L’Escamarla Barcelona: Prices, the Paella and Our Verdict

It was a Saturday in November, sunny and not windy, which on the Barcelona seafront is the best weather there is. We’d been walking along the beach with the boys and we were hungry, and we ended up at L’Escamarla on Platja Bogatell.

It’s been there since 1994, it’s family-run, and it faces straight out to sea. This is what we ate, what it costs now, and whether we’d send you there.

The short version

• Where: Passeig Marítim del Bogatell 40, on the sand at Bogatell beach
• Since: 1994, family-run
• Budget: around €30 a head
• Order: the pan amb tomàquet, the grilled mussels, and the seafood paella
• Go at: 1pm, and not a minute later
• Verdict: yes, and it’s the one we’d pick on this stretch

What it costs

The published average is €30 per person. Prices verified in September 2026:

Dish	Price
Hand-made croquettes	€12.00
Telline clams	€17.00
Tuna belly with tomato, spring onion and vinaigrette	€14.00
Buffalo burrata with tomato compote, pesto and nuts	€19.00
Shopska salad — tomato, cucumber, feta, onion, pepper	€13.00
Salt-baked fish of the day	€49.90
Tarte tatin	€6.90

The rice dishes aren’t published online. As at every paella restaurant in Barcelona, expect them to be priced per person with a minimum of two — read that line on the menu before you order, because it’s the difference between a €25 paella and a €50 one.

What that means for a family of four: around €120 for starters, a paella for the table and a dessert, without wine. Ten euros a head less than Can Fisher up the beach, for food that is every bit as good and a room with more character.

How to eat well here for less: come at lunch, order two or three starters for the table rather than one each, one paella between four — a rice pan genuinely feeds four people — and skip the salt-baked fish, which at €49.90 is the special-occasion dish rather than the everyday one.

What we ate, and what to order

It was our first visit, so we did the thing we always do in Barcelona and asked the waiter. Every restaurant here has one dish it’s known for, and the person carrying the plates knows what it is. Hector steered us, and he was right about all of it.

Pan amb tomàquet

The best we’ve had, and I don’t say that lightly in a city that puts it on every table. The bread is sliced thin and grilled rather than toasted, which takes it to a completely different kind of crisp. The boys decided it was pizza and ate the lot.

Croquetas

Hand-made, €12. The detail I’d put in front of any parent: Damian doesn’t eat croquetas. He ate more of these than any of us. That’s the most honest review of a dish I can give you.

Grilled mussels

Fresh, grilled, and the thing I’d order every time — mussels are my favourite dish anywhere and these were excellent. Keep bread back to soak up what’s left in the shells. That’s the whole point of them.

Paella de marisco

This is what they’re known for and it shows. It was the first time I’d eaten a paella so loaded with seafood that finding a forkful of plain rice was genuinely difficult — mussels, prawns, squid, all through it rather than arranged on top for the photograph.

With children: ours don’t eat the seafood out of a paella, and that’s fine — they ate a lot of rice and we ate their prawns. It’s a better arrangement than ordering them something separate.

Where to eat in Barcelona

Go at 1pm

The single most useful thing in this review.

We arrived at 1pm and there were a handful of people eating. Within thirty minutes the restaurant was full. Barcelona eats late — locals sit down at two — and that half-hour window before the rush is when you get the table you want, the calm service and the sea view.

Turn up at 2pm on a sunny Saturday and you’ll be waiting, outside, with children.

Why Bogatell rather than Barceloneta

L’Escamarla sits at the Barceloneta end of Platja Bogatell, and that few hundred metres matters more than it sounds.

Barceloneta is the closest beach to the centre, and so it gets the crowds, the hawkers and the restaurants that survive on people who will never come back. Bogatell gets locals. You’re on the same sea, looking at the same water, eating better food for less money, with room to breathe.

If someone tells you to eat on the Barceloneta seafront, walk fifteen more minutes.

How the Barcelona beaches compare, in order.

Getting there

• Metro: Llacuna or Poblenou on L4, then about ten minutes down to the sea
• On foot: roughly 25 minutes along the sand from Barceloneta — and the walk is half the pleasure of the day
• Phone to book: +34 932 211 366

Which travel ticket you need — a shared T-familiar at €11.50 covers the whole family.

Going with children

It works, and here’s why:

• The starters come fast. The gap between sitting down and food arriving is short, which is the thing that decides whether a meal out with kids goes well.
• The paella is slow, and that’s fine once the bread and croquetas are on the table.
• The sea is right there. Children who have finished eating can look at the water instead of at you.
• You can walk straight onto the beach afterwards.
• It’s busy and noisy by two o’clock, which means nobody notices your family being busy and noisy.

L’Escamarla or Can Fisher?

The two obvious choices on this beach, so here’s the straight answer:

	L’Escamarla	Can Fisher
Average per head	€30	€40
Feel	Family-run since 1994, more character	Modern, more polished
Best for	A long Saturday lunch	An occasion, the view
Both do	Seafood paella, properly, with a sea view

Our full review of Can Fisher is here.

Our verdict

Sitting in the sun overlooking the beach on an almost-winter day, watching people stroll and cycle past, waiting for a paella — that’s the whole thing, and it’s why we’d go back.

The restaurant filled up while we ate and the staff kept the service quick and good anyway, which tells you more about a place than any single dish does.

L’Escamarla is the one we’d pick on this beach. Order the mussels.