The insider’s guide to Barcelona
What to see and where to be seen in Catalonia’s vibrant capital. By MARK C. O’FLAHERTY
The ultimate beach club
Some taxi drivers still find the location inexplicably confusing, but last year’s most glamorous newcomer to the coastline – the second Soho House production to land in Catalonia – is a speedy 30-minute drive from the center of the city. If you want a beach escape as well as a city break, tagging on a two-night stay at Little Beach House Barcelona gives you the best of both worlds. There is, as you’d expect, a relaxed but indulgent beach-club vibe, with immaculate rows of loungers on the sand, exclusively for guests and members, and 17 bedrooms in the repurposed mid-century building.
The locals’ favorite lunch spot
Michelin-starred chef Carme Ruscalleda is a regular diner at Els Pescadors, a low-key seafood restaurant that is a favorite with big family groups. The place effortlessly, even accidentally, hits a note of high chic, with wood paneling and some of the ambience of a traditional fisherman’s bar. Food is simple but flawless – gazpacho, oysters, cuttlefish, roasted octopus, salt cod, Catalan fish stew and traditional rice casseroles.
A music lover’s dream
A day ‘doing’ La Rambla never disappoints, even if so many of the newspaper vendors along the boulevard now sell mostly unlovely tourist tat. One store that still captures the spirit of old Barcelona is Casa Beethoven, the beautiful old sheet-music shop that remains family run and has survived two World Wars (and one civil one). Even if you can’t read a note, it makes for a tremendously visual experience. If you’re lucky, you’ll drop by while the owner is playing a traditional Catalan folk song on the piano.
A pool with a view
Grand Hotel Central does exactly what it says on its historic façade: it is luxurious in a stripped-back, contemporary way, and located in the heart of the city. What isn’t immediately apparent is that it has one of the best roof decks in Catalonia. There are few better places to perch on a scorching afternoon, eight floors up, than by the hotel’s infinity pool. When the sun has gone down, head to the bar, where mixologist Manel Vehí works alchemy with local gins and myriad other elements.
The deadliest artwork in the world
The Fundació Joan Miró is, as you’d expect, full of Miró masterpieces, and one of the most visited museums in Spain. But the highlight is from another artist: the Alexander Calder fountain, which continually recycles dazzling mercury around its artful rounded grooves and gutters. The liquid-metal-filled installation was originally exhibited in front of Picasso’s Guernica at the Spanish Pavilion at the World’s Fair in Paris in the 1930s, but today its toxic contents sit safely behind glass at the Miró museum. It’s a remarkable, beautiful and sci-fi-sinister work of art.
The ultimate food hall
Don’t overthink it or have anxiety about authenticity – El Nacional is one of the most fun places to eat and drink on any day of the week, from midday to 1am. Set back in an alleyway from one of the main central strips of the city, an industrial warehouse has been repurposed to create a lavish food court, with fantastical light fittings, a great variety of cuisines from tapas to steak, and numerous central bars, each pouring gallons of delicious Rioja and cava.
A holistic design experience
Jaime Beriestain is the most famous interior designer in Catalonia and has fashioned numerous ways for you to experience his work on a visit to Barcelona. Once you’ve shopped from the shelves of sleek branded products at his concept store on Carrer de Pau Claris, head right next door to his café, which has become a kind of clubhouse for all things Beriestain. Eat truffled ravioli and drink Champagne in a velvet booth, surrounded by giant ferns and vast colorful artworks while a DJ plays Arabic lounge tunes.
The spa in the sky
The Hotel Arts, beside the beach, is one of the most distinctive pieces of modern architecture in the city, and right at the top sits one of the best spas in the country, and certainly the one with the best views. The hotel’s 43 The Spa takes over the top two floors of the tower, and while the therapy rooms feel intimate, no opportunity to exploit the views out across the Mediterranean are missed. There’s a hydrotherapy pool, steam baths, saunas, ice fountains and outdoor terraces. Book one of the two treatment suites with sea views for the full 43 experience.
The lesser known masterpiece
For most design aficionados, Barcelona means Gaudí (and the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, of course). Everyone knows La Sagrada Familia and Casa Milà, but Casa Vicens – which only opened to the public a couple of years ago – was Gaudí’s first major project and offers a fresh insight into his aesthetic, as well as a sculptural rooftop with endless photo opportunities. Rather than the curvaceous sci-fi gothic he is known for, this mixes a kind of bright and blocky style that predates Post Modernism by decades, mixed with late 19th-century Orientalism. It is surprising and ravishing.
Fantastical fusion
Everyone still talks about Tickets restaurant, the El Bulli offshoot from the Adrià brothers, but it’s their Japanese restaurant, Pakta, that creates the biggest buzz among serious foodies. It serves Nikkei cuisine – a Peruvian-Japanese fusion – in a handsome dining room decorated with an intricate and elaborate installation of South American yarns. When the waiters introduce each dish, they wave a small wand bound in the same bright colors. The whole thing is a visual and taste sensation.
A park to amaze
It’s easy to think of Barcelona as mostly Gaudí architecture and coastline, but Parc del Laberint d’Horta at the northern end of town is a verdant gem. It dates back to the late 18th century, when the fabulously named Marquis of Llupia and Alfarrás wanted a royal landscaped fantasia. Today, it still has Greek grottos and Moorish arches, but the highlight is the immaculately maintained maze – the stuff of fairy tales, and something to make you wish you were floating around it in a crinoline.