What paella actually costs in Barcelona

Priced by the pan, a rice dish in Barcelona’s old city usually costs between 15 and 22 euros. Priced by the person, which is common on the busier streets, it runs roughly 18 to 30 euros a head and often carries a two-person minimum, so a paella for two lands around 40 to 60 euros. The boards that read “paella and sangria, 12 euros” are a different product: rice cooked earlier and reheated when you order.

This is written from a kitchen on Carrer de Santa Anna, so it is useful and it is not neutral. We sell paella. What follows is how the price is built, so you can judge ours against everyone else’s.

What moves the price

• What sits on the rice. A vegetable or chicken rice is the cheapest. Seafood paella and arròs negre sit at the top, because langoustine, prawn and clams cost what they cost. Fideuà, the same dish made with short noodles instead of rice, usually lands a little under the seafood paella.
• Cooked to order, or held ready. Rice started when you order it takes fifteen to twenty minutes. A paella that reaches the table in five was made before you arrived.
• The stock and the sofrito. Fish stock and sofrito made in the kitchen from fresh ingredients cost more than the versions that come ready in a carton, and they are most of what a rice tastes of.
• Per person or per pan. Priced per person with a two-person minimum, a solo traveller cannot order it and a couple pays twice. Priced per pan, the number on the menu is the whole bill for the dish.

What a fair price looks like

Rice in the old city sits in a fairly narrow band, and prices outside it usually mean something. Well below the band, something has been substituted, normally the stock or the shellfish. Well above it, in this part of town, you are often paying for the address rather than the pan.

The price you see is almost always for the whole pan, not per head, so a rice at 18 euros split between two people is 9 each. That is worth knowing before you compare a paella price to the price of a single plate.

How to read a rice menu before you order

• Check whether the price is per person or per pan. “18 € / persona (mín. 2)” and “18 € la paella” are very different bills.
• Look for “por encargo” or a stated “15 a 20 min”. It means the rice is started when you order, not before.
• “A precio de mercado”, or “SQ” next to a seafood rice, means the price is set that day. Ask what it is before you order.
• The midday menú del día is almost always the lowest-priced way to try a paella.
• A few streets off the main tourist routes, the same dish is usually cheaper and more often sold by the pan.

Can one person order a paella?

In most places, no. Paella is traditionally cooked for a table, and plenty of kitchens keep a two-person minimum. More places now cook single portions, but it is worth asking before you sit down, especially if you are travelling alone.

What it costs at Santa Anna

Our seven rices are on the card with their prices: 15,90 euros for the vegetable one, up to 21,50 for the octopus, with most between 17 and 19. The price is for the pan, not per person.

Any of the seven is made for one person, to order, with no minimum of two. Each one takes fifteen to twenty minutes and comes to the table in the pan it was cooked in. At midday there is a set lunch, which is the lowest-priced way in. Family-run on the same street since 1929.

That is our entry, and it is the one to be most sceptical about. The checkable parts are the prices, which are on our menu, and the hours, which are every day from eleven in the morning.

Every price is on the menu before you sit down, and at midday the set lunch is the tightest of them.

If you want to try ours

The rest of the rice is on the paella page, the fideuà among them, which is the same dish built with short noodles instead of rice. If you already know what you want, you can book a table; for a table of ten or more, call the restaurant.