Barcelona Bar Hopping

One of my favourite Tapas bars in Barcelona actually didn’t look that promising, and actually had more of a Turkish background than a traditional Spanish one. This was the Nemrut bar, not far off Las Ramblas near the Christopher Columbus tower towards the docklands.

If you are looking for a stylish place to eat then the Nemrut isn’t your place; but you will have gathered that by the Formica plastic wood effect tabletops, the brick bar and the dark beige décor. However, if like me you want to eat in a bar where the food sells itself, and where you are surrounded by contented relaxed locals then the Nemrut is more your place.

The area around the Nemrut was the closest to how I remember the seedy side to Barcelona used to be, and the only place on my recent trip I was offered the opportunity to buy illegal drugs. As a fat square middle aged man, I thought those days were long behind me, but the dealers in this part of town seem keen to make a sale irrespective of how unlikely the customer. While it isn’t in the most pleasant area of town, in daytime at least it seemed quite safe as long as you looked aware, and had an eye on your valuables.

We arrived towards late lunch (around 2:30) and found the place pretty busy; the friendly owner had been cashing up from the till on one of the tables, but he kindly moved his cash till to allow us a seat with a table. The owner understood English well, so there was no language barrier. One little black mark came when he didn’t come over to give our table a wipe over; but food hygiene standards generally aren’t quite up to the general UK paranoia. That said, we were perfectly healthy after our meal, so I guess they cannot be doing too much wrong.

In common with many traditional Barcelona restaurants, this only had two small rooms with perhaps a dozen tabletops. Our generous meal for four, with a cheap but tasty bottle of cava came to 44 Euros, a good deal for the spread we received.

The food was an interesting mix of traditional Spanish with a little Turkish thrown in. The cheese platter was fairly large, with about 8 thin slices of delicious Manchego, hummus, potatos bravos (chips smeared with spicy tomato sauce), bread (which arrived toasted, and in a homage to Catalonia, smeared with a thin layer of fresh tomato, and a fantastic portion of vegetables wrapped in a Turkish flat bread.

One interesting dish was the mushrooms, which came cooked with scrambled egg, and were particularly tasty.

As is common in these smaller restaurants, I was amazed to see the owner prepare our feast behind the tiny counter and bar area. You certainly have to be a quick and clean chef in these conditions.

The washrooms unfortunately weren’t a place to linger, although they weren’t too disgusting. In common with some of the bars in Barcelona, the toilet seat had been removed from the Gents, and the light switch had an automatic shut off, meaning that it was easy to be left in the dark if you lingered too long. The ladies looked a little more cared after.

Overall, this was a good random place to stop, and we enjoyed lingering an hour or so to enjoy our reasonably priced, filling and tasty spread.

The narrow streets of the Barri Gotic to me sum up the atmosphere and vibrancy of Barcelona. I just love getting lost in those narrow streets and peering down alleyways and into shops and restaurants, before suddenly coming across a main road where I can get my bearings before dipping back in again.

During my first visit to the city, more years ago than I care to remember, these narrow streets were rougher and visitors were more at risk of violent mugging, the later you stayed out and the closer to the sea you strayed.

In those days, I preferred to dart through this area while it was still light and spend my evenings enjoying the odd beer and glass of sparkling cava a little further to the end of the Barri Gotic and closer to the modern city. Here, the streets are a little wider, lighter and safer.

While these days, almost the whole of the Barri Gotic area has gentrified and appears so much safer, I was pleased to see that one of my old safe haunts, the Bar del Pi still trades in a lovely location on a bright and sunny square near a huge old church.

This is a lovely spot to linger a while, and in summer the bar has a load of tables and chairs set outside. The menu has three price ranges, one (the highest) for outside, another for a table inside, and the cheapest price is for a perch at the serving bar. The prices are about 20% different from cheapest to most expensive, so if you are on a budget, you know what to do.

It’s a long time since I had Tapas at the Dar Del Pi, but they have a nice fresh range waiting behind the glass counter at the bar. Most visitors simply drop by for a coffee, a beer or a wine, and despite its prime location, most of the guests (indoors at least) are locals.

The bar inside is pleasant and bright, with some vibrant original paintings and prints on the walls. It’s nice to grab a table on the upstairs balcony so you can watch what’s going on, but it is equally pleasant to just chill and relax downstairs.

This is not a large bar, with perhaps a dozen tables in total inside. In summer months, it does extend its size several times by use of the courtyard space outside. At this point, the average age of the clientele reduces too, although it is a sedate, quiet and safe place for us oldies to rest our legs from the tromp around the city.

While the Bar Del Pi is not the cheapest bar in Barcelona, it is certainly reasonable for its location (a bottle of San Miguel came in at around 3 Euros, as against 4 Euros for the most expensive). The bathrooms likewise are spick and span, which I know is an important consideration for many slightly more mature visitors!

I can certainly recommend anyone taking time out to explore the Bar del Pi; a search on the internet finds it very highly rated, and who am I to disagree – go with the flow!

Unfortunately some of our party were a little too "worse for wear" for our meal at the upmarket Julivert Meu. This is a restaurant for a gentle chat and socialising, rather than a boisterous 40th birthday bash. While the wait staff dressed in formal black and white attire looked a little taken aback by our noisy party of six women and me, we enjoyed our meal regardless. However, I would like to apologise for disturbing any of the other diners!

The entrance to the restaurant looks very inviting, with a large glass window, arty writing, fresh herbs and a table covered in a checkerboard tablecloth and fresh food. The inside is also very pleasant if just a little crowded and "busy", and has lots of traditional pots and pans hanging from the wall.

The Julivert Meu is a very traditionally Spanish restaurant and the menu is not for the faint hearted. Although it is translated into English, it can seem a little hard to construct a traditional meal from the plates. Likewise, with the prices of the dishes ranging from 5 -12 Euros, it was difficult for us to work out whether we were ordering a Tapas sized dish, and so need to order a couple each.

In the end, we decided correctly (as it turned out) to order one dish each, and then order some side dishes of griddle-fried potatoes to share two between three. This was adequate for a main meal.

The polite waiter did his best to explain what we were ordering, and importantly confirmed whether the dish was served hot or cold (a lot of it is cold). I chose a dish of chilled cooked potato, skinned red peppers, aubergine, olives and anchovies was simple and drizzled in olive oil. That was around 7 Euros, and plenty filling enough with a portion of hot potatoes.

My beloved had a nice sample of warm omelettes, which arrived as three different types cut into slices. The spinach omelette made a quite different contrast, and the dish looked inviting.

The less adventurous in our party chose the veal in a sauce, as it looked closest to a traditional English style meal; at around 12 Euro it was the priciest dish on the menu, and while it was OK, it didn’t stimulate gasps of awe and wonder. It was certainly the largest meal on the table. I’m not the biggest veal fan for its cruel farming and undistinguished taste, so I’m probably not the best person to judge its merits.

I guess our meal overall came out a little pricy, but it was a good quality and interestingly traditional meal in lovely surroundings. The wine (cheap and reasonable at 6 Euros for a jug of house) also evened out the bill somewhat.

If you are looking for somewhere traditionally local, not too expensive, but reasonably swanky then you could do far worse than choose the Julivert Meu.

I always think that the Spanish Tapas bars look so inviting with their food and drinks on display. One of the nicest looking bars we found during our recent Barcelona trip was Evina Wines and Tapas right in the centre of Barcelona at Via Laietana on the edge of the historic Barrio Gotico area of town. It is certainly worth dropping by for a drink, although the look of the food was less impressive.

From the outside, the Evina bar looks rather modern and "chain" style, with its brash signage and big windows. Inside, things are much better, although it has to be said that Evina is little more than a sanitised version of a traditional Tapas bar rather than the real deal. Still it makes a nice place to sit, and I like the cool jars of stuffed peppers, mushrooms in oil and fresh chillies lined up in long lines behind the bar, although they would never get through them in a month of Sundays in reality.

Prices for beer and wine are fairly standard for a city centre bar – my bottle of Damm lager was 3.50 Euro, but the bonus was that this wasn’t the ordinary fairly harsh Estrella, but a lighter and tastier local brew. The wine likewise is very drinkable.

The Tapas looking inviting from a distance, but I noticed at around 3:00 pm when we visited that some of the dishes looked a little tired and dried up. As the bar was quiet, the waitress decided to do some dusting of the high shelves storing wine behind the bar. While she was dusting, of course the dust was being transferred over the Tapas stored openly on the counter. It put off any lingering thoughts we had for a snack. On the other hand, the washrooms are very clean, tidy and nicely tiled and modern looking.

The staff are very young and bubbly, and although they laughed and chatted amongst themselves, we had no problems being served. As is common with Barcelona bars, we ordered our drinks at the bar and then found a place to sit, where our drinks were then served. It seemed a mix of the British way (where you order at the bar and wait to collect your drinks from there), or many other continental countries, where you sit down and wait staff take your order and serve as you linger.

Although the bar occupies a busy spot, it wasn’t too busy on either of the times we visited. This probably indicates that the Evina bar isn’t the coolest spot in town, but perfect for anyone wanting to rest their tourist legs. Although you probably won’t be so lucky, it was actually a good spot to see a procession of the three kings, a local tradition to commemorate the twelfth night of Christmas, which wandered past with much fanfare and banging of drums.

As I was on a Barcelona vacation with five women, finding a suitable restaurant for lunch in Barcelona seemed to be a bit of a problem. Either the place was too busy, too smoky, too expensive, too grotty, looked too difficult to order food, or we found it just at the wrong time.

After a bracing jaunt to Park Guell in almost freezing temperatures, and with the sunlight lengthening, I finally tired of the food debate and steered the party into the quiet and comfortable looking environs of Gino’s Restaurant on Rambla De Catalunya. Given the restaurant mainly serves pizza and pasta dishes, I wasn’t willing to take no for an answer on this one. I also figured that it wouldn’t prove too expensive. While the cost did prove to be slightly on the high side, we had a reasonable meal.

The restaurant has terracotta tiled flooring, and a bright interior; there is a large window to the front, and the corridor upstairs to the bathroom is also glazed, meaning a lot of light comes into the dining area. The tables themselves were dressed in crisp white cotton tablecloths, and presented well. Although it was late on, the restaurant looked as spotless as if we had been the first to arrive.

Despite the restaurant being almost empty, it took a while for us to be greeted and invited to a table. Likewise, the initial order process took some time, and some of our first drinks took longer than anticipated to arrive. As one of our party ordered sangria, they said it had taken some time to prepare. Drinks were fairly expensive for Barcelona; my half litre of lager came in at around four and a half Euro ($6 +). At most other places we visited, the cost veered to the right side of four Euros.

Things got better! For starter, we decided to share a few of the different garlic breads on offer. Unfortunately, at this time in the afternoon, they only had one type (the confusingly named pizza bread), which was a very thin pizza base spread with slightly sweet but tasty tomato sauce. It arrived very promptly and devoured with rigour.

I was a little disappointed with the limited choice of pizzas on offer, but I ordered a bacon pizza, which although a little too browned was very tasty, if not exceptional, and on a nice fresh base. My beloved’s Vegetable pizza looked very fresh and laden with different vegetables. Unfortunately, she sank every piece without allowing me a sample (for research purposes only of course). The pizzas were around 9 Euros, which appears standard for Barcelona.

Others in our party ordered pasta, and there was a better choice on offer on the menu. While they looked a little anaemic (I always like tomato sauce with my pasta), they were very tasty and went down well.

The highlight of the meal probably came with the sweets. While I declined one, I was casting lustful glances at my opposite dining companion, or to be more correct, it was her chocolate mouse and ice cream sweet that had me captivated. The ice cream looked perfect, and the soft centre of the chocolate melted my heart. The panitone with ice cream and chocolate sauce looked equally inviting.

My portion of the meal came to around 15 euro, which was filling enough to the point that I only needed a small snack later that day. Despite our slow start with the service, and the slightly over high price of my beer, I found my shared starter and pizza enjoyable and reasonable value, and the restaurant pleasant.