Veracruz
Catalan / Cuina Popular · Eixample, Barcelona · €
A thirty-year-old neighborhood bar on Mallorca 321 that Gerard Sans took over in late 2025 — Hofmann-trained, ex-Mercader de l'Eixample, now serving cuina popular catalana from the same iron-and-formica room the previous owners ran for three decades.
The Delekta Review
Cuina popular catalana — daily plats de cullera, an iron bar for esmorzars de forquilla, one rotating menu of the day each weekday Plat del dia €8.90; escudella barrejada €12 in the tureen; the most expensive thing on the menu is the zarzuela at around €18 — working-bar prices on a stretch saturated by brunch concepts Slow Food sourcing network — Mercat de la Concepció for fish, Cal Tomàs for meat, Menuts Rosa for offal, Forn de l'Eixample for bread — named, not buzzwords
Escudella barrejada — daily, year-round, in a metal tureen with fine noodles, pilota, root vegetables and pig's trotter Capipota — pig's head-and-trotter offal stew, spiced with the precision Sans's Mercader years built Bacallà a la llauna — salt cod baked with garlic, paprika and white beans Botifarra amb seques — sausage with white beans, the working-day staple Fricandó — Costa's braised veal-and-mushroom Catalan stew, also a regular Bocadillo de tortilla on Forn de l'Eixample bread — two eggs, tomato-rubbed, EVOO; weekday daily specials cycle through llenties amb xoriço, fideuà, arròs a la cassola, macarrons
Gerard Sans studied film before pivoting to cooking, enrolled at Hofmann at twenty-seven, then made his name as chef-partner at El Mercader de l'Eixample — one of the rooms that revived Barcelona's Catalan-cuisine scene Took several years away from professional kitchens to raise his son, then bet his savings on the Veracruz takeover late in 2025 — kitchen partner Marcos Costa (Maranhão, Brazil) and front-of-house Eric Bunagan both followed him from Mercader The previous operators, Pepi and Ramón, ran the bar for roughly thirty years before stepping back; the name 'Veracruz' predates them and its origin is no longer remembered locally
Long iron bar, formica tables with paper covers, Duralex glasses, Voll-Damm on tap — Sans kept the inherited room and barely touched it Menu and graphic identity by Juanjo Sáez — the Barcelona illustrator who draws for Ara — a real cultural marker rather than generic restaurant branding Two or three steps down from street level; small room — expect to share tables at midday and not linger past service
Address: Carrer de Mallorca 321, la Dreta de l'Eixample — closest metro Verdaguer (L4/L5), with Girona (L4) a four-minute walk Service weekday daytime per editorial coverage (roughly 09:00–16:00); hours have likely expanded into the evening — phone before going Reservations by phone (+34 679 64 72 57) — no online booking; small room, lunch fills up first
What the critics say
- Veracruz: un bar de sempre que serveix cuina popular catalana a la zona zero del 'brunch'
- Traditional bar serving popular Catalan cuisine in the heart of brunch culture
- Ni brunch ni gyozas: el nou refugi de cuina catalana a l'Eixample fa escudella cada dia per 12 euros
- El chef que hace escudella barrejada cada día del año, toda la sopera 12 euros, en el corazón del brunch de Barcelona
- Restaurant Veracruz (Barcelona): escudella todos los días
- B de gust: Veracruz
- Veracruz: el restaurante de Barcelona donde la cuina catalana resiste a diario
- Restaurante Veracruz Barcelona: escudella y cocina catalana
Visit
- Address
- Carrer de Mallorca, 321, La Dreta de l'Eixample, 08037 Barcelona, Spain
- Phone
- +34 679 64 72 57
- Website
- barveracruzbarcelona.com