Can Martí Restaurant

To get to Can Martí, you have to want it. You don’t just stumble in here after a shopping spree on Passeig de Gràcia. You climb. You leave the polished, limestone-and-glass facade of 'Modernist' Barcelona behind and head up into the lungs of the city—the Collserola hills. By the time you reach this place, perched near the Carretera de les Aigües, you should have a bit of dust on your boots and a genuine, hollow-eyed hunger that can only be cured by fire, fat, and salt. This isn't a restaurant in the traditional, white-tablecloth sense; it’s a merendero, a mountain outpost where the city’s sprawl looks like a toy set and the air smells like holm oak charcoal.

First things first: if you’re looking for a curated 'gastronomic journey' with tweezers and foam, turn around and go back to the Eixample. Can Martí is about the brasa—the glowing embers of the grill. The arrival is a sensory slap. You’ll hear the hiss of meat hitting the iron and the frantic, rhythmic clatter of plates. The decor is functional, bordering on indifferent. We’re talking paper tablecloths, sturdy chairs that have seen a thousand Sunday lunches, and a terrace that offers a panoramic view of the Mediterranean that would cost you fifty euros a head elsewhere. Here, it’s free, provided you can handle the occasional gust of wind and the noise of a hundred locals arguing over the merits of the local football clubs.

Let’s talk about the sacrament of the Catalan grill. When the calçots are in season, this is ground zero. These oversized spring onions are charred over open flames until the outer layers are carbonized husks, then wrapped in newspaper to steam. You peel them with blackened fingers, dip them into a thick, nutty romesco sauce that should be legally classified as a controlled substance, and lower them into your mouth like a sword swallower. It’s messy, it’s primal, and it’s exactly how food should be eaten. If you aren't wearing a bib and covered in soot, you’re doing it wrong.

Then comes the meat. The botifarra—the classic Catalan pork sausage—is the benchmark here. It’s snappy, juicy, and served with a pile of mongetes (white beans) that have soaked up all that glorious rendered fat. The entrecot is thick, seasoned with enough salt to make a cardiologist weep, and kissed by the smoke of the embers until it develops a crust that shatters under the knife. This is honest, unadorned cooking. There are no secret ingredients, just the quality of the animal and the heat of the fire. The all i oli is a punch to the throat—heavy on the garlic, exactly the way it was intended before tourists started complaining about their breath.

The service is efficient in the way a busy triage ward is efficient. The waiters have seen it all: the cycling clubs in Lycra, the extended families with three generations of shouting, and the occasional hiker who looks like they’ve been lost in the woods for three days. They don’t have time for your life story. They want to know what you want to drink, and they want to get that meat on the grill. It’s honest. It’s real. It’s the kind of place that reminds you that Barcelona is still a Mediterranean port city with a rugged, mountain-dwelling soul.

Is it perfect? No. It’s loud, it’s out of the way, and if you come on a Sunday without a reservation, you’ll be waiting until the sun goes down. But that’s the point. Can Martí is a reminder that the best things in life usually require a bit of effort to reach. It’s a place to drink cheap red wine out of a porrón, tear into a piece of toasted bread rubbed with tomato and garlic, and remember that before Barcelona was a brand, it was a place where people came to eat well and look at the sea.