Location: Barcelona, Spain
Cuisine: Catalan
Tucked away near Barcelona’s Estació de França, Restaurant Estrella is the kind of place that feels both traditional and quietly inventive. Its menu is rooted in Mediterranean and Catalan cooking, with a strong focus on seasonal produce, fresh fish and ingredients that reflect the surrounding region. We began with one of the day’s specials: canuts served with hazelnuts. Canuts are small razor clams found in the Mediterranean and sourced from the Ebro Delta. Delicate, slightly sweet and pleasantly briny, they paired beautifully with the richness and crunch of the hazelnuts. It was an unusual but memorable start to the meal, immediately demonstrating the restaurant’s focus on regional ingredients.
Next came the low-temperature egg with mushroom cream and chanterelles. The softly cooked egg brought richness to the dish, while the mushroom cream was earthy, smooth and deeply savoury. The chanterelles added further depth and texture, resulting in a comforting dish that still felt elegant and refined.
We also shared the cod brandade cannelloni with pumpkin béchamel and pine nuts. Brandade, a creamy mixture traditionally made from salt cod, already has an indulgent texture, but serving it inside cannelloni made the dish feel even more generous. The sweetness of the pumpkin béchamel balanced the saltiness of the cod, while the pine nuts added a welcome contrast. It was a creative meeting of Mediterranean flavours and one of the meal’s most distinctive dishes.
For our mains, we continued with fish. The wild stone bass (meagre) was served with asparagus, keeping the fish’s quality at the centre of the plate. The stone bass was delicate and beautifully cooked, while the asparagus provided a fresh, slightly bitter counterpoint. Our second main was another special: salt cod with romesco sauce and tempura calçots. This was perhaps the most unmistakably Catalan dish of the meal. The cod was paired with the smoky, nutty depth of the romesco, while the calçots were coated in a light tempura batter, giving them a crisp, playful finish. It took the familiar Catalan combination of calçots and romesco and transformed it into something more polished without losing its regional character.
We finished with two desserts. The first was made with caramelised apples and had all the buttery, deeply cooked flavours of a tarte tatin. The apples were soft and intensely caramelised, making it a warm and comforting end to the meal. Alongside it, we ordered the pistachio gelato. Smooth, nutty, and not overly sweet, it provided a simpler, fresher contrast to the apples’ richness.
Restaurant Estrella’s cooking feels grounded in Catalonia while still leaving room for creativity. Ingredients such as salt cod, calçots, romesco, mushrooms and produce from the Ebro Delta are treated with care, resulting in dishes that feel familiar but never predictable. It is a lovely example of how traditional Catalan cooking can be presented with refinement without losing its sense of place.
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