PRICE:
Frommer's Highly Recommended

One of my favorite restaurants in Barcelona is in a tiny alleyway near the Plaça Reial. The city's restaurant explosion has toppled Agut d'Avignon from its position as best in the city, but it's still going strong after more than 4 decades, and it has a dedicated following. It attracts politicians, writers, journalists, financiers, industrialists, and artists -- and even the king and cabinet ministers, along with visiting dignitaries. Since 1983 Mercedes Giralt Salinas and her son Javier Falagán Giralt have run the restaurant. A small 19th-century vestibule leads to the multilevel dining area, which has two balconies and a main hall evoking a hunting lodge. You may need help translating the Catalan menu. The traditional specialties often include acorn-squash soup served in its shell, fishermen's soup with garlic toast, haddock stuffed with shellfish, sole with nyoca (a medley of nuts), large shrimp with aioli, duck with figs, and filet beefsteak in sherry sauce.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Barcelona, 3rd Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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