How to Eat in Barcelona on the Cheap

Barcelona has plenty to offer its visitors, including good food! Many of Barcelona's Catalan restaurants can be very expensive, though, so plan your meals carefully if you are traveling on a tight budget.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Spanish Phrase Book
• Maps
• Restaurant Dining Guides
• Travel Guides
• Travelers' Checks

1. Purchase a budget guidebook, which should contain extensive listings of affordable restaurants and cafés. You may want to consult different guidebooks at your local library, photocopy the pages you really need, then leave the heavy books at home!
2. Eat tapas. You can make an excellent, affordable meal out of these small bites of good food (usually served with dry sherry or cava), or just snack on them and leave room for a full meal later ' it's up to you.
3. Picnic as much as possible. You can buy a wide variety of picnic food from Barcelona's central market, or from other food markets in the surrounding areas. If your hotel or hostel has a refrigerator you can use, try to eat at least one or two meals a day without going to a restaurant.
4. Visit a wine or cava (sparkling wine) bar. The food is simple, yet satisfying, and the experience is much like dining in a wine cellar.
5. Eat vegetarian, even if you are an omnivore. There are a number of good, affordable vegetarian options in Barcelona; look in a good budget guidebook for suggestions, or ask around.
6. Look for 'tourist menus,' which are usually posted outside restaurants. You may get a three- or four-course meal much cheaper than if you ordered 'a la carte.' Despite limited choices, the savings are usually worthwhile.

Tips & Warnings

• Try to find a Barcelona guidebook or a phrasebook that contains Catalan phrases as well as Spanish; while almost everyone in Barcelona understands both official languages, many signs and menus are written in Catalan and some locals prefer to use Catalan exclusively.
• Try 'horchata' during your stay in Barcelona. This cool, nutty-tasting drink, made from chufa nuts, is something you won't often find outside Spain (it's completely different from Mexican horchata).
• Try to stay out of 'tourist trap' areas if you're eating on the cheap. Restaurants and cafés a block or so away from the heart of the action may be a lot cheaper.
• Remember that a service charge is automatically added to your bill in most European restaurants. Tipping above the included service charge is optional, though it is usually customary to leave some small change on the table.
• If you are a strict vegetarian, make sure that the food conforms to your requirements. Vegetarianism is more loosely defined in much of Europe than it is in North America, and you may find that a nominally 'vegetarian' soup contains meat or chicken stock, for example.