Restaurant Portolès — Restaurant in Barcelona

My wife and I had been walking around Barcelona after our visit to the Sagrada Familia and at around 2:30pm we came across a restaurant where there was a long queue out onto the street. We figured the food must have been pretty special for people to be prepared to wait. We decided to come back on another day to try the food but also to come at a much earlier time-slot to give ourselves a chance to get a seat at a table.

We returned today at around 1:30pm. Again, the restaurant was full but we only had to wait 5-10 minutes and we were in.

The staff were very understanding. They detected our poor use of the Catalan language and had a menu with pictures for us. Everything looked very tempting and we started by ordering a porron of vino tinto. It’s such a lovely looking wine decanter. For the experienced user, I believe you can pour directly from the porron into your mouth but we were not keen on making fools of ourselves so we did a conventional pour into our glasses.

From the Ensalada Verduras menu, we ordered Escalivida mixta and Tomato con queso. From the Carnes menu, we ordered Butifarra with beans and from the Pescados menu we ordered the Bacaladillas. From the Postres menu we ordered Torrijas and Crema Catalana.

I come from a Sicilian food tradition and have always believed that Sicilian food is ‘the best’ but after our food experience at Portolés, (and numerous Barcelona tapas bars over the past 5 weeks) I am starting to think the Catalan cuisine is the best.

The food was humble and very tasty. That’s just the way I like it. The freshness and the natural flavours were a sign of the excellence in which everything was cooked and prepared for the plate.

It was a good thing we arrived at Portolés early. When we left there was a decent queue at the door once again.

Our Barcelona visit is coming to an end soon and we’ll be heading back to Australia in a few days. I’m going to miss this most amazing...

Portolés is a short walk from our hotel and we had a great dinner here. There is a blackboard menu in Spanish and a picture menu in English. There is only one waiter for the entire place but he is extremely good. He is very helpful, friendly, and efficient. I don’t know how he did it but every table got their orders in quick. I do hope he gets paid good. Giving tips is uncommon in Spain.

We ordered 6 tapas total. The server stopped me at 5 tapas saying it’s good enough for two. I squeezed in a 6th tapa: calamares a la romana, not pictured. He smiled. Needless to say, we finished all of it and had room for two desserts and a coffee. We got the crema catalana and flan. I really like the crema catalana as it is very much the same as crème brûlée. As for the tapas, we ordered a lighter fare, mostly veggies since we had a late dinner (by American definition, at 10pm). Our favorite is the callos (tripes), it taste very similar to New Mexico’s green chile stew minus the green chile plus the tripes. The tripes are cooked very softly, there is a little spice, and the broth is not heavy at all. It is so easy to eat.

They do accept credit cards. There are only a few tables and no outdoor seating that I saw. We did not wait but we also came in at 10pm. The restaurant was still full until they closed at 11pm. Half of the diners are locals which tells you this place do serve authentic...

Excellent Catalan food at a very good price. This is a place most of the locals go to and it gets really busy once it opens so it is recommended to go there around the time it opens. It should be noted that at certain times of the year(or the day/week to be specific) some(if not most) dishes on the menu are not available, leaving you with limited choices of dishes to choose from. When I went there, only one dish was available from the rice/noodle main courses which was the rossejat, a noodle dish made of fried fiduea noodles with seafood and clotted cream to go with it. Still, despite the downsides, the food there is really excellent, and the staff were really nice. The food came quickly and the staff was fast to attend to you. Dishes that I would recommend are the rossejat(of course), the trinxat de col(a vegetable dish), and the salted baked cod(bacalla). I certainly would recommend this place to anyone in Barcelona looking for authentic Catalan cuisine at a...