Ask ten residents for the best bakery in Barcelona and you get ten answers, every one of them somebody's local. There is a more useful way to settle it, and the city already runs it.
Barcelona's bakers and pastry chefs compete against each other every year, in public, judged by their own trade. The national butter croissant championship alone pulls around sixty entrants into the pastry guild's school here each October. The results are published, they are specific, and almost none of it reaches the English-language press.
So this is not our tasting notes. We have not eaten our way round the city and we will not pretend otherwise. What follows is the current scoreboard: who won what, in which year, judged by whom, and the door you walk through to buy it. Every shop below was checked against its own listing and at least two independent reports of the result.
Who actually hands out these titles
Two guilds and one charity do most of the judging, and knowing which is which tells you what a title is worth.
The Gremi de Pastisseria de Barcelona, the pastry guild, runs the national artisan butter croissant championship from its own school in the city. The Gremi de Flequers de Barcelona is the bakers' guild and deals with bread. Panàtics, through its Obra Social Ernest Verdaguer, runs the seasonal routes: the Sant Jordi loaf, the pine-nut panellets and the Kings' cake.
The practical point is that these are trade awards judged by working bakers, not tourist-board picks, and they rotate. The shop that won three years ago is often not the one to beat now.
January: the tortell de Reis
Pastisseria Natcha on Avinguda de Sarrià 45, in Les Corts, took the creative category of Catalonia's tortell de Reis contest in January 2026, the sixth edition, run by Panàtics and judged at the Estació del Nord. The winning tortell was built by Claudio Sannino on a thin croissant pastry, filled with ricotta cream, vanilla and citrus zest, with a mandarin cremeux. The classic category went out of the city, to Can Girabent in Aiguafreda.
Natcha has been in Les Corts since 1958 and is run by Marta Massagué, whose parents opened it. It also took the creative coca de Sant Joan title in 2025, which is a fair signal of where this shop chooses to compete.
April: the pa de Sant Jordi
The pa de Sant Jordi is a loaf striped red and yellow to make the senyera, and it is on sale for roughly a week around 23 April. The 2026 title went to Emili Feliu at Forn Sant Josep, Roger de Llúria 98, in the Dreta de l'Eixample. Thirty-five bakeries entered and twenty made the published route. Judges scored the exterior, the shape, the accuracy of the stripes, the taste, the ingredients and the crumb.
The prize carries an unusual duty: the winner takes their bread to the president of the Generalitat as part of the Sant Jordi offering. Forn Sant Josep has been on that corner since 1913 and is now in its fourth family generation. It opens early, from 6.00 on weekdays, and closes on Sundays.
Third place also stayed in the city, with Xavier Corcelles at Forns La Sitja Providència, Providència 59, in Gràcia.
June: the coca de Sant Joan
The verbena on 23 June is the one night of the year when practically every household buys a coca. The 2026 creative title went to Hofmann, the pastry shop on Carrer dels Flassaders 44 in the Born, for a pistachio and citrus coca. This was the eighth edition of the contest, run for the bakers' guild of the province of Barcelona and judged at the Antiga Fàbrica Estrella Damm.
The traditional categories left Barcelona in 2026. Forn Saga in Granollers took both llardons and cream with pine nuts, the two most-bought versions, Pastisseria Tornés in Girona won traditional fruit, and Forn de Cabrianes took chocolate. If you want the classic llardons coca judged best in Catalonia, you are getting on a train.
October: the croissant
This is the big one, and Barcelona keeps winning it. The Millor Croissant Artesà de Mantega d'Espanya, the national title for the best artisan butter croissant, is judged at the pastry guild's school in the city each October. Entrants must deliver before 11.00 the same morning, so nothing is tasted stale.
The reigning champion is Toni Vera at Pastisseria Canal, which trades as Mervier Canal from Muntaner 566 and Calvet 15. He won the eighteenth edition on 7 October 2025, his fourth title after 2016, 2019 and 2022, from a field of about sixty. The judging panel included chefs from Disfrutar and Alkimia.
The previous holder is Brunells at Carrer de la Princesa 22 in the Born, which won in 2024 under Andreu Sayó, who had also taken the title in 2020. Brunells has been on that corner since 1852, which makes it one of the oldest pastry shops still trading in the city.
One thing worth knowing before you queue: winning this changes a shop's mornings. One past winner told Ara that production went from four thousand croissants a week to seven thousand.
Late October: the panellets
Panellets are the marzipan and pine-nut sweets eaten around Tots Sants, at the start of November. The Panellet d'Or for 2025 went to Enric Faixat at Pastisseria Faixat, Muntaner 159-161, from a field of 65 bakers and pastry chefs on the Panàtics route.
The detail that won it was candied lemon peel, the kind used in Italian panettone, worked into the marzipan. Faixat makes fifteen varieties. The shop traces back to 1929, when it was Pastisseria La Argentina, and Enric Faixat took it over and renamed it in 2011. The silver went to Miquel Maza at Forn Oller, also in Barcelona.
December: the panettone
Panettone is not Catalan, but Barcelona has adopted it hard, and the pastry guild now runs a national contest for it at the Fòrum Gastronòmic. The 2025 classic title went to Pastisseria Oriol Carrió, run by the siblings Oriol and Anna Carrió, the third generation of their family in the trade. More than eighty panettoni were entered, and seven judges scored appearance, shape, bake, crumb, fruit distribution, aroma and flavour. The chocolate category went to Cal Jan.
Carrió has three shops: Bailèn 216, Provença 139 and Comte d'Urgell 75. Note that Canal, the croissant champion, holds a best panettone title of its own from 2024, so the two are worth comparing in the same week.
Before you go
Most family bakeries close on Sunday afternoons, and a good number shut entirely for a fortnight in August, so check before you cross the city for one. A forn is a bread bakery and a pastisseria is a pastry shop, though several of the shops above are formally one and sell plenty of the other.
Ask for the award-winning item by its Catalan name and you will get there faster: croissant de mantega, pa de Sant Jordi, coca de llardons, panellets de pinyons, tortell de Reis.
The seasonal items really are seasonal. Panellets appear for about a fortnight, the pa de Sant Jordi for about a week, and the tortell only around 6 January. Turn up in the wrong month and you get a very good bakery and none of the thing you came for.
If you are building a morning around this, our brunch guide covers where to sit down afterwards, and the tapas cheat sheet handles the other end of the day.
When this page goes out of date
The croissant final runs in October, so the champion named here stands until the nineteenth edition is judged. The Sant Jordi, coca and tortell titles were all decided in 2026 and hold for the year. The panellet and panettone results are from 2025 and will be re-run this autumn. We check this page against the published results after each final.
