Experience the magic of Christmas at Barcelona's restaurants and hotels 11/11/2022

Christmas provides the perfect excuse to let out your inner foodie and get into the festive spirit. With great food discoveries on every corner, Barcelona is the perfect place to savour the Christmas celebrations with no limits. Restaurants and hotels work over the festive season, with quality produce and painstaking attention to detail, to bring you mouthwatering surprises. The pace is hotting up in the kitchens which have put together delicious menus to accompany your Christmas experiences to ensure you enjoy the most magical time of year with family and friends.

Celebrate a Christmas full of flavour and experiences that will delight your tastebuds!

Traditions to savour

In Catalonia, we have a dish for every day of Christmas and there are restaurants and hotels in Barcelona where you can taste mouthwatering delights, from the typical Christmas broth, escudella, to the cannelloni eaten on 26th December. These are iconic recipes the city's restaurants have transformed and adapted to the new culinary trends over the years, which still retain their authentic, traditional flavours. There could be no better Christmas scene that enjoying a bowl of typical Christmas broth at a restaurant table by the warmth of the fire.

Barcelona's Christmas hotel

This Christmas, the Gallery Hotel will be transformed into a Christmas hotel. You can enjoy the magic of Christmas with the decorations on its façade and in the lobby, its guest rooms and restaurant. The latter will amaze you with its delicious traditional fare, such as cannelloni filled with seasonal wild mushrooms. Bathed in shimmering lights, with sweet Christmas carols as its soundtrack, this new festive offering has been designed to immerse you fully in the local Christmas traditions and customs.

Christmas with something to suit every taste

Live music and lovingly crafted menus await in the elegant dining rooms and on the Rooftop Garden at El Palace Barcelona. To make your dining experience complete you can enjoy live concerts, have afternoon tea, visit the Christmas fair where you can buy local food and hand-crafted items, and watch Christmas films while you sample festive sweet treats and a cup of thick hot chocolate. An absolute delight! And what a setting! If you thought the hotel was cosy and welcoming during the rest of the year, over the festive season every corner has a special charm that will ensure your Christmas looks like something out of a movie.

Christmas food workshops

Can you picture yourself in Father Christmas's kitchen? The Hotel Mandarin Oriental makes it possible. You'll be able to see how ginger biscuits are made and discover the best-kept secrets behind much-loved family recipes. You'll also be able to take part in the different foodie experiences and workshops at the hotel during the festive season. And don't forget to visit the Christmas fair where you'll find amazing food and hand-crafted items that will delight your palate and bring a touch of creativity to your home.

Michelin-starred cutting-edge dishes

If you're looking for dishes that bring creativity, innovation and cutting-edge cookery to time-honoured recipes, you're in luck. Because Barcelona is also the perfect place to enter a world of flavours your palate has never tried before. The city has a number of restaurants with Michelin stars: the pinnacle of culinary excellence. The restaurant Caelis is defined by boldness, passion and balanced flavours, and achieved the much-sought after distinction after just one year of trading. The cosy two Michelin-starred restaurant Cinc Sentits, with its family feel, serves up traditional flavours with a modern twist using locally sourced ingredients of the highest quality.

A Christmas on high with matchless views

At this time of year, the stars seem to shine more brightly than ever thanks to the lights that decorate the streets. You can see them with the city beneath your feet while you sample special mouthwatering menus at restaurants like the Torre d'Alta Mar, which stands 75 m high and boasts 360° views of the old harbour, the Port Vell. On the side of mount Montjuïc, overlooking the city, you'll find El Xalet de Montjuïc: a romantic spot which is the perfect place for that special date over the Christmas season. And on mount Tibidabo, the Gran Hotel La Florida awaits. This iconic boutique hotel, which is steeped in history, stands 500 m above sea level and boasts amazing views.

The top spot to see out the old year

Avinguda de Maria Cristina becomes the open-air setting to see out the old year and make our New Year resolutions. Anyone can join in the celebrations which feature music, fireworks and, of course, the lucky grapes we eat on each stroke of midnight. The Hotel Catalonia Barcelona Plaza, in Plaça d'Espanya, at the bottom of the avenue, becomes the perfect place to see in the New Year. You'll be able to enjoy this breathtaking spectacle from the hotel's top-floor terrace.