Many of our recommended hotels in Catalonia’s countryside have few high-quality dining establishments nearby, limiting meals to the property’s on-site restaurants. This can be frustrating when the menus have the same options for lunch and dinner. Fortunately, over the course of our trip, we found some excellent lunch spots that were worth the detour. Note that Spaniards dine late — the lunch rush often starts around 2 p.m. If a restaurant is empty before then, it’s not necessarily reflective of its quality or popularity.

Terra de Pics

Just a five-minute drive from the Torre del Remei hotel, this stylish bistro boasts a spacious umbrella-shaded terrace looking out to Tosa Peak. Terra de Pics is popular with locals who greet one another by name and clink glasses with acquaintances at neighboring tables. Groups of friends play bocce on the restaurant’s court while their children clamber on an adjacent playground set. Our welcoming server was only too happy to walk us through the menu, and diners around us chimed in with recommendations. The inventive Catalan cuisine kept us guessing. In a shrimp ravioli dish, perfectly fresh, thinly sliced shrimps served as the casing for an almond-studded béchamel sauce. A glass cloche covered a similarly creative dessert of tangy lemon meringue enveloped in thyme-sprig smoke. I highly recommend this restaurant, which is both convivial and convenient. Closed Monday-Wednesday.

Terra de Pics
Carrer de la Font 2, Bolvir. Tel. (34) 61-342-2357