Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
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Eat pa amb tomàquet
Bread rubbed with a cut tomato, dressed with olive oil and salted. It is not a starter but the default Catalan bread, served alongside everything, with any meat or cheese.
Good places bring the bread and half a tomato separately so you rub it yourself. The bread should be dry-toasted; on soft bread the tomato turns to mush.
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Try fideuà
Paella logic with short thin noodles instead of rice, standing on end in the pan and toasting at the tips. It comes from the coast south of the city, is made with seafood and arrives with allioli.
The allioli is stirred into the noodles, not spread on bread. Like paella it takes at least half an hour, so an instant portion means a reheated batch.
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Order escalivada
Aubergine, pepper and onion roasted directly on embers until the skin blackens, then peeled and dressed with olive oil. Served cold, often with anchovies and on pa amb tomàquet.
The name comes from escalivar, to cook in ashes, and the smoke is the whole point. Ask for it without anchovies and it is fully vegetarian.
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Try calçots in season
Long sweet green onions charred over vine cuttings and eaten with your hands, dipped in romesco. The season runs from late winter into early spring, and it is less a dish than a whole countryside feast.
You strip the charred layer with your fingers, hold the onion above your head and lower it in, which is why restaurants hand out a bib. Outside the season they should not be on the menu at all.
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Try esqueixada
A salad of salt cod torn by hand into strands with tomato, onion, olives and olive oil. A summer dish: the cod is never cooked, only soaked, and stays firm.
The name comes from esqueixar, to tear: the cod is never cut with a knife or the texture is lost. Its relative is xató, the same salad under a nut sauce.
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Eat a bomba in Barceloneta
A potato ball stuffed with meat, fried in breadcrumbs and topped with a spicy sauce and allioli. Invented in the port quarter and still its signature snack.
By Catalan standards this is genuinely hot, one of the region's few spicy dishes. You order them one at a time with beer rather than by the plate.
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Try botifarra amb mongetes
A fat white pork sausage from the grill with white beans fried in pork fat. A plain Catalan main that appears in every bodega and on every menú del día.
The beans are ganxet: short, thin-skinned and creamy, and they carry the dish. Allioli almost always comes with the sausage.
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Try suquet de peix
A fishermen's stew of white fish and potato in a broth thickened with picada, a paste of nuts, garlic and bread. It began as a way to use the unsold catch and is now the coast's main fish dish.
The potato is not a side: it absorbs the broth and thickens the dish. Ask for bread straight away, and finishing the sauce with a spoon is entirely normal.
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Try Catalan canelons
Pasta tubes filled with the meat from yesterday's roast, covered in béchamel and baked until browned. Traditionally the dish of the day after Christmas, a way to finish the festive roast.
Unlike Italian cannelloni the filling is always braised meat, never ricotta and spinach. Bodegas serve them all year.
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Order tinned seafood with vermouth
Pickled mussels, sardines, belly tuna, cockles — all from a tin opened in front of you. This is not thrift but a cuisine of its own: good tinned seafood costs more than fresh fish.
The classic vermuteria order: a tin, crisps and olives on a stick. Cockles are counted individually and judged by size.
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Try crema catalana Desserts and pastries
A milk custard scented with citrus zest and cinnamon under a lid of burnt sugar. Unlike crème brûlée it uses no cream and arrives cold rather than warm.
The sugar is burnt with a red-hot iron disc just before serving, so the crust should crack under the spoon. Its traditional day is 19 March.
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Try mel i mató Desserts and pastries
Fresh unsalted mató curd cheese with dark honey and walnuts. The oldest Catalan dessert and the lightest way out of a heavy lunch.
Mató is made from goat or cow milk without salt and is nearly flavourless on its own; the honey does the work. Look for it in old bodegas rather than tourist cafés.
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Have xurros amb xocolata Desserts and pastries
Ridged strips of fried dough dipped in a hot chocolate so thick it resembles melted bar chocolate. Eaten in the morning or after a night out, never as an after-dinner dessert.
The chocolate is eaten with a spoon rather than drunk. Look for old churrerias in the Raval; many fry to order and have a morning queue.
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Drink orxata de xufa Non-alcoholic drinks
A cold drink made from tiger nuts: sweet, nutty, milk-coloured and entirely plant-based. A summer staple sold in dedicated orxaterias from May to September.
It comes with fartons, long sweet buns for dipping. Fresh orxata separates in the glass, which is how you know it was not made from powder.
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Do the vermut before lunch Local alcohol
Red vermouth over ice with an orange slice and an olive, drunk at midday at weekends — not after a meal but as the aperitif ritual itself. Locals use the phrase as a verb for the whole outing.
It is poured from the barrel rather than a bottle; in old bodegas ask for it de l'aixeta, from the tap. Olives and crisps arrive with it automatically.
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Try cava Local alcohol
Sparkling wine made by the traditional method in nearby Penedès, dry and noticeably mineral. In Barcelona it is not a celebration wine but an everyday one, drunk with seafood.
Look for Brut Nature, made without added sugar. Old cava bars pour it by the glass at the price of an ordinary glass of wine.
