16 Trendiest New Restaurants in Barcelona Right Now

If the small-plates wave has a single reference point, it's Maleducat. It's a modern casa de menjars in Sant Antoni run by chef Víctor Ródenas alongside brothers Ignaci and Marc García, and the name means 'badly educated' in Catalan, which suits the loose, share-everything energy of the room. The format is a short seasonal menu of communal plates and a natural wine programme, the kind of place where you order in waves and keep going. Start with Thierry's Fine de Claire oysters, done a few ways, then move into the warm leeks with hazelnut vinaigrette and the steak tartare with chipotle and smoked egg yolk. It's the room every other list keeps coming back to, and once you eat here you understand why.

Bib GourmandRepsol Recommended

Berbena is the room that proves the new wave has legs. It's a small neighbourhood restaurant in la Vila de Gràcia from chef Carles Pérez de Rozas Canut, named after Barcelona's traditional street festivals, and it carries a Michelin Bib Gourmand, the clearest sign of staying power on this list. The cooking is seasonal Mediterranean served in half and quarter portions, which means you can graze across a lot of the menu in one sitting. The oxtail gyoza with a bit of broth is a signature, the charcoal-grilled squid with green peas and lardo is the kind of plate you remember, and there's house-baked bread and a proper cheese selection. Two dinner seatings, an open kitchen, and the sort of full room that tells you the locals already know.

Bar Super is the room that dominated the recent opening conversation. It's a natural wine bar in El Born pouring low-intervention bottles alongside Italian-Catalan market cooking, and it nails the format that defines this whole scene: a short menu that leans on whatever's fresh, a list that runs deep into natural and minimal-intervention wine, and a room built for a long, loose meal. Go for the eggplant in carrozza with spiced vinaigrette, the Cantabrian anchovies with their house olive oil, and an oyster with the salsa Super. It works as a glass-after-work spot, a long lunch, or dinner with friends, and they take reservations if you want a table locked in rather than chancing the bar.

Suru Bar is the room a lot of the natural-wine scene quietly measures itself against. It's a market-cuisine restaurant in l'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample built on careful sourcing and an all-natural wine list, with a kitchen led by Charly, hospitality and pastry from Gemma, and wine from Sergi. The cooking lands somewhere between a robata bar and a creative bistro: grilled chicken skin with shrimp tartare, candied El Prat artichoke with truffle and cured egg yolk, agnolotti stuffed with roasted chicken in its own broth. The dining room is small, modern and easy whether you're solo at the bar or in for a proper dinner. Finish with the creamy chocolate, salted caramel and crispy rice.

Franca brought a jolt of energy to Catalan cooking and quickly became one of the most-talked-about recent openings. It's run by a collaborative kitchen team of Francesca Baixas, Gianmarco Greci and Joshua McCarty in la Dreta de l'Eixample, and the whole idea is taking regional classics apart and rebuilding them through a modern lens. The menu reads playful and confident: a pissaladière tart, a sea-and-mountain bikini, a xató served in red, and a small section of pasta like the linguine with cockles, garlic and sausage. The Feast, La Festa, is the move if you want to hand it over to the kitchen. It's the kind of room where the cooking feels current without trying too hard, which is exactly why people keep recommending it.

Bandini's is one of the rooms that made Sant Antoni the natural-wine-bar neighbourhood it is now. It's run by Swedish-born Povel in the kitchen and Andalusian Carmen on the wine list, and the formula is simple and very of-the-moment: a seasonal menu that changes often, sharing plates built around Mediterranean ingredients, and natural wine from local producers. It's small, relaxed and the kind of place regulars treat as a second living room. The menu shifts too much to memorise, so the right move is to tell Carmen what you're drinking and let the plates follow. Come for a glass and a snack, stay for a long dinner; that flexibility is the whole point of the format.

Masa is the natural-wine room that planted a flag in Poblenou. It's a small bar on Carrer de Pallars opened in April 2023 by Dani Bajc and Antonella Tignanelli, and it carries a Repsol Solete. The format is exactly what the neighbourhood needed: a long, thoughtful natural-wine list, a short run of small plates, and the kind of low-key room where the wine does a lot of the talking. It's a wine bar first and a kitchen second, which means the plates are built to drink with rather than to anchor a formal meal. If you're working your way around Poblenou's new-wave spots, this is the one to start with, ideally on a quiet evening when there's time to talk bottles.

Pompa is the buzzy Gràcia counterpart to Berbena, sharing that same small-room, big-ambition energy. It's a wine-led cellar and kitchen in la Vila de Gràcia built around a 600-reference wine list and a short seasonal carta of small plates, caviar, charcuterie and cheeses. This is the more grown-up end of the new wave: the list is serious, the plates are precise, and the room rewards taking your time. Order the skate wing rillette and the two artichokes with egg yolk and truffle, then let the floor team steer you through the cellar. It runs a touch pricier than the average small-plates room, which fits; the wine programme here is the main event and worth showing up for.

Mikan is one of the more distinctive rooms on the scene, a North-East Asian wine bar on Carrer d'Aribau in the Eixample opened in April 2023 by chef Dan Jin, who goes by Tan, with Woody Wang and Arthur Holland Michel. The kitchen blends Japanese, Chinese and Korean cooking in small-plate format and pairs it with natural wines from Spain and France, which is a combination you don't find much elsewhere in the city. Start with the house kimchi and the cherry tomato bombs in fermented black bean sauce, then go for the nanban-style fried chicken and the prawns with kimchi mayo. It's lively, the plates are punchy, and it's exactly the kind of cross-cultural cooking the new wave does well.

Alapar took over the former Pakta space in el Poble Sec and turned it into one of the city's most interesting Japanese-Mediterranean rooms. Chef Jaume Marambio and Vicky Maccarone run a counter-style omakase rooted in seasonal Catalan produce, moving through nigiri, grilled dishes, marinades and pickles before the desserts land. It carries a Repsol Recomendado, and the format sits a notch more ambitious than the average small-plates bar, but the cooking stays playful: a montadito of squid sashimi and Iberian pork belly, sea bream nigiri with tsukudani, and a grilled mochi filled with chocolate served with olive oil ice cream to close. Sit at the counter if you can; this is a kitchen you want to watch work.

Michelin SelectedRepsol

Besta is the new-wave room with the most fine-dining gravity, a Galician-Catalan seafood spot in l'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample from chefs Manu Núñez and Carles Ramon. It carries a Repsol Sol, which on this list is rare company, and the cooking shows that level of intent: seafood shaped by the season and a wine list chosen with the same care as the food. The format is a set tasting menu rather than à la carte, so you're handing yourself over to the kitchen, with a shorter bites-and-plates run or a longer festival version. It reads more grown-up than the natural-wine bars further down the list, but the energy is still firmly new-wave rather than special-occasion stiff. One of the most serious kitchens in the buzzy pool.

Fonda Pepa is the Gràcia room people send each other when they want something that doesn't fit any neat box. It's a Catalan-Mexican fusion fonda on Carrer de Tordera opened in 2020 by chefs Pedro Bano and Paco Benitez, who met at the Sant Pol cooking school; Paco trained at Caelis and Noma. The menu changes often and runs Catalan tradition through a Mexican lens, much of it cooked over a Josper grill, so there's real smoke and char behind the fusion. It's the kind of cooking that sounds gimmicky on paper and lands as genuinely good in the room. Small, warm and frequently full, it's been a fixture of the Gràcia conversation for a few years now and shows no sign of cooling.

El Rectangle is one of the newer-wave Sant Antoni rooms, a creative restaurant on Carrer de Sepúlveda from the team of Martí Badia, Carlos Arocha and Marcos López. The kitchen takes a seasonal, ingredient-led approach, building dishes around good produce and careful prep, and the menu is structured so you can graze: a run of bites like Martí's bravas and the house gilda, then a section of vegetable-forward plates. Go for the leek with lemon and pomegranate, the maitake with hummus and almond, and the mackerel with ajo blanco and romesco. It runs a touch more ambitious than the wine-bar end of the scene, and it's the kind of room that feels like it's still finding new gears, which is half the appeal.

Casa Fiero is Maleducat's younger sibling, and it leans into a totally different idea: a 1970s Catalan diner throwback on Carrer de Londres in l'Antiga Esquerra de l'Eixample. Where Maleducat is refined small plates, Casa Fiero is comfort cooking with attitude, the sort of nostalgic Catalan diner food that's suddenly cool again. The signatures tell you everything: gratinated macaroni with cheeks, tendons and brisket under bechamel and Emmental, and a steak tartare with cured egg yolk. It's a younger, looser room than its sibling, and it caught on fast precisely because it's the opposite of fussy. Come hungry, order the macaroni, and treat it as the antidote to a week of tasting menus.

Barra Oso is one of the freshest names in the conversation, a market-driven room up in Sant Gervasi - Galvany that lets the seasonal produce set the kitchen's direction rather than chasing accolades. The menu reads as a mix of new-wave snacks and confident mains: gildas and natural oysters with various dressings to start, a katsusando of cap i pota, then plates like coastal cuttlefish with a tendon-and-chickpea stew or crispy pig's trotters with confit spring onions. There's a Basque streak running through it, right down to the suegra's Basque salad. It's the kind of opening that signals the new wave is spreading uptown, not just clustering in the usual neighbourhoods.

Benzina anchors the list as the established-but-still-hot pick, a modern Italian room in Sant Antoni that's kept its crowd for years. It carries a Repsol Solete, and the cooking is the kind of confident, seasonal Italian that travels well: a confit aubergine alla parmigiana with parmesan ice cream, a proper spaghetti quadrati carbonara with guanciale and 24-month Parmigiano, and a fennel risotto with sausage and chorizo ragù. There's a choice of the interior dining room or outdoor seating, and the wine list is built with thought. It's not the newest name here, but 'trendy' in Barcelona can absolutely mean a room that opened a few years back and simply never went quiet. Benzina is exactly that, and it's a reliable crowd-pleaser to close on.