Rooftop Garden

You step off the Gran Via, a street that smells of diesel and ambition, and into the hushed, marble-heavy lobby of El Palace. This used to be the Ritz. It still feels like the Ritz—the kind of place where you half-expect to see a disgraced archduke nursing a brandy in the corner. But you aren’t here for the lobby. You’re heading up. When the elevator doors slide open at the Rooftop Garden, the air changes. The city’s roar is replaced by the scent of jasmine, lavender, and the faint, expensive hum of high-end hospitality.

This isn’t your typical Barcelona rooftop where you’re squeezed onto a plastic stool next to a cooling unit. This is 1,500 square meters of meticulously landscaped fantasy, inspired by the private garden of Francesc Cambó. It’s lush, it’s sprawling, and it’s unapologetically romantic. There’s a pool—pale blue and tempting—though that’s mostly for the folks staying downstairs. For the rest of us, there’s the bar and the restaurant, spread across a space that feels more like a Mediterranean estate than a hotel roof.

The food here doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, and thank god for that. When you’re sitting this high up, looking at the spires of the Sagrada Família and the distant shimmer of the Mediterranean, you don’t want a foam-heavy science project on your plate. You want honesty. You want a lobster roll that doesn't skimp on the meat, or a steak tartare prepared with the kind of tableside gravitas that only a hotel with this much history can pull off. The menu shifts with the seasons. In the summer, it’s all about the grill—fresh fish and prime cuts hitting the charcoal. In the winter, they’ve been known to pivot hard, transforming the space into a Swiss-style Alpine chalet with fondue and wood-fired warmth. It’s a bit of theater, sure, but it’s done with enough class that you buy into it.

Let’s talk about the cocktails. They aren’t cheap. Nothing here is. But you aren't just paying for the booze; you’re paying for the real estate. The drinks are balanced, cold, and served by staff who understand that service is an art form, not a chore. Whether it’s a classic Negroni or one of their seasonal signatures, it’s designed to be sipped slowly while the sun dips behind the Tibidabo mountain, turning the Eixample grid into a sea of gold and shadow.

The crowd is a mix of the well-heeled, the hotel guests who’ve forgotten what floor they’re on, and locals who know that this is one of the best spots in the city to hide in plain sight. It’s a place for long conversations, for making promises you might not keep, and for remembering that Barcelona, despite the tourist traps and the noise, is still a city capable of genuine magic. Is it a bit pretentious? Maybe. Is it worth the price of admission? If you value a view that makes you feel like the protagonist of a movie you can’t afford to produce, then yes. Absolutely. Just don't show up in your beach flip-flops; show some respect for the ghosts of the Ritz.