Vegetarian in Barcelona? A quick survival guide

Barcelona (CNA).- In many typical Spanish restaurants, legs of ham are tied to the ceiling. This is great of course for the carnivores amongst us, but what about the vegetarians? Eating eggs and cheese every day of the week isn’t the perfect scenario but despite what you may think other options do exist. There are a lot of places in Barcelona where you can buy vegetarian food or go out for dinner. Being a vegetarian is Barcelona might not be as difficult as it looks, you just have to know where to go!

Where to buy your food?

Meat and fish are basically the most important components of Spanish and Catalan cuisines. This makes it challenging for vegetarians to cook properly or go out for dinner. Even though there are fruits, vegetables and nuts in abundance you might also want to eat a vegetarian burger or tofu sometimes. Be aware of the fact that these burgers or tofu are not for sale in ordinary supermarkets. Most of the vegetarian products are sold at health shops or dietary and herbalist specialists. You can find these shops in almost every part of the city. In these shops you actually have a lot of different products to choose from such as veggie burgers, hotdogs, tofu, seitan and soya milk. But the good news is that also big supermarkets such as Carrefour, nowadays also sell tofu and seitan burgers. It is also possible to buy Quorn but it’s quite hard to find and expensive. However, if you do want to buy this, then go to The New British Market in Castelldefels. If you want reduce to the cost of buying tofu or seitan, try to go to Chinese supermarkets or fair-trade shops because these are a bit cheaper.

Another thing that you should definitely visit is the Boqueria market on Las Ramblas. At first you might be a little bit shocked because of all the meat, and the sheep heads on show will not be a pretty sight for a vegetarian. However if you walk further into the market, at the back on the left side you will find a great vegetarian market stall called the ‘Organic Market’ (number 972). Here you can buy for example falafel, lasagna, paella, tacos but also salsas and crepes. Besides the fact that all the food is vegetarian, it’s also organic and very tasty.

Going out for dinner

Going out for dinner shouldn’t be a problem at all. There are a lot of restaurants who serve vegetarian food, and don’t worry they’re not just salads. Most of the vegetarian restaurants are focusing on organic and biological food. For example, if you want to have lunch and you’re looking for a local Catalan restaurant, then try the food at ‘Arco Iris’. This restaurant is one of the oldest vegetarian restaurants and is very popular with the locals.

For dinner you can try ‘Sesamo’ this restaurant serves only vegetarian food and besides that, they also serve organic wine and beers.  It has a nice atmosphere and is a well-known vegetarian within the city. ‘Juicy Jones’ is a nice, cheerful restaurant with cheap and good quality food too. This restaurant serves many different dishes like lasagna, curry, soups and fresh juices.  If you want a quick bite to eat then you could run to ‘Maoz’. This is a take away specialized in falafel and salads. You can refill your falafel with fresh vegetables and other ingredients as many times as you want at the buffet bar.

So as you can see there are lots of places you can go for dinner without even mentioning the Chinese and Indian supermarkets which sell a lot of vegetarian products. If you want to know more about these restaurants then take a look on this website: http://www.sincarne.net/ and you will be surprised about the amount of vegetarian restaurants in the Catalan capital.