Welcome to my new series ‘Vegan on a budget’ ! I travel quite often so I’m always looking for vegan food that doesn’t cost the earth. Sometimes I spend hours researching vegan restaurants on endless blogs to find that their menus are over priced or just way out of budget. However, I have managed to find some amazing vegan food with a lower price tag around the world so I’d love to share them with you!
Barcelona, Catalonia – Spain.
We recently spent a week in Barcelona and absolutely loved it. It’s not too touristy at this time of year but the weather is still pleasantly warm and there are loads of cool places to explore! My biggest tip anywhere is to try to stay in a hostel or Airbnb with a kitchen. I imagine since you’re reading this this and wanting to travel ‘on a budget’ you’ll not want to be eating out for every meal. Having a kitchen available to cook up some easy vegan meals will not only be cheaper but also you make sure you’re getting getting good nutritious food, especially if you’re in a location which is not so vegan friendly. My partner Francis and I stayed in Casa de Gracia which is a hostel disguised as a 4* hotel. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for somewhere good quality with a lower-mid price range.
Occasionally though it is fun to eat out and try some local cuisines. Spain of course is famous for it’s Paella and Tapas which traditionally are very much not vegan friendly. The evenings in Barcelona are when the city really comes alive as the locals flock to bars to socialise, drink wine and eat dinner which often is in the form of tapas. We stayed in the Gracia area of Barcelona which is further out of the tourist trap and has some great local bars. We discovered that pan con tomate (grilled tomato bread) may sound boring but most definitely did not taste boring (probably due to all the olive oil and salt they drench it in). They served it in every tapas bar we went to and alongside a bowl of olives is a perfect evening snack. You can find it for €2-3 in most places.
By far the BEST place we ate during our trip was Vegetalia. Right in the city centre tucked away is this cute Spanish Vegan Restaurant. We shared a vegan Paella, a veg pasty and of course our favouite – pan con tomate. The food was beautiful and I loved that we were able to try some traditional food (just veganised). Our bill came to €30 (for two of us) which included drinks and we were both completely full and satisfied. The paella was around €10 which is almost half the price of traditional paella dishes we’d seen on other menus. Unfortunately, we found Vegetalia towards the end of our trip, otherwise I’m sure we would have gone back there another few times.
If you’re looking for snacks or take away lunches, keep your eyes peeled for signs like these…
Surprisingly, we walked past multiple shops like this that sold vegan pasties, sandwiches and similar things. Around €3-5 for a quick lunch or a snack is ideal, especially when you’re on the go. Francis even found a ‘no pollo’ (no chicken) pasty which was some kind of mock chicken meat.
Ok so this one is a little off track but I had to mention it anyway. BarCeloneta is beautiful little cafe just off the beach that sells incredible sangria and tasty vegan food. Here’s the catch – it’s expensive. We shared two tapas dishes, tempeh skewers and croquettes, which tasted amazing but we really wished they were twice the size. Our bill came to €30 which included two big glasses of really beautiful sangria but we still left hungry. I would highly recommend the place for their Sangria but maybe eat before you go…
In my opinion, one of the best things to do in Barcelona is to head up the hill to Bunkers del Carmel to watch the sunset over the city. On your way back down there’s a quirky little vegan restaurant called ‘Dolce pizza y los veganos‘ where we shared a really tasty vegan pizza for €10. That way round is definitely the right way to do it – we ate first and then had to get a taxi up the hill as we weren’t in any state to walk after that pizza.
There were also so many other great looking places that we didn’t get to try on our trip, one being ‘Veggie Garden‘ which were advertising €7 burgers, but all in all we found Barcelona quite a fun place to be vegan. The trick I think is to walk through the streets and discover places. None of the restaurants in this blog post were mentioned on google or other blog posts I read (with the exception of BarCeloneta), we found most of them by literally stumbling across them.
I hope this has been helpful, let me know any cool vegan places you find in Barcelona in the comment section below or find me on Instagram.
Peace x
P.S – non of these businesses have sponsored this post and none of the links are affiliate. It’s all personal thoughts and recommendations.
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