Guests at the reception desk ask me all the time: “Daniela, do you eat well in Sitges?” The answer is yes, and I say that without any hype. Our small town faces the sea and backs onto the hills of the Penedès, two larders that end up together on the same plate. After a few years pointing guests in the right direction, I have built up a little book of addresses. Here it is, honest and specific, with real names rather than generalities.
One thing first: in Sitges you eat on Spanish time. Lunch happily stretches to 3pm, and many kitchens do not reopen until 8.30pm. So do not judge a deserted terrace at 7pm, it will be full two hours later. It is a rhythm worth adopting, and it is part of the charm.
The dish I recommend to anyone who wants to taste the real local cooking is xató (say “sha-TOH”), a salad of crisp escarole topped with flaked salt cod, tuna and anchovies, all coated in a sauce of almonds, hazelnuts, garlic and nyora pepper, first cousin to romesco. It is rustic, generous, a little spicy and very much of Sitges. It is served above all in winter, around the season of the “xatonades”, but several kitchens in the centre offer it when the season allows.
Rice and the Sea, the Soul of Sitges Cooking
If you only try one dish, make it arròs a la sitgetana, rice the Sitges way. Unlike a tourist paella, it brings land and sea together in the same pan: chicken or rabbit, cuttlefish, prawns, mussels, sometimes a little pork, all simmered together until the rice has taken up every bit of the stock. It is a Sunday dish, made for sharing, and it needs time, which suits you nicely because you are on holiday. Call the restaurant ahead, because many of them cook it to order.
For that rice, as for the fish, my first thought is the Passeig de la Ribera, the seafront promenade, where several dependable kitchens follow one another. At La Cantina de Sitges (at number 41) they work precisely on rice dishes and seafood, and the address is one of those on the Xató Route. A few doors along, Pic Nic is a seafront institution for arròs and food from the sea. And for fish pure and simple, Cal Pinxo (number 5) and La Santa Maria (number 52) have lined up their terraces facing the Mediterranean for years.
Fresh Fish and Tables in the Old Town
Always ask what came in fresh that morning: red mullet, sea bream grilled a la plancha, prawns, or navajas (razor clams) and clams just opened in their own steam. My advice is to read the day’s blackboard rather than the printed menu, because that is where the best of it hides. Yes, you pay a little for the view over the Passeig de la Ribera, but a fish lunch almost with your feet in the sand is worth the price.
If you would rather step a street or two back from the seafront, the old town holds some lovely surprises. La Nansa, on Carrer de la Carreta, is a quiet seafood table I like for its fish and its rice dishes, away from the bustle of the promenade. It is often in those lanes behind the church that the fairest kitchens hide, in price as much as in flavour.
Evening Tapas and the Sweetness of Malvasia
Once the sun goes down, Sitges changes key. The streets around Cap de la Vila fill up, and you move from bar to bar the way you turn the pages of a menu. This is the hour for tapas: properly fiery patatas bravas, coca bread rubbed with tomato, ham croquettes, Padrón peppers, a plate of boquerones (anchovies in vinegar). My tip: do not settle in at the first bar for the whole evening. Have two or three bites, a glass of vermouth or cava, then move on. That is how people in Sitges do it, and it is by far the liveliest way to get to know the town.
To finish a meal, let me tell you about a local treasure: Malvasia de Sitges, a sweet wine from a grape rescued from oblivion and grown here for centuries. Amber, perfumed, with notes of candied fruit, it goes beautifully with a dessert or with an hour on a terrace at sunset. If that appeals to you, the whole area deserves a detour for the wines of the Penedès, and Sitges is something like its gateway on the sea. And save some room for the morning, because coca and a short strong coffee deserve to be taken slowly, as they are in the coffee shops of Sitges that open at first light.
From the reception desk at the Hotel Noucentista we are a few minutes’ walk from almost all of these addresses, which is the advantage of a small town you cross on foot. And if you want my current favourites, the ones written down nowhere and changing with the seasons, just ask me, because they are usually the tastiest. Enjoy your meal, or as we say here, bon profit!
