Places To Stay In Barcelona: Hotel Casa Sagnier

After we gave what I’d describe as a ‘luxury budget’ hotel a spin our first night in Barcelona in the form of Motel One, and a couple of nights in an ibis chosen because it was near the racetrack for the Formula 1 (aside from this proximity the best otherwise that can be said about it was that it was clean!) as you can imaging J and I were very much looking forward to our final hotel which, being a lovely little boutique hotel in a historic building was much more our speed: Hotel Casa Sagnier.


Quite a small hotel (aside from the rooms you’ve got a lobby lounge that doubles as the restaurant, a bar cafe that is open to the public, the restaurant seating across the street which is again a public space, a gym, sauna and a private rooftop terrace) it is however in an excellent location for exploring the city on Rambla de Catalunya, the slightly quieter and much glossier street atop the bustling La Rambala.
And, from £240 a night, believe it or not compared to other five star hotels in the middle of Barcelona, and even four star ones with the same level of finish (I would call this quite a paired down five star hotel) it’s actually much better value on what you could be spending. Barcelona is very expensive!




They’ve got a good mix of rooms from cosy inside rooms, to several room levels with their own private balconies, but to be honest I’d not plump for one unless you’re staying there for at least a week. We visited Barcelona in June, so into the tourist season and it was so hot I really only wanted to be outside once back at the hotel (aka not outside a bar or restaurant with a cold drink in my hand!) at the golden hour, where I happily had the private roof terrace (only for hotel guests) to myself to sit and read before dinner. So, it’s probably not worth upgrading to a balcony for a shorter stay.



We booked into one of their Superior Deluxe rooms, which as well as the bedroom and bathroom came with a small separate seating area which was great both to relax in between exploring and dinner, and for J to take the one Zoom call he could not miss whilst we were away!
It also helped that we could shut the doors to the extra room at night to help keep the sleeping area cooler because even with the blinds drawn it heated the room a little, and I think our only comfort complaint about the hotel was that the air conditioning was set not the go below 19 degrees. I know they do this to try and be kinder to the environment… but for us that’s still a little too warm to sleep!


Otherwise the room was very well appointed with not many complaints! The bed was super big and comfortable, there were plenty of soft fluffy towels (something you notice after staying in an ibis where you only get one small towel, no good if you have long hair you need to dry!), robes and slippers. The mini bar was good on drinks (though had we wanted the snacks they were quite out of date…) and all the soft drinks were free which made a good top up with things like coke on top of the water in the room.
The bathroom also had an excellent shower and very good toiletries: both the refillable local shampoos and shower gels on the wall and plenty of useful little bits like Marvis toothpaste, a good razor and shaving cream, a decent travel toothbrush etc. I always rate hotel bathrooms on if you want to use their toiletries or stick to the ones you brought with you (e.g. you know the ones in Palazzo Feroci in Pisa were good as we’re still using the leftovers as our current travel miniatures!) and you can leave yours in your wash bag at Hotel Casa Sagnier.


A good bar is always important in a good hotel, and at Hotel Casa Sagnier you’ve got two options.
First, that roof terrace I mentioned? Don’t open and pay for the beer in your minibar: on the roof along with more soft drinks and good salted drinks it’s freely available for guests. Or, you could go to the bar downstairs, or across the street to the outdoor seating area. As well as a good wine list, we had some of their drinks before dinner in the hotel restaurant on our first night there and I can confirm they make a good cocktail: get the Barcelona Spritz, pictured above and made with Martini Fiero, St. Germain and Cava.




Speaking of the restaurant, whether you’re staying in the hotel or not we can highly recommend going there for a meal. They’ve got a good mix of modern European and modern Spanish dishes and we were super impressed with everything we had: pictured from left to right we had an excellent sharing starter of charred aubergine with burrata and toasted hazelnuts (get this!), pasta arrabiata with local smoked cheese, slow cooked lamb shoulder with carrot puree, and an excellent fillet steak with an even better slice of pan fried foie gras on the top.

Finally, breakfast at the hotel was rather confounding, because I have no idea if it was included in our room or not. We were not told about breakfast options when the lovely and otherwise really helpful staff (they’re great for recommendations and booking airport transfers) checked us in (and usually even if it’s not included you’re told about it so you can add it to the bill if you want it, right?) so we assumed they did not offer breakfast, because the restaurant in the hotel offered it – this was indeed the case when we stayed at the magnificent Hotel Motto in Vienna last year. So, we had breakfast the morning we wanted it outside across the street and had good coffee and the above excellent avocado toast with fresh tomatoes and the lovely touch of whipped ricotta. But on Instagram, the hotel posted this picture of their breakfast buffet in a part of the hotel I don’t even recognise from our stay, so who knows what our breakfast arrangements were supposed to be??
Regardless of the confusion with breakfast, as a base in Barcelona if you’re a fan of a good boutique hotel you can’t go wrong with Hotel Casa Sagnier. You can check availability and book here.
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