The Dutch have always felt very much at home in Barcelona. Football’s a good demonstration of this. FC Barcelona has featured players of the standard of Johann Cruyff, Johann Neeskens, Ronald Koeman, Phillip Cocu and Patrick Kluivert, to name a few. Now, Holland has a new link to the Condal City in restuarant Felice, which has been open since 2014.
In the heart of Gràcia, on the route to the Plaça de la Vila (Francisco Giner, 22), you can find this modern restaurant, run by a Dutch couple, Lamar and Desirée, who offer a curious combination of tapas and dishes taken from Spanish cuisine with a touch of Dutch cooking about them, flavoured with a notable influence from the Canary Isles (given that the owners lived there for a long time). Actually, the kindness and friendliness of the owners is one of the highlights of this welcoming restaurant.
Felice is a great place to go at any time of day, open from midday to midnight, where you can grab a bite to eat, drink a coffee, enjoy a beer or have dinner if you’re passing through the district of Gràcia. The place isn’t huge, but it’s a good place to take your partner, your family or a group of friends. Furthermore, it features a curiosity which not many places in the area can boast of: a beautiful tiny indoor terrace, which is very peaceful and great for a romantic dinner or glass of wine with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
Felice offers a selection of very tasty Dutch tapas which are worth trying at least once, especially to get the experience of a different cuisine. We recommend the bitterballen (a type of round, Dutch-style croquette), served with mustard sauce, frikandelle (fried sausage with ketchup and onion, arenque, fried camembert with raspberry sauce and chicken satay (a dish which is originally from south-east Asia, which has made its way into traditional Dutch cooking). An important side note: the patatas bravas aren’t bad, but they’re not the best we’ve tried in Barcelona.
We fully recommend Felice if you fancy going to try a different tapas experience with a Dutch flavour in Gràcia, given that the price-quality ratio is very good. If you fancy something more elaborate, there’s a small but carefully chosen menu, although prices are a little steeper (between €12 and €15 per dish). One of the house specialities are pork ribs, which are delicious.
Restaurant Felice is not very big, and, given that it’s on one of the streets you need to cross to get to the Plaça de la Vila de Gràcia, there’s quite a lot of people around, so we recommend reserving, especially at nights and weekends.
Felice probably isn’t our favourite restaurant in Gràcia, but it is a little different, so given the friendly service, the delicious food and the possibility of tasting Dutch food in Barcelona, it’s definitely worth a visit.
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