Barcelona, a city of attractive gastronomic bars

This city maintains an interesting and varied culinary offering. It is built on solid ground, so small and unique projects abound, mostly with small teams and modest spaces, which have adapted their opening hours and days to their possibilities. But Barcelona is also a city of haute cuisine restaurants and the only one in Spain with four three Michelin stars: Lasarte, ABaC, Cocina Hermanos Torres and Disfrutar. 2024 will be remembered as the year when for the first time a restaurant in the Catalan capital topped The World's 50 Best Restaurants list, the aforementioned Disfrutar, in the same year they received that highest award in the red guide.

It has also been the year when renowned chefs have set foot in the city, bringing some of their signature dishes here—from Dani García with Leña, to Luis Arévalo with Akiro, or Roberto Ruiz with Jaiba MX. But 2024 has stood out especially for the movement in the gastronomic bars, a dining format that is highly popular among the local clientele and attracts those who are on a culinary tour. These bars are mostly places where wine is also very important.

In 2024, we started our Saturday restaurant chronicle section with the bar at the Japanese restaurant Suto (134 Violant d’Hongria Reina d’Aragó), which was awarded its first Michelin star. Chef Yoshikazu Suto attends to six diners with the assistance of sommelier Carolina Alarcón. And yesterday, in the same gastronomic section of Guyana Guardian, we bid farewell to the last week of the year by visiting the new Bisavis (85 Bruc), owned by lawyer turned chef Eduard Ros. Six years ago, he opened a tiny bar with the same name on Tavern Street, where he worked alone. Recently, he moved the bar to a new location to have more space and, as he put it, to step out of his comfort zone and continue learning about food and wine.

It has been a year of moves, renovations, and novelties. Arnau Muñío's team at Direkte Boqueria (13 Les Cabres) is also about to move, which can still be visited at its privileged location, on one side of the Boqueria market, where the cliché of a small, great kitchen comes true. Muñío is missing the tiny space they occupy, which he will not give up, but he still has to think about what he will use it for. For now, he is immersed in the renovation of the new location where they will be moving to, at the corner of París street and Enric Granados.

This year another one of the city's great bars has been transformed; that of Koy Shunka (7 Copons). Hideki Matsuhisa, with the help of architect Pere Cortacans, has given a twist to the interior design to make it more welcoming and in line with his idea of exalting that cuisine of fire that is now the absolute protagonist. Matsuhisa has stripped away modern gadgets to plant in the center a wood and charcoal kitchen with which he intends to advance in excellence through the path of authenticity and the ancestral.

If there has been one bar that has made headlines in 2024, it is Glug (77 Paris), with a long waiting list due to the success of its successful proposal. Chefs Beatrice Casella (former head chef of Hisop) and Iván García (former Direkte Boqueria) opened an establishment together last summer with a long and comfortable bar and very few tables, where wine and savory and sweet cuisine share the spotlight. Good reviews and accolades —they were proclaimed the best chefs of 2024 at the last Gastronomic Forum Barcelona— skyrocketed the demand for a venue that started off in the best possible way.

This past year has also been full of anniversaries: Albert Raurich and Tamae Imachi have celebrated in style the fifteen years of their Dos Palillos (9 Elisabets). And they have done so with a tasting menu that throughout the year has been revisiting some of the most interesting dishes in their repertoire, following the rhythm of the seasons.

Aürt is also celebrating its birthday, this time marking five years since they left the tiny kitchen in Terrassa to move to the Hilton Diagonal Mar hotel, where their exceptional cuisine continues to evolve for guests to enjoy at the bar. Artur Martínez and his team have also prepared a menu to commemorate the anniversary, featuring some of the dishes that have made a lasting impact throughout their journey.

Frank Beltri and Nicolás de la Vega, owners of one of the top gourmet bars in the city, Slow & Low (119 Comte Borrell), with a Michelin star since 2023, have opened a small and unpretentious tapas and dishes bar this year, Bar Canyí (107 Sepúlveda), which has been a great success.

As some of the most attractive and established bars in the city, they continue to be the go-to spots: from Coure (20 Marimon passage), to Pur (11 Concepció passage), Caelis (49 Via Laietana), Xavier Pellicer (310 Provença), Gresca (230 Provença), Mont Bar (220 Diputació), Tangana (19 Riera Sant Miquel), Suru Bar (134 Casanova), El Quim de la Boqueria (91 La Rambla) or La Pubilla (23 Llibertat square).