When the couple Juan Pérez Figueras and Mercè Roselló bought in 1991 what is now Restaurante Agullers, it was an old run-down bar in the inner streets of Born, a neighborhood near the Port Vell area. “When I got the place it was totally ruined,” Juan explains. They decided to keep open only a long and narrow front section, creating a small bar-restaurant that specialized in fresh fish. All food was made in front of the clients, on a tiny grill behind the bar. This miniscule spot offering grilled fresh fish really struck a chord, and by the end of its first decade in business, people were lining up at the door.

When we think of Spanish convent pastries, we imagine a group of old nuns gathered together in the dark and humble kitchen of some small Gothic or Baroque cloistered convent, hidden away in the old part of town. We picture them working quietly, baking elaborate, time-consuming treats from ancient recipes that have been passed down over the centuries by the previous nuns who lived there. Yet when it comes to the only convent in Barcelona that still makes sweets to support themselves, we should throw our biases out the window – Santa Maria de Jerusalem defies all stereotypes.

Vegetables often get short shrift at restaurants – greens, legumes and tubers are relegated to the same tired side dishes, or just one component of many in a generic main, subsumed by the dish’s other ingredients. Not so at GatBlau (literally BlueCat in Catalan), located in the Left Eixample. This restaurant is a shrine to vegetables, showing them anew in all their complexity. Here, the personality of a parsnip, a kohlrabi or any other delicious weirdo from the garden is taken to the next level, refashioned into carpaccio, cake or even rillettes.