Sitges Restaurants

UPDATED ON JUNE 15 2011. Unfortunately, I was on La Santa María last weekend, and now it's not so good as I remembered :o(

La Pinta, La Niña and La Santa María are the names of the 3 ships that Cristobal Colon used in the Spanish expedition that discovered America in 1492.

But they're also the names of 3 restaurants in Sitges. They have the same owner, the same quality, the same price and they're in the same street. They have a large menu, with many typical specialities and the quality of the dishes is very good.

All of them are also hotels.

Favorite Dish: The paella. Even if it's typical from Valencia, here it's very good too. The fish is also wonderful and the meat has a great quality. So, who can choose?

But please, don't drink sangria, a good Catalonian or Spanish wine will be much better.

This is a gay restaurant but, obviously, is opened to everybody. The waiters are very kind and helpful, the dishes are excellent, and it's full of details, as, for example, a glass of cava with freeze raspberry liquor inside.

It was a Tuesday night. There was a monsoon beating down on the town and the main street, as it is designed to be (e.g. the stepping stones between shops in the road) was a raging torrent, so this wasn't the best night for us to sample the atmosphere, but what an experience it was. From start to finish the food was well cooked, presented in an amazing way and served by two waiters who were there whenever they were required but, despite the quietness of the night, never hovered. Despite the fact that their English was almost as bad as my Spanish they never looked frustrated or impatient as I struggled to communicate. Then there was the crockery. Such unusual plates, each course with a platter that seemed to have been designed purely for that particular type of food and food that just melted in your mouth, with a selection of house wine that was unbelievable for the price.

Favorite Dish: It sounds so boring but the locally produced chocolate almonds were plain, simple but the taste was out of this world. I couldn't get the taste sensation my tastebuds experienced out of my head for weeks. This was after my palate had been tickled by steak and salad and paella to die for.

Very nice restaurant near the church in the street, Career Nou at number 14, nice decoration, lovely...
We was there with 6 poeple and it was so perfect, everything, service, food, presentation, clean and very cheap for the Quality, what y never have before in all my trips around the world, Europe, USA, Australia... it' s only to recomend... go and let be surprised

Favorite Dish: Beef Tartare or the Wild Scalops Carpaccio with Trufel Oil

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Imagine that you go to the home of your Galician aunt for dinner, who lives in a small and not touristic little town. Maybe that's the most approximated way of explaining how this restaurant is.

If you're looking for a fashion restaurant, this is definitely not your place, but if you're looking for authentic traditional Galician food, you can't miss this place. But that is not all, they also make pizza, the biggest ones that I saw in my life!

The secret of their excellent dishes is a small and elderly woman governing the kitchen.

Many people say that eating in Sitges is expensive, well, it depens where you go. The key is: as nearer of the church, more expensive is.

Apart of this, there's also some restaurants where I had bad experiences, so here we go:

- Chiringuito: It's in the middle of the Passeig Marítim and it's really a temptation. But the food is bad, the waiters are not kind and it's expensive.

- Estrella: It's in the Carrer Major and it was one of the best tapas restaurant in Sitges, beautiful, with a reasonable price and a lot of tapas to choose, it was always full. But now it has a new owner, that changed the menu, increased the prices and decreased the quality. The people of the town don't go now, you only can see people inside in summer.

- Usaka. This japanese it's in Sant Sebastià beach. When we went there was only 1 cooker and 2 waitress for attending inside and the terrace, so they were overbooked. They spent more than 1 hour in bring us only one dish and, at the end, we cancelled the other one that never arrived (it was the main one, by the way). Overmore, the cooker and the waitress were arguing at every moment, so the ambient was not very nice.

We ate at La Santa Maria on our frst night in Sitges and enjoyed it so much that we went back the next two nights as well. Sounds really boring but the food was very good and the service was first class. Even though the menu was huge with loads to choose from my Wife had the same dish 2 nights running. ( sea bass )

The choices available on the menu are huge. I have never eaten at a restaurant anywhere that has offered such an extensive menu. We could have eaten there every night for a week and wouldn't have struggled to make a choice.

We will definitely go back if we ever return to Sitges.

Tricky Dicky's rating 9.5 / 10

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Looking for a place to eat lunch, we walked through the narrow streets of the city to Al Fresco café. A lunch restaurant at street level and a gourmet restaurant with the same name in the basement. This was not the place for large portions, but what was served was delicious.
Eating at Al Fresco Café was an entirely charming experience. In a light and rustic atmosphere with one row of tables of chairs we had great service and above all brilliant food.
We all decided to order the same food.

Favorite Dish: Oven baked lamb served with crisp sweet and ordinary potatoes.
It was very different from what I had expected. I had visioned slices of lamb served medium, i.e. pink to red in the middle.
The lamb served at Al Fresco Café had been very thinly sliced and baked, and had a very special seasoning. It reminded me of Moroccan spices. I tried to figure out what herbs and spices they had used, as I tasted cumin and coriander seeds, but there were definitely other spices used as well.
I had, however, expected additional vegetables to the lamb, as the amount of potatoes did not match the amount of meat. Unusual, as it usually works the other way. More of the inexpensive ingredients, less of the expensive.
We had a wonderful, dry white wine served with the lamb. An unusual choice, but in this case it matched.
For dessert we ordered white chocolate mousse with raspberries. Yum. The sweet, honey like taste of the white chocolate and the acidity of the raspberries. Al Fresco was a great place to eat, and if I return I will visit the gourmet restaurant and write a review.