Verified in 2 cities.
Calcots with romesco is a signature dish of Spain; we have verified places to eat it in Barcelona and Salou. Calçots are a Catalan winter ritual: long, thin spring onions grilled black over a fire, peeled by hand at the table and dipped in red romesco sauce by the handful.
Calçots are a Catalan winter ritual: long, thin spring onions grilled black over a fire, peeled by hand at the table and dipped in red romesco sauce by the handful.
The calçotada was born in Valls (Tarragona) in the late 19th century: a farmer named Xat de Benaiges discovered that re-planting harvested onions and then earthing them up produced a tender, longer white shoot. By the 1940s the Valls Festa del Calçot was the centrepiece of Catalan winter food culture. The technique: grill calçots until black over vine cuttings, wrap in newspaper to steam, then peel each black layer back to reveal the soft inner. Dip in romesco (a sauce of dried nyora peppers, almonds, garlic, hazelnuts, bread, olive oil). Eat with the hands, head tilted back, wearing a bib. In Barcelona, the season runs January to March; restaurants run prefix-priced 35 to 50 euro calcotada lunches.
Where to eat in Barcelona:
Where to eat Calcots with romesco in Barcelona: the editor picks
Calçots are long sweet onions charred over a vine-shoot fire, peeled by hand and dipped in romesco or salvitxada, eaten in winter at the communal feast called the calçotada.
The calçot comes from Valls, inland in the Alt Camp, where tradition credits a farmer called Xat de Benaiges with first grilling sprouted white onions in the late 19th century. The Calçot de Valls became a protected geographical indication in 1995, and Valls has held its Gran Festa de la Calçotada every year since 1982, on the last Sunday of January; the 2026 edition was the 44th.
Where to eat Calçots with romesco in Salou: the editor picks
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