Barcelona is humming at the table, so much so that even those known food snobs, the French, are full of praise: in 2002 a Gallic food guide, Le Guide des Gourmands, voted Barcelona as Europe's eating capital. Alongside great classics of local cuisine (both cheap and expensive), a veritable army of all sorts of imaginative restaurants has flourished over the past few years. You can barely walk down a street in the old town without noticing some new arrival. Seafood dishes are a strong card, but meat dishes from the interior also abound. You can knock back a cheap but filling set lunch or splurge on fine, dress-up dining. And the designer, international wave of cooking is now well implanted in Barcelona. Locals have developed a growing appetite for foreign flavours, so choices on that front are multiplying too.
FOOD :
Food terminology in this section is given in Catalan/Castilian or Catalan alone, except in the few cases where the Castilian term is used in both languages. The idea is to reflect what you are most likely to see and hear in the streets of Barcelona, and not to descend into the murky depths of linguistic polemics.
You may not arrive in Barcelona with jet-lag, but your tummy will soon think it has abandoned all known time zones. Breakfast (esmorzar/desayuno) is generally a no-nonsense affair, taken at a bar on the way to work. Lunchtime (dinar/comida) is basically from 2pm to 4pm and is the main meal of the day. No local would contemplate chomping into dinner (sopar/cena) before 9pm. That said, although restaurants tend to stay open until 1am or so, most kitchens close by 11.30pm. Don't panic! If your gastric juices simply can't hold out until then, you can easily track down bar snacks or fast food (local and international style) outside these times. And, anxious to ring up every tourist dollar possible, plenty of restaurants here cater for northern European intestinal habits - although you often pay for this with mediocre food and the almost exclusive company of other tourists. Many bars and some cafes offer some form of solid sustenance. This can range from entrepans/bocadillos (filled rolls) and tapes/tapas (bar snacks) through to more substantive raciones (basically a bigger version of a tapa), and full meals in menjadors/comedores (sit-down restaurants) out the back. Cerveseries/cervezerias (beer bars), tavernes/tabernas (taverns), tasques/tascas (snack bars) and cellers/bodegas (cellars) are just some of the kinds of establishment in this category. For a full meal, you are most likely to end up in a restaurant/restaurante, but other names will pop out at you. A marisqueria specialises in seafood, while a meson (a 'big table') might indicate (but not always!) a more modest eatery.
DRINKS :
In Barcelona, the tap water (aigua de l'aixeta/agua del grifo) is not at all tempting and most people drink aigua/agua mineral (bottled water). It comes in innumerable brands, either amb/con gas (fizzy) or sense/sin gas (still). A 1.5L bottle of still mineral water costs around €0.60 in a supermarket, but out and about you may be charged as much as €1.40. In Spain, coffee is strong and slightly bitter. A cafe amb llet/cafe con leche (generally drunk at breakfast only) is about 50% coffee, 50% hot milk. Ask for grande or doble if you want a large cup, en got/en vaso if you want a smaller shot in a glass, or sombra if you want lots of milk. A cafe solo is an espresso (short black); cafe tallat/cafe cortado is an espresso with a little milk. For iced coffee, ask for cafe amb gel/cafe con hielo; you'll get a glass of ice and a hot cup of coffee, to be poured over the ice. If you can't deal with caffeine ask for a descafeinat/descafeinado. You usually have the choice of de maquina or de sobre. On taste the former beats the latter, which are little pouches of instant decaf that you pour into a cup of hot milk - blah! Vi/vino (wine) accompanies almost every meal. Spanish wine is robust because of the sunny climate. It comes blanc/blanco (white), negre/tinto (red) or rosat/rosado (rose) in all price ranges. A €5 bottle of wine, bought from a supermarket or wine merchant, will be quite drinkable. The same money in a restaurant will get you virtually nothing. Cheap vi de taula/vino de mesa (table wine) can sell for less than €2 a litre, but wines at that price can be pretty rank.Catalunya's whites are better than its reds and the area is best known for cava, the fine local bubbly. You can order wine by the glass (copa) in bars and restaurants. At lunch or dinner it is common to order a vi/vino de la casa (house wine) - usually by the litre or half litre. The most common way to order cervesa/cerveza (beer) is to ask for a canya, which is a small draught beer (cervesa/cerveza de barril). A larger beer (about 300mL) is sometimes called a tubo (which comes in a straight glass). A pint is a gerra/jarra. If you just ask for a cerveza you may get bottled beer, which is more expensive. A small bottle of beer is called a flasco/botellin. The local brew is Estrella Damm (of which there are several variants, including the potent and flavoursome Voll Dam), while San Miguel, made in western Catalunya's Lleida area, is also widely drunk. The Damm company produces about 15% of all Spain's beer, as does San Miguel. A clara is a shandy - a beer with a hefty dash of lemonade (7-Up).

There are countless restaurants and bars to delight every taste and budget, from Catalan cuisine to world-class international dining. Catalan Cuisine is based on the easy availability of fresh good quality natural products of the season; olive oil, vegetables, fish and fresh shellfish, fruits, very varied baking traditions, accompanied by an excellent variety of wines and cavas (catalan champaigne). Catalan Cuisine has gained a world wide reputation as one of the best in the Mediterannean. Ferran Adria, is just one of the renouned chefs known both at home in Catalunya and around the world. The sytle of cooking is often referred to as "Cuina de Mercat" (market cuisine) and what better to eat than the freshest fruits mother earth has to offer. The food Market of the Boquería is well worth a visit and its' produce varies greatly throughout the four seasons of the year. Catalan Cuisine is also known as "Mar i muntanya" (sea and mountain). Foods from both areas are often combined with delicious dishes such as lobster with Catalan sausage as a result. A typical dish is "llagosta and pollastre", lobster with chicken in a hazelnut sauce. Seasonal foods are spring "calcots", autumnal mushrooms and winter "escudella d'olla" . Other very well known dishes are "Pan tumaca", Butifarra Catalan sausage, canneloni, and desserts such as coca or Catalan cream. Fish is plentiful and delicious and a superb selection of accompanying wines makes dining in Catalunya all in all a more than memorable experience.