Barcelona, El RavalFlax & Kale, one of our favourite Barcelona cafés

The setting

You can find Flax & Kale in El Raval, near the Placa Catalunya and the main shopping district. Take the L2 metro to stop Universitat or bus D50 to Ronda Universitat. The amazing Museum d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona is also nearby.

The space

The outside is clean and simple. You will see large windows with beige awning with the Flax & Kale initials on it. The street is quite busy since it’s one of the main shopping streets near by Placa de Catalunya and there’s a terrace outside.

Inside, the café has high ceilings and feels airy and large.

The wall length windows fill the restaurant with natural light which suits the warm wood work and white accessories. You can expect lots of plants, exposed brick, communal tables and a selection of eating areas including booths. I sat down at the bar since I was alone and it was super crowded. I did the review around 11am  on a Tuesday.

On the second floor, there’s another section of the restaurant which they open during peak hours. Finally, there’s also a gorgeous roof top terrace where you can dine in between flowers and plants!

The service is very quick. I couldn’t decide what to pick and the waitress recommended her favourites instead of the best sellers and the most expensive dishes. There’s wifi, but I wouldn’t recommend sitting in to work, as it gets so busy during breakfast and lunch hours.

What we ate

I had the Rainbow coconut milk parfait and the Ginger turmeric doughnut.

The base of the parfait is home made coconut mylk yoghurt mixed with blue spirulina, which colours the yoghurt pale baby blue. The bowl is topped off with a lot of fruit- blueberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, grapes and banana. Next to this, they add their gluten free crumble with chocolate chunks and their homemade “moskito”, which is a cookie made of buckwheat flour, cashew mascarpone with a plant-based chocolate cover. It is a great sized portion.

Next, I had the non-fried ginger turmeric doughnut. The doughnut is made out of almond flour and is covered in plant based chocolate. In the middle it has a blob of ginger, turmeric and cashew cream. The doughnut had a very airy texture because of the almond flour. It does taste a bit more like a cake though, since it isn’t fried.