Besides the Obvious

Ramen? In Barcelona?! YES 🙂 Here comes the top 5+1 list of where to eat Ramen in Barcelona with the best ramen places in town based on our preferences. 😋

Yes, I know. If you come to Barcelona, normally you want to enjoy the Catalan food, some Jamón, the rices, the tapas, occasionally some pinchos, the variety of cod dishes, calçots, gambas, some bravas of course, and so on. And it absolutely makes sense. What then, if you are having enough of all of these and you would desire something less obvious? This article is for you then! 😉

First of all we need to admit that even if Barcelona is a super cosmopolitan and international place with a lot of tourists and foreign communities from all over the world, and their influence on the food culture is clearly present, no one would think that this beautiful city is playing such a strong role in the ramen league.

We have dedicated the last cca. 3-4 months of discovering the best ramen places in Barcelona. I need to admit that we haven’t found any place where the ramen was below average. Of course, we have also found our favorite spots where we often went back since then and still now if we hear about any newly opened place, we kind of running to taste them. There are many places and this list is made based on some personal preferences, and very much incomplete.

• All below listed places are in the heart of Barcelona city, so you don’t need to go far.
• I could find vegetarian ramen option in all places, in some of them even vegan!
• They are very strong in design, authentic pictures, Japanese pop culture elements, still cozy interior.
• There are many more places that we haven’t had the chance to discover yet, but we are on it 😋💪 and we will update the below list ongoingly.

1. Oishii Ramen Street, on Ronda de Sant Pere. They open at 1pm during weekdays and any time you arrive before that, there is a queue waiting for the place to be opened. It’s already a good sign! They also follow the menú del día tradition and created 4 different menus with starters, ramen as main dish and postre after. They have one menu completely vegetarian but you can also ask to make it vegan. On the carte you can find many other ramen variants and you can just simply ask them which they are able to prepare without meat. They have a small terrace too on the street, but believe me the design is so cool inside that you don’t want to miss that! 😉

2. Takumi Tonkotsu Ramen, on Plaça de Tetuan. We wanted to enter first on a Sunday at lunchtime, and it was so full, both inside and outside and people were still queuing, so we gave up that day. But of course since then I wanted to go back. Finally we managed on a simple Tuesday afternoon, and we didn’t regret it. Less people but still very busy, no daily menu, just a list of available ramens. I ate vegetarian spicy tan tan ramen. When they served it arrived already with the perfect taste. Usually I’m always after-spicing the ramen as I do prefer it hot and spicy. Here it was not needed, the chef had the same taste luckily. 😋 But I couldn’t finish it as it was such a huge portion, I think this place is serving the biggest portions among all.

3. Ramen Shifu, on Carrer de Consell de Cent. This was actually one of the first places we have visited and since then we want to return but somehow it’s not on our way. But this place is good. The ramen selection is categorized based on spiciness from 1-5. I tried level 3 and it was perfect. I think it has the coolest design with all the manga comics, it’s crazy, cool, a bit extravagant but somehow still cozy. Good combination. It’s also a very popular spot among youngsters who are visiting places only to take the next picture for their instagram profile. And it makes sense as indeed the background is super cool.

4. Takumi Sapporo Ramen, on Via Laietana. Yes, the biggest surprise. It’s surprisingly good. It’s on my way almost every day, and earlier whenever I was passing by I was always looking to this place from the outside like ‘well, I don’t know’. Until a day when we have decided to grab something quick in that neighborhood and it was just there ‘ok, let’s try it’. You should do the same 😉

5. Ramen House, on Gran Via, close to Plaça de Tetuan. We accidentally came here. We were looking for another place around the corner, when we found this spot. And we decided to stay here. The food was super delicious, the selection is wide, the quality is excellent. It has a minimalistic, more elegant and less ramen-street style and design.

+1 Kanada Ya BCN, on Carrer de València. If you are a Londoner for sure you know this chain. Yes it’s a chain and they recently opened in Barcelona too. You can select your noodle hardness: soft, regular, hard, extra hard and whereas the hard is the recommended one, on which I fully agree! They are kind of innovative with mixing unusual things and creating some kind of a fusion with local flavors. The result here in Barcelona is the gazpacho-ramen, served cold. I haven’t tried it yet, but on a hot day I definitely want to give it a try.

This list is not in order of preference, we are still facing internal debate between us, which is actually the best, but for sure I would be very happy to return to any of them of above places. And not to mention that there are so many other places to try too…

If you recommend any other ramen place in Barcelona, please share it in the comment section, we’ll go happily to taste and post it!! 😋

For more restaurants where to eat Ramen in Barcelona check the part 2 of this article here.

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