If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR284.70), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
In a historic mansion on the cusp between Barcelona’s bustling Eixample and El Raval, Hotel Regina slows the downtown tempo and shifts the focus to simple pleasures. Rooms are quiet and contemporary, the leafy courtyard makes a contemplative spot for a café con leche. At the bistro bar, tapas drawing on time-honoured Catalan recipes are washed down with wine from small-batch growers. Turns out, in Barcelona, back to basics suits bon vivants just fine.
Noon. Check-in is at 3pm, but both are flexible, subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £167.57 (€198), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €5.45 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates at Hotel Regina are room only, but Gina’s Patio serves a breakfast spread including fresh-baked bread and pastries, cured meats, local cheeses and homemade granola for $20.
Also
Hotel Regina has two rooms adapted for guests with limited mobility. These rooms have accessible bathrooms with roll-in showers, grab bars and shower chairs. All of the hotel’s communal areas, including the restaurant and bar, are wheelchair accessible, too.
At the hotel
Courtyard, laundry service and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: smart TV, climate control, Nespresso coffee machine, minibar stocked with locally sourced treats, free osmosis-filtered water, steamer, bathrobes and Meraki bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Twinkletoes, take note – the Century Rooms were once part of the building’s ballroom, and hundred-year-old features, including ornate iron pillars and parquet floors, have been carefully preserved. Otherwise, bag a Balcony Room to survey your slice of central Barcelona from above.
Packing tips
The hotel’s all about taking the foot off the gas amid the city-centre grind, so pack an extra paperback and pencil in an afternoon on the patio. Robert Hughes’ Barcelona will clue you in on all the cosmopolitan spots to hit when you get back out there.
Also
There are layers of history at every turn here. Lift your glass to find the new face of Gina’s Salon on your coaster – the bonny, bonnet-wearing lady in the bar’s logo was taken from a vintage poster found in the hotel’s archives.
Pet‐friendly
Dogs weighing up to 7kg are welcome, but limited to one a room for a nightly fee of €30. Please note that you can’t leave your pup unattended, or take them to the hotel’s communal areas. See more pet-friendly hotels in Barcelona.
Children
Welcome. There’s not much geared towards little ones, but rooms with sofa-beds and connecting options will suit families.
Sustainability efforts
Hotel Regina’s restaurant and bar keep the emphasis on Catalonia’s traditional, seasonal flavours and source ingredients from local farmers and suppliers. The hotel also uses plant-based bath products from a small local brand. Taps and showers are fitted with water-saving devices, and in place of plastic bottles, there is free osmosis-filtered water in glass bottles in every room.
Keen people-watchers should pull up a pew facing the street.
Dress Code
Laidback and breezy, bonus points for repping Barcelonian brands – a Paloma Wool jumper for evenings out on the patio, perhaps.
Hotel restaurant
Bar La Esquina is the hotel’s laidback bistro. The interiors – and the locals that hang out here – are cool and contemporary, but the menu is rooted in time-tested Catalan cuisine. Chef Alexis Peñalver’s tapas draw on rustic regional flavours, using carefully chosen local produce. Standouts include smoked leeks with stracciatella, sourdough pan con tomate, a Spanish omelette packed with piquant pil-pil cod, and super-sized roast chicken and béchamel croquettes.
Hotel bar
Gina’s Salon, the hotel’s street-gazing bar, has quickly earned its stripes as a favourite gathering place for clued-in Barcelonians. Mornings here call for a craft espresso out on the leafy patio. Come sundown, soak in the convivial chatter over tapas and martinis.
Last orders
Bar La Esquina serves from 12.30pm to 10.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday. Gina’s Salon is open from 8am to 11pm.
Room service
There’s a separate room service menu, for when hunger strikes mid-hibernation.
Hotel Regina is a heart-of-the-action stay steps from Plaça de Catalunya in the centre of Barcelona, where Eixample, El Raval and the Gothic Quarter meet.
Planes
Barcelona Airport is a 35-minute drive away. The hotel can arrange transfers for around €35 to €45 each way, with an extra fee for luggage and travel outside of standard working hours.
Trains
Direct trains run from major Spanish cities including Madrid, Malaga, Bilbao and Seville to Barcelona Sants station. From there, you can take the L3 metro to Plaça de Catalunya, a three-minute walk from the hotel.
Automobiles
There’s no private parking at the hotel, but it’s a two-minute walk to Saba Bamsa Plaza Cataluña car park, where parking is available at a reduced price of €30 a day for Hotel Regina guests. There are electric-vehicle charging stations, too.
Worth getting out of bed for
No chance of FOMO in this city-centre spot – Las Ramblas is an amble away, as are the multitudinous manchego- and Iberico-stacked stalls of La Boqueria. Barcelona is bursting with big-name spots for art and architecture buffs. Many, including Casa Batlló, Casa Milà and the Picasso Museum, are within easy walking distance of the hotel. Beyond the headliners, the Antoni Tàpies Foundation and the Barcelona Museum of Modernism – both skewed towards Catalan art – are worthy of your hit list.
Local restaurants
At chic bistro Batea, a menu of finely spun, seafood-focused small plates marries Catalan and Galician cuisine. Chef Manuel Núñez heads up the kitchen, and his partner Marta Morales is mixologist-in-chief – between them, this power couple have created an idyllic city-centre spot for a dinner date. Picnic is a breezy modern brunch spot in El Born, with a menu inspired by seasonal Catalan ingredients and the owners’ international travels. The fried green tomatoes with feta and fresh corn salsa are the house speciality, but sweet breakfast die-hards can indulge in the dulce de leche-drizzled French toast. And in the Gothic Quarter, head to Mesón Jesús for authentic, unpretentious Catalan cuisine in a romantically rustic setting.
Local cafés
Granja M Viader is an old-school, diner-style joint. Come for the freshly fried pastries and decadently thick hot chocolate, which have kept this place a local favourite for over a century.
Local bars
Let a bow tie-wearing bartender mix you a martini at Boadas, an enduring and cherished cocktail spot. For something a little more 21st-century, Pepa Bar a Vins is a cosy natural wine bar with an impressive cellar, super-knowledgeable staff and menu of moreish modern tapas. At brewery Fabrica Moritz, beer tasting flights are soaked up with dishes devised by star of the Catalan cuisine scene Jordi Vilà.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this storied Catalan hotel and unpacked their market finds and Modernist art tomes, a full account of their Spanish city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hotel Regina in Barcelona…
It’s an enviable address for a Barcelona pied-à-terre, firmly on the beaten track between Barcelona’s Eixample, El Raval and Gothic Quarter. But slip behind Hotel Regina’s neoclassical façade, and the sensory pizzazz of downtown is distilled into a gentle city-centre stay. Pared-back, modern rooms make a pleasing palate cleanser after a day admiring the work of Gaudí and co. Gina’s Salon provides a full day’s worth of people-watching, from first espresso of the morning to martinis at dusk. And in a city with no shortage of cool tapas spots, Bar La Esquina has cemented itself as a local favourite with classic Catalan pleasures kept simple; quality seasonal ingredients and a wine list spotlighting small local producers. Despite its locals-attracting tapas joint and covetable central co-ords, Hotel Regina is definitely more of a serene eye of the storm than a pulsing epicentre.
