Casa Maians

While most public facilities and services at Barcelona’s beaches only operate during the high season from the end of May to the end of September, restaurants and bars stay open year-round. Barceloneta might be a well-known beach, but once you step away from the main drag along the boardwalk, it’s also one of the city’s most historic downtown neighborhoods. This makes it a suitable home for Casa Maians, a restaurant that makes authentic Catalan food for a mainly Barcelonian crowd.

Locals come for the freshly caught seafood, hearty rice dishes overflowing with pork shoulder, seasonal mushrooms and peppers, or black squid-ink rice with cuttlefish and artichokes, plus that feeling of going over to a friend’s place for a quick bite and chat. The restaurant is only open Wednesday through Saturday during lunch (as well as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for dinner), there are ten tables, and the entire show is run by the two owners who seem to know most of their guests personally.