The best gourmet day trips from Barcelona Spain

Love your food and wine? Then you're going to fall head over heels for Catalonia, where a base in Barcelona provides the perfect opportunity to sample the region's famous cuisine.  

You will always eat well in Barcelona. The Catalan capital is home to some of Spain's – and indeed some of the world's – finest restaurants, names such as Disfrutar, Estima, and Tickets that would rightly appear on any gourmand's bucket list.  

This city loves to eat; dining is Barcelona's cultural core. From the smallest neighbourhood tapas bar to the highest of high-end eateries, a passion for food is woven into everyday life like few other places in the world.   

And so it follows that in the area outside Barcelona, the hills and the seaside of Catalonia, the gastronomic offerings would be just as exciting and well worth exploring. This is where food comes from, after all. This is where traditions are practised. To understand Catalan food and to appreciate all it has to offer, you have to get outside Barcelona and take your appetite with you.  

The following day-trips from Capri by Fraser, Barcelona's premier serviced residences, are a must for any true gastronome hoping to experience Catalonia at its best. 

Calcotada, Masmolets   

Calcots are a quirk of local Catalan culture, long, thin onions that are only grown in the hills outside Barcelona, around the towns of Valls and Masmolets. They're something of an obsession among Catalans, and an entire culture has been built around them, that of the "calcotada", the act of preparing and feasting on calcots when they come into season from December to April.  

Though this is an intensely local tradition, visitors can join the fun at a restaurant such as Cal Ganxo in Masmolets – about an hour and a half by car from Capri by Fraser – which does calcotadas daily in season. The onions are first roasted over an open fire, then wrapped in newspaper and steamed before they're served with a rich, nutty romesco dipping sauce. And they're absolutely delicious.  

A full calcotada includes the calcots and a platter of fire-roasted meats, Catalan white beans, crème Catalan, plus local red and sparkling white wine. At Cal Ganxo all of this is consumed in a centuries-old farmhouse, surrounded by locals indulging their passion, and there's just nothing else like it. 

Cava, Recaredo   

If you know anything about wine, particularly Spanish wine, then you know about cava. This is the classic Catalan beverage, a sparkling white that is produced in the Penedes area just outside Barcelona, centred around the town of Sant Sadurni d'Anoia. There are plenty of classic, traditional cava producers to visit in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia – a 45-minute drive west from Capri by Fraser Barcelona – including Codorniu, Gramona, and Freixenet. However, wine aficionados will know that cava is not the true pinnacle of Catalan sparkling wine – for that, you need to visit the cellar door at Recaredo.  

And it really is. Call into Recaredo, situated in the centre of Sant Sadurni d'Anoia, and you can take a two-hour tour of the facility and taste four different wines from the Recaredo cellar to appreciate just how good this wine is. Later, settle in for a long lunch in this charming Catalan town. The wine produced here is called "Corpinnat," an emerging category that was created for high-end wine-makers to move past the cava label and differentiate their product as a better quality of Catalan sparkling wine.       

Seafood, Vilassar de Mar 

When you think about gourmet seafood, the absolute finest shellfish, tuna, anchovies and more, you probably don't think about the tinned variety. But it's time to reconsider that notion. The truth is, some of the world's finest seafood comes from a can. Its best clams, mussels, anchovies, and sardines – in Spain, this produce is taken fresh from the water and then sealed in tins to allow the flavours to intensify and improve. The end product is sensational.  

Though you'll find canned seafood served throughout the tapas bars of Barcelona if you want to go to the source, try Bar Espinaler in Vilassar de Mar, a 45-minute train ride north from Capri by Fraser. The bar here serves all of the canned seafood products from local brand Espinaler in friendly and sometimes chaotic surroundings, right by the sea where so much produce originates. Don’t miss the “mejillones en escabeche”, mussels in a rich, fragrant oil. 

Wine, Priorat   

The Catalan wine scene is about far more than just cava and even Corpinnat. Grapes are grown and wine produced through much of this mountainous area, and Catalonia is fast becoming as well known for its whites and reds as it is its sparkling drops. Perhaps the region's best wine is produced in the sub-region of Priorat, which has a coveted DOQ (Denominacio d'Origin Qualificada) classification and is about two hours by car southwest of Capri by Fraser Barcelona.  

One of the most impressive wineries to visit here, both for the quality of the product and the sheer spectacle of the winery itself, is Bodega Ferrer Bobet, near the hilltop village of Falset. Step inside to try the now-famous Vinyes Velles and Seleccio Especial wines, and then step outside to photograph the beautiful hillside cellar door.   

Ice-cream, Girona  

Yes, ice cream. But not just any ice cream. Girona, about an hour north-east of Barcelona, is home to one of the world's best restaurants, El Celler de Can Roca. It's a phenomenal eatery that you most definitely should try to dine at – though bookings are difficult to come by, and the price tag is astronomical.For a simpler experience, visit the restaurant's ice creamery, Rocambolesc, in the centre of Girona.

There's actually an outlet of Rocambolesc in Barcelona, though it's not quite as charming. In Girona, the ice cream is delivered daily from the main restaurant by bicycle to a shop decorated like an old-school candy store.

The ice-cream flavours vary day-to-day (overseen by El Celler de Can Roca dessert specialist Jordi Roca), and each is topped with an array of fruits and sweets, and chocolate. This is probably the best ice cream you've ever tasted, made by absolute masters. Well worth seeing their home for yourself.