Vegan in Barcelona, Spain

Vegan in … Barcelona but you don’t know what to eat or where to go? Don’t worry! I’m sharing my favorite restaurants with you!

 Vegan in … is a series of posts on Elephantastic Vegan where I write about my vegan travelling experiences. I love to travel especially to larger cities, rather than spending my days on the beach at some resort, but finding restaurants with vegan options in a foreign city – even when it’s a metropole like Barcelona – is not always easy. With this post, I want to show you possible places to eat for your next trip to Barcelona! :)

Over the end of May and beginning of June we visited Barcelona for a couple of days. My boyfriend and I went there with three other friends and we chose to stay in an apartment, which was great because not only did we have plenty of room we also had our own kitchen so we were able to enjoy breakfast before heading off to our adventurous days in the city!

Beforehand I browsed through HappyCow‘s list of vegan restaurants in Barcelona, of course – I always do that (often even before booking the trips because travelling is all about food with me!).

Let’s start with a few impressions from Barcelona to get you into the mood! ^.^

…and now to the food:

Flax & Kale

C/ Tallers 74B
Website

In every trip, there’s this one restaurant that totally surprises you. For me, this was Flax & Kale. I LOVED the atmosphere and vibe of the restaurant. I went there for breakfast and while they are not 100% vegan, they have lots of vegan options. I had a vegan spelt croissant (which I’m still dreaming about – it was perfectly flaky), avocado toast and a chia flax bagel which was filled with cashew cream, tempeh, and vegan cheddar. If you have a chance to go there, do it! It’s amazing!

Sopa

Roc Boronat 114  + there are more locations
Website

Let’s start with breakfast! Sopa is a vegetarian café with two locations in Barcelona and they have a few vegan options. They have vegan cakes, cookies and a few vegan sandwiches on the menu. I opted for the hummus and veggie sandwich in a seedy bread (yumm!), which was freshly prepared, inexpensive and delicious.

Buenaventura Café

Trafalgar, 50
Website

We stumbled upon this café while strolling through the city and I’m so glad we did. We saw that they had vegan eggs benedict on the menu, so of course, we had to check it out! It was delicious! Served with salad and potato wedges, the eggs benedict consisted of a slice of toast, tofu, spinach and topped with white sauce (which I think was almond based – not sure!). We also had nachos with guacamole, salsa, and homemade almond cheese. Everything was so good!

Bar Celoneta

Calle Sevilla 70
Website

You can’t be in Spain and not eat paella, it’s just not possible – but finding vegan paella in a regular restaurant isn’t that easy. Thankfully, there’s this cute little restaurant/bar called Bar Celoneta (it’s not far from the beach) that offers vegan paella on Thursdays. Up until now, I wasn’t a fan of vegan seafood because it just tasted weird but these vegan calamari tasted actually really, really good. The consistency was really close to the “real thing”. I was pleasantly surprised. They also have a huge selection of sangrias – I could have spent my whole day there. :)

La Trocadero

Carrer de la Marina, 269
Website

La Trocadero is a hip, completely vegan restaurant. We tried the Hot Dog topped with Guacamole (omg, that sausage was almost too authentic!), fries and onion rings (that seasoning!! <3) and a Cheese Burger with vegan bacon. I mean, how good does this look? It was one of our favorite meals from the whole trip.

Bacoa

Av. del Marquès de l’Argentera, 1 + there are more locations
Website

Bacoa is a burger chain with vegan options. At the time I went there, they had two vegan burgers on the menu: Roast Beet Burger consisting of a beetroot and quinoa patty, grilled beetroot, bbq sauce and homemade vegan aioli and then there’s the Gran Vegano with a chickpea spinach patty, tomato chutney and whipped avocado. We also had thinly cut french fries. Delicious and inexpensive!

Ale & Hop

Basses de Sant Pere 10
Website

We actually went to Ale & Hop on our first day in Barcelona for drinks and foods. They have a couple of vegan options there like the nachos with guacamole and a few vegan burgers – we had the Mexican burger that also came with sweet potato fries. Oh, and we had olives, because why not :)

Vegetalia

C/ Escudellers 54 + there are more locations
Website

Vegetalia was for us one of these, walk by, notice, walk in restaurants. Together with a friend who we’ve met in Barcelona we were looking for something to eat, when we found Vegetalia in the Barri Gòtic (the Gothic Quarter). There was a bit of a wait, so we had another cocktail in a nearby bar, until they had a table ready for us. We then ordered the pica pica “Vegetalia” which was a selection of starters consisting of pita bread, spring rolls, hummus, nuggets of tofu and shiitake mushrooms, salads and sauces. And there was a option to make the pizzas vegan, which we did and we shared a pizza with seitan. I really liked the vegan cheese, the pizza was rather small though for 10,50€.

La Mezcla

Plaça Sant Pere, 10
Website

La Mezcla is a small pizza place near the Arc de Triomf. They have a few vegan options – some of which are with vegan cheese. They only had one vegan pizza left – one with veggies and no vegan cheese – when we went there, so took a slice of this one. It was a delicious quick snack for the go.

Cat Bar

I was so excited to go to the Cat Bar because it got great reviews on HappyCow and I simply loved the name! It’s also 100% vegan and it offers a great selection of craft beers (which we enjoyed). We were lucky to get a table because we had no reservation (I don’t even know if they do take reservations) but the place was packed!

c/ Boria 17
Website

It was a rather small bar with limited seating but it had a quite nice atmosphere.

We had fried cubed potatoes as a side with a garlic sauce (oh boy!! that garlic sauce was awesome!). The potatoes were super delicious too!

They offered 5 different burgers and a wheat-free option! I chose the “Crazy Burger” which had a nut and seed patty, pesto, rocket salad, fresh spinach, tomato, and red onion. What a great choice – it was truly delicious. I loved the patty and the pesto was the perfect addition. They also had a burger with a veggie patty, one with a hemp patty, a bean patty, and one spicy burger. I also had the chance to try the one with a veggie patty called “Champion” which also had grilled mushrooms in it. It was great as well!

I loved the Cat Bar – it was my favorite vegan restaurant in Barcelona. The burgers were delicious and I miss that garlic sauce already. Should you be ever in Barcelona I can highly recommend visiting them!

Mercat La Boqueria

I can recommend visiting the Mercat La Boqueria to anyone! It’s near the metro station Liceu, if you go along La Rambla, you can’t miss it. They had a huge selection of fresh fruits some of them ready to eat like this pitaya (that I tried for the first time – not bad, not too exciting :D), young thai coconuts and much more! It’s a vegan’s paradise.

I also had a blackberry-coconut shake at the market, which was delicious too!

Veggie Garden

Veggie Garden was not too far away from the Mercat La Boqueria. Everything they offer is 100% vegan and they have a huge selection of homemade juices and milkshakes. The food ranges from burger to curries, nachos with guacamole, seitan dishes… I chose the menu of the day, which was 8.50€ for a starter, main meal, drink and dessert. Very reasonable priced!

I went for the potato-filled samosa as a starter. It was super delicious and the sweet dip was perfect!

As the main meal, I chose the Thali – which is a huge indian plate consisting of different curries and additional portions of rice, pakora, papadam (the thin bread) and pickled onions. It was so much food, but we already had the idea it could be a lot so I shared it with my boyfriend. The curries were all very good, but the right one was with sweet potatoes and it was my favorite! And I loved that spicy sauce to dip in the pakora. Yummy!

For dessert, I went for a chocolate creme that tasted a lot like cinnamon and it was the perfect little treat.

My boyfriend and I also shared the Nachos with Guacamole. It was a huge amount of Guacamole and it was very tasty. It was the best Guacamole we had in Barcelona!

Do you have any additional vegan restaurant tips for Barcelona? I’d love to know in the comments!

This post was first published in June 2015. Updated in February 2019. I’ve removed restaurants that have closed permanently :(