The 2026 hot list: the 30 best new restaurants in France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain

Piparra’s Sant Joan address is not a reinvention of the Barcelona tapas bar, which is a relief. The group already knew what it was doing in Sant Gervasi: take the cañí bar idea, clean it up, sharpen it and keep the Mediterranean appetite intact. The new Consell de Cent address brings that format into Eixample Dreta with traditional Spanish and Mediterranean plates, casual service and a bar rhythm that suits lunch as much as a late vermut. Keep this as a spot for when the city’s more self-conscious openings start to tire you out.

Etl is what happens when the people behind Metl let breakfast, Mexican food and Barcelona day-to-night behaviour share one address. On Ausiàs Marc in Eixample Dreta, it opens early, keeps going into the afternoon and stretches longer from Friday to Sunday, with no reservations and a menu that includes dishes such as enchiladas divorciadas. The better angle is timing: Barcelona has enough restaurants for dinner, fewer places where morning food does not taste like a copy-paste brunch board. Come for eggs, spice, coffee and the kind of daytime Mexican cooking that makes croissants feel like a weak decision.

Rafa Panatieri and Jorge Sastre could have kept printing money through Sartoria Panatieri’s Neapolitan-pizza reputation. Romo is better because it swerves. Their Barcelona pizzeria works Roman style: thinner, crisper, faster and less worshipful, with dough built from biga and 48-hour fermentation. The space keeps the pitch direct, with steel, wood, brick, colour and enough seats to feel like a proper everyday restaurant, not a hype bunker. Order the cured meats, made in-house, then go for pizzas with sobrasada, porchetta or Catalan cheeses. It is the rare “casual concept” from serious chefs that actually suits a regular Tuesday night.

Barcelona has plenty of restaurants calling themselves free, casual or borderless. Superauto earns the looseness because chef Ronit Stern and Rafael Campos have already proved they can make that kind of chaos taste organised. Set in the former Auto Rosellón space in Eixample Esquerra, the restaurant keeps the all-day usefulness but pushes the food further: freestyle plates, natural wines, breakfast that avoids brunch clichés, lunch with colour and enough global references to annoy anyone who needs neat categories. The eatery still has the bar-led, lived-in pull of the original. Go when you want Barcelona food with personality, not another obedient small-plates script.

Artur Martínez could have waited for Aürt to return and stayed in Michelin suspense. Instead, Trü puts his Catalan thinking into a tavern register on Còrsega, in the former Palo Verde space. The cooking looks backwards without getting stuck there: thyme consommé drunk from a bowl, tortilla with cap i pota juice, fricandó tongue skewers, trinxat waffle with cabbage, creamy roast-chicken rice and frozen coca de llardons for dessert. It is still chefly, sometimes proudly so, but the better moments come when Catalan memory is allowed to be odd, warm and slightly unruly. Start with the consommé.

Barcelona’s omakase wave gets a Peruvian detour at Barra /M, a nine-seat counter by Peruvian chef Omar Malpartida, known for Maymanta in Barcelona and Ibiza. The format keeps the intimacy of omakase but shifts the vocabulary: Japanese technique, Peruvian spirit, local product, cocktails and a menu that moves through the chef’s decisions rather than a list of safe choices. This is the one to book when sushi-counter seriousness feels too predictable and Nikkei has started to sound like a menu label instead of a point of view. Sit close, surrender control and let the bar do what tables cannot.

Puro is the Eixample dinner address for when Barcelona wants polish without pretending to be restrained. On Comte d’Urgell, it leans into fine cuisine and cocktails, with a menu built around mixing influences, product and technique. That description could drift into lifestyle fog, so judge it by use: dinner, drinks, a date, a group that wants the table to look as considered as the glassware. Keep it below the stronger food-led openings, but do not dismiss it. Barcelona needs a few places that understand glamour as part of the plan, provided the cocktails and plates carry their side of the bargain.