Before you are served the tasty treats of star chef Carles Gaig, you have to fasten your seat belt as his gourmet restaurant on wheels first tours the sights of Barcelona.
Architect Antoni Gaudi's fantastic townhouses as well as the Sagrada Familia church are stops, along with the beachside promenade and the Arc de Triomf. An iPad with earphones is attached to every table of the bus so the guest is informed about the scenery.
From the bustling harbour, the bus heads to the top of Montjuic mountain. The driver pulls his gourmet bus to a stop in the rose garden of the Miramar hotel, parking in such a way that the guests have the best view of the metropolis while dining.
It's only when the wine and the appetisers are served that the guests can tear their attention away from the fantastic panorama. The waiter serves Catalonian sparkling wine and red wine.
There follows artichoke cream soup, cannelloni with truffles, an artfully prepared stockfish and tender meat in a mushroom sauce.
In the summer, seafood, fish and light gourmet appetisers such as Gaig's cold melon soup with chunks of duck meat are substituted in place of warm appetisers and meat dishes. The ride and gourmet experience last three hours.
The bus is just one of Barcelona's renowned gourmet eateries, ranging from freaky molecular cuisine to trendy tapas bars to Catalonian delicatessens in the covered market. Everything and anything the stomach craves can be found in the city.
The highlight of a culinary tour of Barcelona are the Tickets bar and the 41 Experience, a restaurant next door to it.
Many people still mourn the demise of El Bulli, long considered to be the world's best restaurant.
Its acclaimed chef Ferran Adria moved on to other things, but molecular gastronomy lives on at 41, run by Adria's younger brother Albert, and in a more affordable tapas form in Tickets.
Tickets resembles a theatre entrance. The open kitchen recalls the beach houses of the seaside quarter of Barceloneta.
"People here should be able to enjoy haute cuisine in a relaxed and easy atmosphere," says Albert Adria, who used to be the dessert chef in his brother's El Bulli.
Xavi, the waiter, brings out a "surprise selection" and the show begins with a classic dish from Adria's molecular cuisine: Les Olives de Tickets.
The olives melt tastily on the tongue. Next come the mini-eclairs filled with manchego cheese, Iberian ham that has been cured for five years, tuna fish croissants in a spicy sauce, green apple and the eggs of flying fish.
Downright lively is the way to describe Tapas24 where chef Carles Abellan cooks.
"Here, it's not just about eating well, but much more about a very Spanish kind of dining experience," head waitress Suzana Casanovas says. Customers share tables with other diners, and at times eat with their hands.
People laugh a lot, talk loudly, and naturally they eat – and very well.
Suzana brings out plates of bikinis – mozzarella sandwiches with truffles and Iberian ham, and a dish called Bomba de la Barceloneta, a potato filled with hamburger meat with a spicy tomato sauce.
Cream cheese-filled pears that have been soaked in wine for dessert.
"It's how we used to eat at grandma's house," says Suzana.
Jordi Herrera and Roger Vinas, in their stylish one-star restaurant Manairo, ascribe to this philosophy.
"We cook according to the old recipes of our parents and grandparents, except in a more modern form," says Roger Vinas. The result is regional Catalonian cuisine at the highest level – and very artfully prepared.
The atmosphere is quiet so the guests can concentrate on the dishes and the spectacular manner in which they are presented.
In the kitchen, Jordi and Roger are at the stove, cooking like a couple of manairos – the tiny elves of the nearby Pyrenees mountains who, according to farmers' legends, help them with their work.
It is precisely its proximity to the Pyrenees and to the sea that gives Catalonia its enormous variety of fresh, high quality products, says Hannes Eberhard, a German who has been working in the acclaimed restaurant Alkimia under chef cook Jordi Vila for three years.
"It is about the fisherman with his basket of freshly caught fish who comes to our restaurant first before he heads to the market, where the fish will only get to a kitchen the next morning," Hannes says.
The quality of the local products, the Mediterranean tradition of cooking, the proximity to the sea, to the mountains and to France and its cuisine are the reasons that one can eat better in Catalonia – and especially in Barcelona – than anywhere else in Spain.
