The 91-room founding flagship of Almanac Hotels, opened 2017 on Gran Via in the heart of the Eixample. Virens by Rodrigo de la Calle holds one Michelin star; the rooftop pool is a Sagrada Família-line-of-sight property.
"The most disciplined contemporary five-star to open in Barcelona this decade. No façade gimmicks, no scenery shortcuts — just 91 rooms, a Michelin-starred plant-based restaurant on the ground floor, and a rooftop pool aimed at the Sagrada Família."
Almanac Barcelona opened in October 2017 at Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 619-621, on the corner with Rambla de Catalunya, as the founding property of the privately held Almanac Hotels group. The building is a contemporary new-build by the Catalan studio Capella García Arquitectura, completed on a parcel left from the demolition of mid-century office blocks; the façade is a restrained limestone-and-bronze grid that matches the height and rhythm of the surrounding Eixample without imitating its Modernist neighbours. The interior is by Lázaro Rosa-Violán Studio (the Catalan firm subsequently retained for Almanac Vienna 2023 and Almanac Madrid 2025), in a palette of dark woods, brass, and Catalan-quarried marbles.
The 91 rooms (including 25 suites) are split across nine floors above the public spaces. The starting Almanac Room is 32 square metres — large for the contemporary Barcelona five-star — and rises to the 152-square-metre Almanac Penthouse, which has a private 30-square-metre terrace facing the Sagrada Família on the eastern roofline. Rooms on the Gran Via side have small Juliet balconies; rooms on the inner courtyard are quieter and run cooler in summer. Bathrooms are a single category across all rooms — Carrara marble, freestanding bathtubs, walk-in rain showers — a deliberate refusal of the bathroom-tier-by-room-category logic that competitors use to justify upsells.
Virens — the ground-floor restaurant — has held one Michelin star since 2024 under chef Rodrigo de la Calle, who came from his eponymous one-Michelin restaurant outside Madrid and brought with him the haute-cuisine vegetable cooking he is internationally credited with founding. The menu is plant-led but not strictly vegetarian; the tasting menu runs 14 courses and the eight-seat counter is the most coveted reservation in the Eixample. Líbélo — the cocktail bar adjacent — was opened by Marc Forné, the former bar manager of Paradiso (World's 50 Best Bar in 2022), and runs a botanical cocktail programme priced restrained for the calibre. The Spa & Wellness Centre on the lower ground includes a 14-metre indoor lap pool, hammam, and three treatment rooms.
The rooftop is the property's headline space — the Almanac Bar & Pool — with a 12-metre infinity pool, a small bar, and a terrace running the building's full Gran Via face. The pool faces directly across the Eixample roofline towards the Sagrada Família, with the towers framed by the building's eastern parapet on clear days. Rooftop access is restricted to in-house guests; cocktail service runs from 11am to 11pm in season. Almanac Barcelona has been the founding property's calmest expression — neither the cinematic Almanac Vienna nor the period-grand Almanac Prague, but the most balanced — and the property the wider Almanac group's design language has been calibrated against since.
A Barcelona anniversary at Almanac is the considered choice for couples who would rather book a Michelin-starred dinner downstairs than negotiate a restaurant reservation across the city. Almanac Suites are the central anniversary booking; Penthouse with the Sagrada Família terrace for milestone years. Pre-dinner cocktails at Líbélo, Virens for the meal, the rooftop pool the following morning — every step inside the building.
Honeymooners booking a Catalan first-week chapter find the Almanac one of the better-paced options. The 32-square-metre starting room, the consistent bathroom standard across all categories, the rooftop pool that runs quiet enough in May and September to feel private. The hotel arranges private fittings at the Loewe flagship two blocks away on Passeig de Gràcia.
For Barcelona business stays where the brief is "central, calm, with somewhere to take a client to dinner that does not require leaving the building," the Almanac is the answer. Líbélo is the after-meeting bar; Virens handles the high-stakes dinner; the meeting rooms on the first floor have natural light and break out into a courtyard. Five minutes from Plaça de Catalunya and the major banking towers on Passeig de Gràcia.
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 619-621
08007 Barcelona
Spain
Passeig de Gràcia metro 90 sec; Plaça de Catalunya 5 min walk; Casa Batlló 6 min walk; Sagrada Família 9 min by taxi
91 rooms (incl. 25 suites)
Almanac Rooms from €440/night
Almanac Suites from €780/night
Eixample Suites from €1,200/night
Almanac Penthouse from €2,400/night
Check-in: 3:00 PM
Check-out: 12:00 PM
Opened October 2017; Almanac Hotels group founding property
Lázaro Rosa-Violán Studio interiors
Virens (1 Michelin star, plant-led)
Líbélo Bar (botanical cocktails)
Rooftop pool with Sagrada view
Spa with 14m indoor lap pool
Carrara marble bathrooms in all rooms
Penthouse private terrace
From €440/night. The Penthouse books four to five months ahead for spring and autumn weekends; six months for Mobile World Congress (late February to early March). Virens reservations open 60 days in advance and frequently fill within hours.
Book This Hotel →98 rooms on Passeig de Gràcia by Patricia Urquiola, two-Michelin-star Moments.
The 1860s former Cotton Guild headquarters at Gran Via 670, Autograph Collection.
Domènech i Montaner's 1908 Modernist landmark at the top of Passeig de Gràcia.