The Boqueria Is For Tourists. Here’s Where Barcelonins Actually Shop for Food.
Before I lived here, I thought the Boqueria was the market. Everyone thinks that. It’s the market the internet decided to care about — the one on Las Ramblas, the one with the fruit stalls and the tourists photographing jamón. It’s fine. It’s not the point.
Barcelona has neighbourhood markets, and they are significantly better. Mercat de Santa Caterina (Avinguda Francesc Cambó 16, El Born) has a mosaic roof by Enric Miralles that looks like something from the bottom of the sea. Inside: good fish, local produce, a bar where the workers eat at noon. Mercat de la Llibertat (Plaça Llibertat 27, Gràcia) is a nineteenth-century iron-framed market in a neighbourhood that still functions as a neighbourhood. The stalls are for people who cook at home, not for tourists who want a photo.
The way to use a Barcelona market properly: arrive with a rough plan of what you want to cook, buy the best-looking version of each ingredient, ask the stall holders what to do with anything you’re not sure about, eat at the market bar before you leave. The bar at Santa Caterina opens at 7am and serves breakfast until the last of the morning crowd has gone. A coffee and a tostada amb tomàquet — toast rubbed with tomato and olive oil — is €3 and is one of the best breakfasts in the city.
