Beloved Fresc Co. Everytime I didn’t want to cook or eat out, I craved Fresc Co, which turned out to be almost every other day. They serve fresh salads, fruits, pasta, nuts, pizza, soups, and more, buffet style! Very vegetarian friendly. Many times, I would fill up during lunch time and just skip dinner; a great value and healthy too! Fresc Co diet= healthy+save money+fun! Sometimes I would even go at 5:50pm, 10 minutes before the cut off for the lunch price, just to save an extra 2 euros! Luckily, I lived right near one, and surprisingly, this is one of the places that will be sorely missed once I return to the states.

Lunch: €7.95
Dinner (from 6pm) and Weekends: €9.70

Check their website for more addresses. I have been to 6 of them!

Entrance to the one I lived near (Gran de Gràcia):

Sometimes the line goes out the door during lunchtime around 2pm.

The start of the all you can eat:

The first thing you do is get a tray, a spoon, a fork, a knife and napkins, and 2 plates. Then you fill the plates up with as much salad/pasta/rice/nuts as you can and top it with their red sauce (like a thousand island sauce) and when the cashier asks “para beber?” tell them what you want to drink, and then pay! Some of my more memorable photos:

My very first trip to Fresc Co, only a few days after arriving in Barcelona, was the one here by the University at c/Ronda Universitat, 29. I saw the sign that said buffet and saw a big line, shrugged, and went in. Who knew I’d be coming back here a hundred times!

My first 2 newbie plates.

Lots of corn and peas!

A slice of mushroom pizza and a scoop of fideua.

The pizza here is almost like the square pizza from back in grade school cafeterias, but not disgusting. Soft thickish chewy crust, just slightly crisp, and lots of cheese on top. Fresc Co usually has one main dish of the day: that day was fideua, little chopped up noodles with paella flavorings. It was actually the first time I had fideua ever!

Soft serve yogurt and chocolate ice cream and a tiny slice of apple pie.

The yogurt ice cream really tastes like plain yogurt! I thought it would taste like frozen yogurt, but it was that sour plain yogurt taste in ice cream form, a little weird to me. The chocolate tastes like chocolate nesquik. The apple pie was decent. I would soon find out how strange Fresc Co’s desserts could be!

A blurry bowl of gazpacho.

Fresc Co serves different soups each day, a lot of fruit soups, gazpacho, and bean or seafood soups. A big stomach filler.

Wheat bread and pasta with tomato sauce and a tiny bit of cheese sauce to try on the side.

After the 2 plates of salad, I always get pasta next and then pizza. They always have tomato sauce, and usually have another cheese or creamy veggie sauce.

It became a habit to visit the big shiny Fresc Co down at the Maremagnum here at the port on Sundays (I know, what a loser! But seriously, nothing else is open on Sundays). The lines are huge and you have to wait up to 30 minutes just to start eating all you can eat.

Big plate of veggies and the tiniest drops of red sauce when I didn’t know what it was.


2nd plate of veggies with corn nuts (i love them!), russian potato salad, and pasta in pesto sauce.


A cup of cafe con leche, and a bit of chocolate coffered coffee cake.
I think my surprise addiction to coffee in Europe actually began in Fresc Co because of the easy access to their coffee machine!

Another fun Sunday at Fresc Co with a silly Chicken.

More on this restaurant: 1 2

This entry was posted by chicken on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 11:34 am and is filed under Barcelona, Gràcia, Vegetarian, Buffet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.