El Rey de la Gamba 1

There’s tons of tourist traps and restaurants that are lined up in stalls right along this strip on the way to the beach. It’s hard to decide which one is the real deal vs. the fakes. You’ll definitely get approached by aggressive servers waving their menus at you to lure you in.
We opted to try El Rey de la Gamba for 3 reasons: 1. Out of all the others restaurants, this place was the most packed 2. It was a good deal, not overly expensive 3. They have two locations on the same strip within feet from each other
The Paella was really good, seafood was fresh all around, and had plentiful mussels which I can appreciate. For our appetizer we ordered Chipirones and it was so good I couldn’t stop eating them before my entrée came. Perfectly battered and fried calamari drizzed with fresh squeezed lime, best appetizer! The service was most excellent and very courteous. Lastly, we were lucky to get a table on the patio right on the edge of the sidewalk so we watched the sunset as we ate our dinner.

Nice service and good food! Our waiter was incredibly helpful and answered all our questions about the menu. A group of 5 of us were able to split a 3 portion seafood paella! It was good but not as good as it was hyped up to be. Also, beware of the sangria– it’s incredibly strong and my group couldn’t finish our pitcher hahah

Tapas excellent de vrai chipirones a déguster avec plaisir
très bonne cuisine de vrais nappes sur les tables nous garderons cette adresse lors de notre prochain passage a Barcelone

I had the lamb chops, which were over cooked, greasy, and generally not that impressive. My wife had the spaghetti fisherman style which she said was good. The sangria was pretty good and reasonably priced.
Over all, the food was okay but overpriced. I felt like I was the victim of a tourist trap.

I absolutely love this place. I would come here just to order tapas portion of razor clams, mussels, and other dishes. The tapas dish is no small feat at all, its plenty for one person alone and is less than 10 euros. Also the oysters they serve here are just the bomb. Quite expensive, but thats okay, it was amazing. Perfect place to go after an amazing time on the beach

Belle quantité, et bonne cuisson sur plancha, les fruits de mer sont frais et ont bon gout
Il est situé sur l’artère principale de barceloneta et de ce fait il fait partie des nombreux restaurants a touristes (=usine) et sans réel charme.

I would like to give this place a good review but I just can’t. It’s the typical tourist place with lousy food. They were very friendly and the beer was cold so I give them 2 stars. The pulpo a la gallega is just horrible. You can tell it’s frozen. Very hard and tough to chew. I didn’t bother with it. The paella looks good but it’s not well prepared. Does not taste fresh at all and a paella needs that. The swordfish was ok. It’s what the waiter recommended and he pointed out that it was fresh. Since most items appear to be frozen I would ask the waiter if you want to chance eating here. The calamari were by far the worst I have ever seen or tasted. They looked like onion rings and very greasy. Skip this place and every other one near it.

I’m usually reluctant to visit any restaurant that caters to tourists, but my friend and I were hungry and had a train to catch. We stopped by El Rey de la Gamba expecting to pay for overpriced seafood because it was about a block away from the beach. To my surprise, the mussels and navajas (razor shell clams) were about 8 euros each! It was my last day in Barcelona so I decided to order both while my friend ordered seafood paella. Upon taking our order, the waiter seemed to think it’d be too much food and suggested I get half an order of mussels and half an order of navajas. It wasn’t an option on the menu, but he assured me it’d simply be half the price.
When the food came out, the order of mussels and navajas were huge! I couldn’t believe they were only half orders and was very glad our waiter was kind enough to suggest half portions. It was my first time trying navajas and they were super flavorful and juicy. A bit phallic… but it made it more fun to eat ;)
The seafood paella was also a large portion. Tasty, but not the best I’ve had in Spain. Come for the navajas!

The waiters were courteous, albeit pushy, and the restaurant is clean.
We ordered the arroz negro, a dish traditionally cooked with squid ink and aforementioned squid. This gives it a black color and a deep salty taste.
We got black tar rice.

After a afternoon at the beach we were quite hungry. It seemed welcoming enough without too many tourists so we gave it a shot and f’ing scored!
Patatas bravas were great, sardines were tasty and fresh and most of all, the seafood paella was amazing!!!
Highly recommend it and all of our food including dessert was less than 50 €!

The food is great with Spanish people cooking and running this business! Family friendly with kid accommodations and great customer service!

Lots of menus in different languages. Looks like they love tourists. Good service and great food. We had the seafood combo and the shrimp as well. Left feeling very stuffed. The waiter forgot the calamari but that was alright because I didn’t have any room left.

Excelente atención. Ni tienen un menu vegetariano pero se las ingeniaron para cocinar algo para mi :)

not the best spot in barcelona… just keep walking.

Fischplatte für zwei Personen ist kaum zu schaffen. Zudem ist alles frisch zubereitet, der Service ist sehr freundlich und äußerst aufmerksam. Sehr zu empfehlen.

This place is on the way to the beach on a row of restaurants but It got some good reviews so we decided t check it out for lunch. We got the fideua, which is basically paella with noodles instead of rice. It was ok, there was an ingredient in there that I could not pinpoint but it left sort of a sour after taste. Wait staff seemed friendly but like anywhere in Spain, the wait staff is too laid back and really aren’t too attentive.

I had my first paella here and it just didn’t agree with me. Having not much experience with authentic paella, I’m not sure what went wrong, but I agree with the other reviewers that it is a very touristy place. I didn’t really have a good time here with the touristy atmosphere and there wasn’t really much to recommend this place. There are lots of better places I’m sure, don’t get caught here.

Eh-​ok, rather. Not bad but certainly not mind blowing. Very touristy, as they catch you on the sidewalk as you’re returning from the beach area. Food was pretty good, outdoor seating was nice, but still not over the top about this joint. I’m being generous by saying wi-​fi is spotty, as it was pretty horrible. Wouldn’t try again — there are so many places you can get a great paella (which is what I was there for), so don’t waste it here.

~*~Touristy sea food. Best Calamari of my life. Amazing (but per-​packaged) desserts. Order with Caution. ~*~
Portions come as full portion and Tapas (half portion). Calamari is like nothing I’ve had in the states.
My parents had a fish dish that had a lot of little bones but was not too hard to eat.
I was so full but when the waiters threw (and yes he did throw) the colorful dessert menu on the table, I had to look. I had a cream cheese/​raspberry sorbet… and yes… my mouth even waters now.
Highly Recommend.

The food was tasty. Everything tasted fresh and flavorful. The service was mediocre. Sorry, I don’t want to watch my servers smoking (in between serving me) just to the side of the outdoor eating area as the smoke wafts over to my table.

We came here for lunch and got sangria (duh), mussels and fish (don’t remember which now) and fell in love! Everything was SO good that we came back for dinner the same night.
Flavorful, plentiful, good prices!

Hands down, one of the best eating we did in Europe. Ate all the razor clams, shrimps and oysters I could eat! The prawns were so tasty, you initially get the succulent head juice gushing out and bam! sweet meaty shrimp texture right after. Ah, what a great stop. We actually went down the street and had more shrimp at another location but this was the best.
My Experience: chew chew chew happy happy happy. more more more!

Fairly good, a bit salty, interesting to try. But I wouldn’t recommend it to friends because of the tourist trap set-​up & feeling. I felt like a cash cow there. Also, our waiter had a bad case of BO that made us uncomfortable.

ENGLISH: I had some difficulty trying to decide whether to give this 3 or 4 stars. In the end I chose 4 because I would come back here for the paella. I came here for lunch with a friend. We ordered a salad and paella. The salad was normal, but I really liked the paella because the rice wasnt hard (which it typically should be) and there was a TON of seafood on it. I would recommend this place to friends visiting who want good paella, but not have to pay too much.
ESPAÑOL: Al principio no puedo decidir si desea dar 3 o 4 estrellas pero el final decidí 4 estrellas porque volvería aquí para comer la paella. Vine aquí con un amigo y pedimos una ensalada y la paella. Me gusta la paella porque el arroz no es muy duro y tiene muchos muchos maricos. La ensalada es normal. Yo recomendaría este restaurante a amigos visitando que quieran paella buena, pero no pagar tanto.

Das günstig in Stadtteil Barceloneta gelegene Restaurant versteht sich auf Meeresfrüchte. Es gibt etwas weiter Richtung Innenstadt eine weitere Dependance.
Außen sitzt man am Tage sehr angenehm, des Abends nervt ein wenig die Energiesparbeleuchtung, die das Ambiente negativ beeinflusst.
Dennoch sind die Meeresfrüchte sehr schmackhaft und die Portionen gigantisch.
Aufgrund der Tapas– Mentalität werden, wenn mehrere Hauptgänge bestellt wurden diese teilweise nacheinander gebracht, so dass sich alle Gäste eine Tisches zuerst an einem und dann am anderen Gericht gütlich tun können.
Teilweise ist aber ohnehin für zwei Personen nur ein Hauptgericht nötig.
Die Bedienung ist außerordentlich freundlich, versteht aber in der Regel kein Englisch. Dafür freut man sich über den Versuch des Gastes Spanisch zu sprechen.
Empfehlenswert, wenn man sich nicht von der Optik abschrecken lässt ist: Arroz Negro, eine Paella mit Sepia Tinte schwarz gefärbt.

As you walk along Passeig de Joan de Borbo, the main street that goes down to the beach in Barceloneta, you’ll encounter a ton of seafood restaurants – but this one in particular stands out because they seem to have THREE locations all connected to each other. El Rey de la Gamba 1, 2, and 3 are all connected to each other with people outside trying to get you to go in.
I was a bit uncertain about picking a restaurant in this area, but the prices were extremely reasonable and quite delicious. They allow you, for most of the dishes, to pay for one person rather than two (most places charge you double the price they advertise for arroz (rice) dishes like paella and fideua because the portion is always at minimum for two).
Our Fideua was only 13 euros for one person but fed us well. We also got the grilled razor clams (navajas) for 7.61 euros and a litre of sangria for 11.50 euros. The razor clams were really good and fresh but the Fideua was AMAZING. The sangria, however, was HORRIBLE. The still water was 1.98 euros. Our total was 36.82 euros, quite reasonable.
So:
— Do get the Fideua
— Don’t get the Sangria
Definitely worth coming.

Comí una parillada de pescado y mariscos y estuvo bien pero nada del otro mundo. Es decir, he probado mejores. Para mi gusto la parrillada ha de ser sabrosa, no seca, ligeramente condimentada y más que nada fresca. Aunque se llama El Rey de las Gambas creo que más bien es el príncipe ya que las gambas estaban demasiado blandas, como pasadas. Está en la zona turística y siempre está lleno pero a mí no me impresiona demasiado. Calidad-​precio normal.

Poco glamour y rodeado de turistas. Seguramente te sientas así cuando vayas a comer a este restaurante de la Barceloneta. En pleno paseo Joan de Borbó, podrás comer buenas tapas a buen precio.
Como su própio nombre indica, aquí comeras gambas bien ricas. Y nada de cubiertos: aquí se come con los dedos hombre. Yo nunca entendí eso de comer el marisco con cuchillo y tenedor… Para abrir la pata de un bogabante si que necesitamos ayuda pero para comer una gamba…
En fin, que aquí te sirven unas raciones bastante majas de mejillones, sepia, pulpo a la gallega, almejas, calamares a la romana y mil más. He ido un par de veces y la que comimos a base de tapas la disfruté de lo lindo. En otra ocasión comimos arroz y estaba bueno, pero las tapas mucho mejor.
Por ser un sito bastante turístico, no se pasan mucho con el precio. Al ataqueeeee!!!

Grosse portion, donc gros prix Qualité moyenne Cuisine sans saveur
A y aller si on très faim et si on est perdu dans le quartier * Parmi les 6 restos testés durant la semaine, c’est le moins bon !

Nach einer Woche in Barcelona und einigen recht schlechten Erfahrungen hinsichtlich Preis/​Leistung (außer bei Restaurants außerhalb der Innenstadt und Qype-​Tipps) haben wir nicht mehr damit gerechnet ein günstiges und leckeres Fischrestaurant zu finden. In Barceloneta sind wir dann aber doch noch fündig geworden. Das Restaurant «El Rey de la Gamba» bietet frischen Fisch in allen Variationen und zu guten Preisen. Wir haben die Fischplatte für 38 Euro (für 2 Personen) bestellt und bekamen eine Riesenplatte mit Muscheln, gegrillten Garnelen, Langusten, Tintenfisch, Schwertfisch und anderen Fischfilets. Besonders mit den Muscheln und Garnelen wurde nicht gespart. Dieses Restaurant ist in jedem Fall zu empfehlen, aus diesem Grund wartet man auch trotz der vielen Konkurrenz etwas auf einen Platz.