, the Gimlet and Dry Martini especially.

The cocktail menu runs to eight drinks, and the team seems to regard that as plenty. Inclán Brutal Bar is a cocktail bar in Centro where the glassware is as considered as what's in it, trompe l'oeil details and all. The short list swings between originals and classics treated with unusual fidelity, which is a rarer combination than it sounds. A good room to visit when you want someone to have thought very hard about your drink.

A cocktail bar in Retiro that names itself after danger and more or less means it. The house Espresso Martini runs on Ketel One infused with vanilla, Pedro Ximénez, homemade banana syrup, cold brew, and cacao bitters, finished with a cacao crumble and dehydrated plantain chips. The coffee comes from a neighborhood shop that works with small local farmers, which is a surprisingly earnest detail for a bar with this much attitude.