Velada is a quite fancy vegan spot not far from La Rambla. The restaurant itself looks a bit fancier than the food was, in my opinion – it’s not style over substance, but it definitely wasn’t quite as good as it looked. Still, the food was nice, service was really friendly, and I’m always excited to have a tapas menu to dig into! It was really busy when we visited, and we just managed to squeeze in without a reservation, so if you have your heart set on it then definitely make sure to reserve.

Above you can see the Velada bravas, which were beautifully cooked little potatoes with plenty of aioli. Patatas bravas is one of my favourite Spanish dishes, so I definitely enjoyed this.

This dish is regrettably no longer on the menu and I can’t remember what it was called – I just know that it was tomatoes and cheese. The cheese was very creamy and the tomatoes were so fresh and flavoursome. This is not the kind of dish I usually order (I always prefer something fried and mock meaty), but it was really refreshing and lovely.

These artichoke flowers are one of the specialties of the restaurant, but neither Mother HH nor I really enjoyed them. Maybe we were unlucky that the artichokes we got weren’t especially flavourful, which meant that the sundried tomatoes had to do a lot of heavy lifting. I’m not sure, but it didn’t quite work for us and was our least favourite dish of the evening.

We split the savouries between us, but each chose our own desserts. Mother HH went for the candied figs with hazelnut ice cream, and liked the figs more than the ice cream.

Whenever I see a crème brulee, I have to order it. This one was very good – it had the perfect top, ready to be cracked, and a nice smooth consistency below. It’s not the best I’ve ever had (that’s still Japan), but it was very enjoyable.

We were tucking into this meal after our day trip to Montserrat, up in the hills. It was a bit of a trek to get there, but well worth it – as you can see, we were there on a really clear day, so the views were spectacular. There’s not loads to see and do there, and certainly nowhere to get vegan food, so we visited the basilica, walked around, had a little picnic, drank in the views, and then headed back. It was well worth a trip, and nice to get away from the cities and see something a bit different.