• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Cinc Sentits, located in the Eixample neighborhood.   (Photo: Courtesy Cinc Sentits )

Sip a suizo — a thick, dark hot chocolate slathered with freshly whipped cream — at Raval's old-school Granja M Viader (Xuclà 4-6; 93-318-3486).

For lunch, go to Bar Pinotxo (93-317-1731) in the Mercat de la Boqueria for fresh shellfish. Get dessert: a leftover breakfast croissant grilled with butter and sugar.

Who has the city's best patatas bravas (fried potatoes with a spicy aïoli sauce)? Either Bar Tomas (Major de Sarrià 49; 93-203-1077), a working-class drinking den in Sarria, or Bar Mandri (Mandri 60; 93-417-1129), a more yuppified tapas bar.

Go out for cañas — small glasses of beer — at El Vaso de Oro (Balboa 6; 93-319-30-98), a narrow bar in Barceloneta with the best, coldest draughts.

New-style Catalan cuisine can be more expedition than meal, but Cinc Sentits (Five Senses) has three affordable, accessible daily tasting menus prepared by a Catalan-Canadian prodigal chef.

Published on October 11, 2006 as a web exclusive.