9 Best Restaurants in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Costa Blanca, Spain

Simple, fresh, and generous dishes are the draw at this informal little eatery, an institution in Cadaqués. Tables are shared, and there is no menu; the staff recite the offerings of the day, which might include local prawns and sardines a la plancha, mussels, and sea bass. The walls are plastered with pictures of the celebrities who have made the pilgrimage here, including Dalí himself. 

The word "compartir" means “to share” and this excellent restaurant bases its menu on a small-plate sharing approach that has been taken to another level by the culinary team of Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro, and Eduard Xatruch (who also run Barcelona's two-Michelin-starred Disfrutar). Each dish is served by attentive staff within an 18th-century courtyard.

There’s almost always a line outside this old-school, family-owned tapas bar, a local favorite since its founding in 1940. If you can’t get a table, sidle up to the long wood bar, choose from the display of bite-sized, toothpick-speared pintxos, and eat them standing, just like a local.

Holder of three Michelin stars since 2009, El Celler de Can Roca, helmed by the Roca brothers—Joan, Josep, and Jordi—is a life-changing culinary experience. Its two tasting menus, ranging from 14 to 22 courses and priced in the €250 range, feature wildly inventive dishes and daring presentations.

Just 1½ km (1 mile) north of town, this restaurant—housed within a rather nondescript hotel—has been hailed as the birthplace of modern Catalan cuisine and is a beacon for gourmands. The hyper-local menu changes with the seasons and features such dishes as eggplant with anchovies from Cadaqués, stewed chicken with morels plucked from the Collserola mountains, and a vanilla tart topped with strawberries from nearby Vilafant.

Dine on fresh seafood, grilled meats, and pasta on the tranquil, tree-shaded patio or inside the rustic-chic dining room. From here, it’s a short stroll to the secluded Aiguafreda swimming cove. It’s a great alternative in summer to Begur’s perpetually packed beachfront restaurants.

Under co-owners Fede and Diana Cervera and chef Xicu Ramón, this distinguished restaurant in the center of town continues to reinvent and deconstruct traditional Valencian cuisine. The setting is an architectural tour de force: a 16th-century town house transformed into a sunlit modern space with an open kitchen and a three-story-high wall sculpted to resemble a billowing white curtain. The midweek menus, available for lunch or dinner, include a selection of creative tapas—minicourses, really, that might include a soup or a salad—and one rice dish or other main course, giving you a good idea of the chef's repertoire at an unbeatable price.

"Bread and Grapes" in Catalan, Pa i Raïm is an excellent restaurant set in writer Josep Pla's ancestral family home in Palafrugell. It has one rustic dining room as well as another in a glassed-in winter garden, plus a leafy terrace, which is the place to be in summer. 

Book in advance for a table on the romantic riverfront terrace and you’ll be rewarded with exceptional views of Besalú’s medieval bridge. The prix-fixe menu changes monthly and offers a wide array of traditional Catalan dishes of superb quality, with seasonal ingredients sourced from the nearby Banyols market.