Overview
Sants offers a glimpse of Barcelona before the city became a global tourism hotspot. With its working-class roots, traditional bodegas and family-run restaurants, the neighborhood has preserved a strong local identity while welcoming a new generation of chefs and creative projects.
We’ll begin at the historic Mercat de Sants with a hearty breakfast and tastes from its vendors. From there, we’ll visit neighborhood food shops, seasonal restaurants and old-school bodegas, sipping vermut with tapas among wooden wine casks. Along the way, we’ll also stop for handmade sweets at local bakeries and chocolate shops.
Beyond the food, we’ll explore Sants’ industrial past and community spirit, finishing at a former 19th-century textile factory transformed into a lively cultural center with its own bar and microbrewery — a fitting introduction to one of Barcelona’s most authentic neighborhoods.
What you’ll do
Join our Sants food tour to spend the day eating your way through a lesser-explored neighborhood with a booming local food scene and a fascinating history. We’ll dig into markets and old vermuterias, pastry shops and down home restaurants, but we’ll also find the pulse of Sants in some contemporary culinary projects. Don’t expect Gaudi architecture and top 10 tapas, Sants satisfies those hungry for alternative Barcelona.
On our Sants food tour, we will visit many of these neighborhood institutions, both old and new, getting a taste of what life in Barcelona was like before the city became the global hotspot that it is today. We will start with a hearty breakfast in the newly restored Mercat de Sants – in business since 1913 – and sample what’s on offer from the vendors inside. As we continue through the neighborhood, we’ll drop by some of its numerous food shops and restaurants, both old and new, tasting well-loved dishes from menus that change according to the season. Along the way we’ll stop at old school bodegas and bars to enjoy some vermut with tapas among the wine casks and at small bakeries and chocolate shops for handmade sweets.
We won’t leave Sants, though, without a visit to one of the neighborhood’s most unique social and cultural projects, a massive 19th century textile factory that after decades of disuse has been transformed by locals into a bustling cultural center – one that even has its own bar and microbrewery. Over a drink and more bites of Sants food, we’ll learn about the history of community organizing in Sants and what makes this neighborhood so special. After all, it’s not every day that you get a chance to go off the grid while still being in the heart of the city.
From €146
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