In the culinary arts there are soups, salads or bread as starters; eggs, meat or fish as a second course; and then there’s rice, that ingredient that can be served as a snack, a meal, a side or even as a delicious dessert.
Paellas, Cuban, spring, Milanese … all kinds of delicious dishes that adapt to seasons, places and flavours of the whole world. This is rice. So we’re going to pay homage by offering you the best places to eat it in Barcelona.
A small bar that Eduardo Iborra decided to transform into a restaurant during the start of the gauche divine movement. Artists from all classes, dancers, singers … the whole world has passed through the doors of Elche. This is how Eduardo met his future wife and mother of his child, Teddy Iborra, who remembers with a smile how he grew up in the restaurant.
The rices and levantine noodles are their secret: rossejat noodles with prawns and rockfish in aioli, rice with chicken and sausage with egg gratin typical of Elche, black rice with squid and artichokes, rice with crayfish and prawns, paella with cod and ceps or the mixed paella parellada “senyoret” are the keys to their success. 
Photo: Beatriz Janer
Carballeira is Barcelona’s restaurant with the best seafood directly from Galicia. Millán and his wife are no longer there but their essence is, and can be seen in the quality of the restaurant and the dishes.
Tortilla de Betazos, chorizo pie, scallop empanadas, octopus, Galician soup, pork’s knuckle with turnip tops … their incredible seafood: prawns, clams, crabs, Galician oysters, razor clams, sea cucumbers, etc. But we’re here for the rice: lobster, sea cucumber, “a banda” or black rice with sepia.
Photo: Beatriz Janer
You can eat rice in almost any restaurant, but if you ask someone which is the best to have paella in Barcelona there’s only one answer: Kaiku. In this restaurant found in Barceloneta, the menu created by chef Hug Plá is a complete success.
Scallops in minyam sauce, mini razor clams, anenomes with mango aioli. Their exquisite rice dishes like the chef’s smoked rice or the rice with monkfish. Their creams are always thickened with rice or potato, not with flour, and are safe for celiacs. During the spring, you’ll find dishes cooked with ingredients grown in their own garden in Mas Nou, like the stuffed zucchini flower tempura or the three coloured tomato salad.
Photo: Lita Bosch
If you’re looking for a tapas bar, Maians is much more than that. Some of their house specialties are the brandy prawns or the Xató, a traditional Catalonian salad. But their real claim to fame are their three paellas: mixed, black rice and fideuá.
Everything in this place is high quality, from the food to the people. The prices couldn’t be better, even though you can only pay with cash. The cherry on top is Los Porrinas, the flamenco trio of Barceloneta, who almost always pass through Maians to brighten your day.
Photo: Cecilia Diaz Betz.
An excellent beach bar in Barceloneta. You’ll find yourself surrounded by wooden walls among which are tables and chairs, each with a different style and Nordic design. From the kitchen come wild fish of the day cooked on the grill, fresh salads and the paellas – the stars of the menu. The fish are large enough to share among three people despite being wild. And the paellas are for two people at least.
There’s a lovely terrace overlooking the sea allowing you to enjoy your rice, or come in the evening to feel the beats of their DJ and try a cocktail made skillfully by Stefano.
Photo: Sonia Zaghbani
Two metres from the sea you’ll find Xup Xup. Their kitchen never closes and they offer a traditional Mediterranean menu with Andalusian fried squid, clams in cava, meat, fish, and rice from Ebro Delta. A Cadaqués fisherman’s soup; the classic paellas of fish and seafood or surf and turf; a black rice with squid’s ink and artichokes or a fideuá.
Accompany it all with a refreshing blonde caña followed by a glass of good Riesling wine. No bottle costs more than 23€. The rice is a must in this restaurant.
Photo: Cecilia Diaz Betz
Text: Alba Llamazares
Translation: Annie MacDonald
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