Student Guide: The best of La Rambla

You don’t have to be a foodie to feel disappointed by the fare on offer along the Rambla, dominated by reheated tapas and prefab paella. But Amaya keeps the finest traditions of Basque cooking alive, and has the cachet of being the oldest working restaurant on the street

You could sit at one of Bar Cosmos’s metallic bar fronts for hours, watching the comings and goings of the regulars. It’s as if refugees from the seventies were drawn to the only café in town that has preserved the look and feel of the decade. And just as you’re imagining Pasolini dropping in for a coffee, the waiter slams down your order of fried fish to bring you back to the present day.

A well-kept secret – unless you happen to have Galician relatives – Barcelona’s Galician Centre (Centro Galego) was established 70 years ago, in one of the magnificent apartments of the Güell family residence. As well as the library and the majestic hall for members’ activities, the CGB has a bar and restaurant where you can try fantastic Galician cooking at extremely reasonable prices.

Arpí has been a specialist photography shop for so long, they have a small museum on the fifth floor, dedicated to their founder, Salvador Serra, with a collection of historical pieces.

Put your preconceptions aside: a night at the opera can cost less than tickets to see the ‘in’ band of the moment. So why not pay a visit to Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house?

Barcelona has allowed so many of its historic cafés to be destroyed that the survival of Cafè de l’Opera in its current location on the Rambla for almost 100 years is a real cause for celebration. Elegant mirrors engraved with feminine figures reflect the constant flow of customers at the tables – tourists, opera-goers, locals, nighthawks  and bohemians.

Known for years as ‘Los Italianos’, now re-christened Maximum, this is where some of the finest ice creams in the city have been served since 1940.

Like all the best tailors, Tristany Xancó always has a tape measure at hand to take his customers’ measurements. While some of the Rambla’s other classic menswear establishments – like Modelo, run by the Pantaleoni family, or Bonet shirts – have been replaced by chain stores and souvenir shops, at Camiseria Xancó you can still buy made-to-measure shirts in a modernista shop that’s almost 200 years old. We’re looking forward to their bicentenary.

For decades, the Antiga Casa Figueras, probably the prettiest modernista shop in the city, was a pasta-maker. In the ’80s it was acquired by the Escribà family, who restored it and turned it into a branch of their patisserie empire: now the cakes on display at Pastisseria Escribà are as delicate and elaborate as the mosaics on the façade.

Encircled by the neoclassical Plaça Sant Josep, the Boqueria has become the most flamboyant and busiest market in the city, bringing together long-term residents and newcomers, vendors of local produce and importers of exotic delicacies, chefs in search of the finest ingredients and tourists in search of a sandwich. For the full sensory experience, have a meal at El Quim or Bar Pinotxo, while watching the sea of faces pass by, Dating back to 1217, the Boqueria is Barcelona’s true centre of gravity.