Where to eat and drink in Barcelona

Coffee, booze, and food in my favourite city in Spain

Update: I’ve since expanded and updated this list for 2025. Take a look at the latest version instead.

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If Braise has been a little quiet lately, I apologise. Work, and my life at large, have been a little…hectic. And while I am a shameless stress eater, I’ve not quite developed the knack for stress writing, instead clawing at my scraps of free time to watch the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. No regrets.

In any case, that’s part of what’s spurred me to this, a piece that’s been knocking around my head half-formed ever since I started the newsletter.

This week felt like the time, as I had the realisation that Barcelona is likely now the city I’ve visited the most outside the UK across my life, and I like to think I know it fairly well.

My relationship with the city is a slightly odd one though. I’ve never lived there, though I know people who have. In fact, I’ve never even visited it for as much as a week at a time, or even ever truly gone for a holiday.

Instead it’s the city my job keeps taking me back to, my annual pilgrimage to February’s Mobile World Congress tech trade show always a highlight of my work calendar. That’s less for the show and more for the city, to be clear, and most of all for everything I eat and drink while I’m there.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that it is presently not in fact February. I’m writing this from El Prat airport, on my way home from my first ever trip to Barcelona for anything other than MWC - breaking tradition by turning up for a slightly different tech launch instead.

Enough pre-amble. These are the places I eat, drink, and try to be merry in the snatches of time I get around work, accumulated from almost a decade of trips here. I write with no greater authority than a regular visitor, and so make no pretence that this list is definitive - listicle mainstay El Xampanyet still eludes me, if nothing else, giving me something to aim for when next February rolls around.

Where to caffeinate

Nomad Coffee Bar

Passatge Sert, 12, Ciutat Vella, 08003

You’ll spot Nomad’s coffee in a few of the city’s bougier delis and cafes, but head to the source in the Born neighbourhood if you can. 

Seats are few and far between, so don’t expect to linger here long, especially since it doesn’t serve any food at all. In fact it serves hardly anything other than coffee, which comes in one size but with a full spread of beans to pick from, separated into filter and espresso options and with tasting notes to guide you. 

Oma Coffee

Carrer d'Amigó, 18, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, 08021

If Nomad is small, Oma is tiny - though the separate Oma Bistro location, which I’ve not been to, is much larger and more food-focused. 

Unlike Nomad, Oma isn’t a roastery, but that allows them to offer weird and wonderful beans from all over, from micro-producers to fermented flavours. Ask for recommendations, and go in open to drinking something a little surprising.

Syra Coffee

Various locations

If Nomad and Oma are destination coffee spots, then Syra is the opposite. There are branches across Barcelona, all with a small menu and a strict takeaway focus.

Don’t expect a choice of beans or unusual flavours; do expect reliably good coffee (and a solid cold brew) that’s easy to get your hands on wherever you are.

Where to drink