Where to buy delicious nuts in Barcelona

For the health conscious or those who love browsing through alluring and enchanting dried food stores, Barcelona has many bulk food and health stores to purchase a whole host of nuts for snacking, decorating or even making delicious traditional Catalan dishes and desserts. Here’s three of the highest quality and attractive places to shop for delectable nuts and dried foods.

Casa Gispert

Being one of the oldest food stores in Barcelona and having roasted nuts since 1851, Casa Gispert is the place to buy dried nuts and other exquisite and appealing high-quality foods. This store has the vastest range of nuts I’ve ever come across – there’s literally hundreds, all toasted in Casa Gispert’s old in-house wood fire oven giving this store a unique edge, a homely feel and a fantastic aroma to shop with. Casa Gispert also specialises in coffee, dried fruits, grains, cocoa and a huge range of upmarket spices. Casa Gispert has a rustic and traditional feel with a modern edge, interestingly described as a working museum it holds catalogues of dried foods, jams and gift baskets on earthy wooden shelves that reach the ceiling, set against exposed brick walls. This store is based on passion above business and it’s a pleasure to visit whether you’re actually buying or not, though you’ll no doubt be tempted. At Casa Gispert you will also find recipe kits to use your nuts, spices, and grains to create traditional and quaint Catalan dishes such as ‘postre de músico’ translating to ‘musician’s dessert’.

Al Gra. Del sac al plat

This health food store takes a more modern and fashionable approach while keeping the authentic and appealing method of storage and service as large sacks filled with nuts and pulses for customers to scoop up as much of their tasty dried goods as they please. Al Gra. Del sac al plat is located in the characteristic and happening streets of Gràcia and the store’s affordable yet high-quality products reflect this, with dried vegetables, smoked paprika pizza dough and enticing on-trend aromatic spices to use as an infusion for gin. They have a fantastically broad range of nuts with interesting flavourings and the staff has great advice and ideas about how to use them in new, dynamic ways. The store is very seasonal so all the produce is at it’s very best and their homemade products are exactly what you want whichever time of year you visit. You can certainly trust the high quality of the products at this health food store as many surrounding restaurants and patisseries use their nuts, grains, and spices as the shining stars of their recipes.

Granel

If the sourcing of your nuts is of great importance to you, then Granel health food store will satisfy all your needs. The owners describe their store as “a slow shop of conscientious food” and focus on the organic properties of all their products. Granel is a very successful franchise with a very modern approach. They have ditched the sacks and replaced them with pick & mix style clear boxes and air-tight jars to scoop from, giving the store a neat, minimalist and vibrantly colourful feel. Granel is an admirably ecologically friendly health food store, promoting the reduction of food waste, healthy eating, sustainable consumption and fair trade – so you can feel great about supporting excellent ideology while purchasing their excellent quality nuts and dried goods. While their range is more standard and limited, their conscientious application and the resulting calibre of their food more than makes up for it.

Have you come across any other high quality or unique bulk food stores?