Barcelona, Spain

Casa Sagnier

Price per night from$264.90

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR244.85), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

An architect’s dream

Setting

Modernista Eixample

The former family home and studio of prolific Modernista architect Enric Sagnier, the eponymous Casa Sagnier cuts a stately figure on Rambla de Catalunya, all wrought-iron balconies and ornamental Gothic parapets. Inside, parquet floors, statement rugs and cane furniture lend bedrooms a polished, modern feel, the cod cheeks and Catalan stew at Café de l’Arquitecte are clinchers, and there’s a leafy rooftop terrace with loungers for sunseeking and sundowners. Exit into Eixample to spot further grandiose Sagnier designs, including monumental Casa Garriga and the stained glass windows and neo-gothic turrets of Cases Pons, as well as several flamboyant confections by Sagnier's more famous contemporary, Gaudí.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A bottle of cava on arrival

Facilities

Photos Casa Sagnier facilities

Need to know

Rooms

51, including six suites.

Check–Out

12 noon, but flexible, subject to availability (charges may apply). Check-in is 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £230.79 (€269), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €6.88 per person per night on check-in.

More details

Rates usually exclude breakfast.

Also

A contemporary of the mighty Gaudí himself, Modernisme pioneer Enric Sagnier is responsible for as many as four or five hundred buildings in Barcelona. The majority of these can be found in and around Eixample, including Casa Sagnier, built in 1892 as his family home and studio.

At the hotel

Restaurant, wellness area, free WiFi. In rooms: minibar, Nespresso coffee machine and kettle, satellite TV, Natura Bissé toiletries.

Our favourite rooms

Guestrooms are contemporary in style, with light parquet flooring and sleek, Scandinavian-style furniture. The top-floor Superior Deluxe Terrace is hard to beat, with its separate sitting area and terrace with ornate wrought-iron balcony overlooking the top of buzzing Rambla de Catalunya. There’s even a decadent outdoor shower, for exhibitionists seeking to cool off in the heat.

Spa

Massage treatments can be organised on request and, if the Barcelona sun isn’t hot enough for you, there’s always the Casa Sagnier sauna. 24/7 access to the fitness centre means you can work on those abs and quads while everyone else sleeps off the sangria.

Packing tips

Nearby Passeig de Gràcia has been described as the most expensive street in Barcelona thanks to a proliferation of designer brands that includes Cartier, Chanel, Rolex and Prada. Planning to splurge? Bring your own spare suitcase to fill rather than allowing yourself to be tempted by that eye-wateringly expensive Louis Vuitton trolley bag.

Children

This is an adults-only stay.

Food and Drink

Photos Casa Sagnier food and drink

Top Table

Grab a comfy banquette for an intimate evening of tapas and cocktails.

Dress Code

Keep it cool and casual with open collars and floaty dresses.

Hotel restaurant

Like much of the rest of the hotel, El Café de l’Arquitecte pays considerable homage to the building’s creator, including walls adorned with photographs and other ephemera from the Sagnier family archive. Ceiling fans whirr overhead, gently stirring the leaves of the large potted plants, and murals brighten the walls. It’s a cosmopolitan space: relaxed café by day and chic bar and restaurant by night, serving up cocktails, draught Spanish beers and Mediterranean dishes including burrata with tomato, basil and olives, and grilled hake with piquillo pepper sauce.

Hotel bar

Barstools line the bar in the hotel’s smart restaurant, where draught beers and a wide selection of wines and cocktails are the order of the day.

Last orders

The café is open throughout the day, from breakfast and brunch through to lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.

Room service

Available round the clock.

Location

Photos Casa Sagnier location
Address
Casa Sagnier
Rambla de Catalunya, 104
Barcelona
08008
Spain

Set on Rambla de Catalunya in Barcelona’s fashionable Eixample district, Casa Sagnier occupies an ornate townhouse that’s within walking distance of the Sagrada Familia and Gothic Quarter.

Planes

Barcelona-El Prat Airport is around 30 minutes’ drive from the hotel, and somewhat longer if caught in rush-hour traffic. The hotel can organise private transfers at a cost of around €100, or taxis are available at the airport.

Trains

Diagonal metro station is just around the corner on Passeig de Gràcia, with connections to destinations and attractions across the city. Its punctual services and air-conditioned carriages make it near-essential for sightseeing in the hot Barcelona summer.

Automobiles

Driving in Barcelona can be frightening and frustrating at the best of times, but seasoned drivers may enjoy the challenge. Cars are available for hire at the airport and Casa Sagnier has an arrangement with a local parking garage 100 metres from the hotel. However, the comprehensive metro, bus and tram network means you really don’t need your own wheels.

Worth getting out of bed for

Aficionados of fine architecture will find much to enjoy both in and out of Casa Sagnier. Eixample’s many (ahem) examples of art nouveau design and Catalan modernism include several Gaudí masterpieces, chief among them the curvaceous Casa Batlló on nearby Passeig de Gràcia. This hallucinatory edifice, with its bone-like exterior, creepy skull-mask balconies and shimmering blue-and-green-tiled facade (assumed to represent the skin of a dragon) is 100 per cent certified bonkers.

There’s a great deal more fine architecture to ogle along this fine Parisian-style boulevard, as well as credit card-melting boutiques from the likes of Massimo Dutti, Stella McCartney, Chanel and Gucci. Head to Mercat de la Concepció, a cavernous indoor food and flower market built in 1888, where the heady scents of fresh blooms and rustic bloomers may send you into a further spending frenzy. Drown your financial sorrows with a quick cava in one of the market’s smattering of bars. If you’re still in the market for a Gaudí fix, big hitters including the Sagrada Familia and Parc Güell are both a manageable walk (or easy air-conditioned metro ride) from here. Who knows: it may all start to make perfect sense after that second bottle of fizz.

The Gothic Quarter east of Las Ramblas promises much adventure. Lose yourself in its labyrinthine lanes, where secret courtyards, blind alleys and further architectural feats await. A baker’s dozen of resident white geese haunt the cloisters of Barcelona Cathedral, an elaborate, gargoyle-toting confection that gives the Sagrada Familia a decent run for its money.

Spend some time hanging out on Carrer d'Avinyó where Picasso’s fledgling career first took wing, then pop over to the nearby Picasso Museum, which houses a collection of more than 4,000 of his works – including many early pieces – within five adjoining mediaeval palaces. Decadent much?

Local restaurants

If fine art and mind-boggling feats of architectural design have whet your appetite for yet more artistic triumphs, look no further than Disfrutar, a multi award-winning restaurant located opposite Mercado del Ninot in Eixample. Here, a light-filled dining room serves as the gallery in which dishes are first displayed… then devoured. These include a Picasso-esque multi-spherical pesto with smoked eel and pistachios, deliciously fluffy deep-fried panchino buns filled with sour cream and caviar, and frozen lychee served on a rose petal bejewelled with droplets of gin. The word ‘disfrutar’ translates as ‘enjoy’, but with more than 25 courses on the basic tasting menu it’s possible you may also ‘explode’.

Its location along Passatge de la Concepció (less than a minute’s stumble from the hotel) gives you free reign to dive into Pur’s exhaustive wine list. Pair a citrusy verdejo with fish dishes served au naturel, without the need for overbearing sauces: think grilled Cantabria anchovies served with tomato bread and tuna tataki with fresh summer salad. A robust red like tempranillo marries well with the meat options, which include suckling lamb ribs and bone marrow with steak tartare. Look out for the feature wall festooned with stark 3-D plaster-mould imprints of fish, squid, shrimps and more.

Local cafés

Between Las Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter, you’ll find Carrer de Petritxol, an impossibly narrow lane lined with chocolate emporia hawking cocoa-based edibles (and drinkables) in formats Willy Wonka could only dream of. The reassuringly old-school Granja Dulcinea has remained largely unchanged for nearly 100 years and was once a favourite hangout of Salvador Dalí. Drop by to sample their all-conquering churros and hot chocolate. 

Nearby Granja M. Viader dates back further still, to 1870, and can lay similar claim to some of the best desserts in town. Step into its old-fashioned dining room, all tiled floors, marble-topped tables and wooden chairs, and order their signature suis: molten chocolate topped with whipped cream and sweet sponge fingers for dipping. If it’s good enough for the Surrealists…

Local bars

Designed by Gaudí contemporary Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the Hotel Casa Fuster is a Modernista masterpiece and star of the show at the north end of Passeig de Gràcia. Head to its top-floor Mirador Terrace for sundowners and views of the Sagrada Familia and Tibidabo mountain, or chill out in louche Café Vienés downstairs, where grand Grecian columns, decadent cocktails and occasional live jazz set the scene.

Over in the Gothic Quarter, Las Cuevas de los Rajahs is just made for late-night cocktails. Descend the narrow staircase to a grotto-like space where candles flicker against stone walls and order up a fruity Pretty in Pisco or dark rum and espresso-infused What’s Kraken. Renegotiating the stairs may prove something of a challenge afterwards, but a quick sharpener as you bid farewell at the upstairs bar should see you right again.

Reviews

Photos Casa Sagnier reviews
Cassia Geller

Anonymous review

By Cassia Geller, Features editor

I don’t know if it speaks to a wider problem – the decline of literally everything, say – or just a decline in my social standing, but it’s been a worryingly long time since I had a proper hotel welcome.

I mean any combination of, although not limited to, welcome drink, welcome snack, White Lotus-style garland, hot towel, fruit bowl, or handwritten hello, I’m easy. (These are the things I bemoan from the pub, like some sort of cast-out courtier.)

But it seems at Casa Sagnier my stock is up. Our welcome to the townhouse-turned-five-star-hotel is proper, properly generous and gratifyingly multifaceted.

We arrive, rudely early, sweaty from Barcelona-Sants station. No hay problema, come to the terrace for a welcome drink and tapa of melt-in-the mouth jamón.

It’s the perfect pause to take in Casa Sagnier’s surroundings on the Rambla de Catalunya – the buzzy central vein that runs through Barcelona, becoming La Rambla and, eventually, the sea. It’s a superb spot, central but not too central, in L’Eixample district: south of hipsterish Gràcia and its bar-filled plazas, north of the Gothic Quarter.

Drifting into siesta hour(s) on a sunny Saturday afternoon in October, L’Eixample is elegant but easy-going. Well-groomed dogs and people pass by us at a paseo pace as we ease into Spanish time under the umbrellas of Cafè de l'Arquitecte, the hotel’s restaurant, and the occasional architectural tour stops outside.

They’re here, of course, for Casa Sagnier, former family home and studio of the prolific Modernist architect, which he built and named Casa Dolors Vidal de Sagnier in homage to his wife. I mention this pointedly to Mr Smith who says something about those bookshelves he built. Hmph.

Back to Casa Sagnier. Its six floors honour their architect, with playful nods to his work – subtle references to blueprints, rulers – without feeling museum-y. It’s dark and stylish, at once warmly welcoming and smart, with wood-panelled and open-fired areas, topped by a glorious, sunny roof terrace and honesty bar (with – hello – honesty crisps).

But that’s not the best terrace at this address. Oh no. The best terrace, IMHO, just so happens to be the private rooftop terrace – boasting all-day Spanish sun, day-beds, a rain shower, and lush planting, six floors up from Rambla de Catalunya – through the double doors of our deluxe terrace room. Could there be a more privileged spot in all of Catalunya? I think not.

And inside that room – complete with ginormous (that’s a luxury term) bed and sleek stone bathroom – is the hotel welcome I’ve been waiting for: overflowing fruit bowl, bottle of organic fizz, chocolate truffles and a handwritten note. Barcelona, I’m back.

I send a terrace picture to the Geller family chat. Dad: ‘Claim it in our name *pirate flag emoji*’. Say no more padre.

Full disclosure: despite last passing through Barcelona seven years ago on a hellish journey home from Ibiza, Mr Smith and I have been talking up moving here with increasing seriousness. We’re here, in part, to try the city on.

So we hit the town. First, we head south to Nova Icària beach for a euphoric swim in the golden hour sun (‘In October! Imagine!’ we exclaim at each other more times than is strictly fine), then to a chiringuito for sangria and tortillas.

We watch OAPs do the traditional Sardana dance outside the cathedral, circling their handbags – and envision our retirement.

We do some required reading: Tóibín’s Homage to Barcelona, plus two pages of Simone de Beauvoir in Spanish I buy optimistically.

We do much required drinking: vermut, cold cañas and cava.

And much more required eating: glorious breakfasts at Sagnier (hotel fans, rejoice: the breakfast buffet is back. This one is worth getting dressed for); plates of pintxos in Poble-sec; lobster croquetas, seafood rice and three desserts at Bar Cañete; and, at Sagnier’s charming Cafè de l’Arquitecte, oysters and anchovies, saffron sea bass, melting lamb shoulder (which ex-vegan Mr Smith demolishes), a fig salad so nice we order it twice, and a divine deconstructed tiramisu situation.

And we walk – redemptively far. Up through Gaudí’s Park Güell, down to Ciutadella Park. Through the tall, dark streets of Raval, to Gràcia for sundowners in Plaça del Sol, past Poble’s vibey bars, and back through Barceloneta for another swim on another gloriously sunny October afternoon.

And when we’re done walking and swimming and eating and drinking, we retreat to Casa Sagnier, in the middle of it all.

Because it really is a retreat – less like a hotel (although the breakfast buffet, waffle robes and wider-than-six-foot-five-Mr-Smith-is-long bed will reassure you of its luxury creds) and more like an excellent members’ club.

Or, better, like we’re house guests of an eye-wateringly wealthy, benevolent, but largely absent, host with impeccable taste and most amiable staff, inviting us to make ourselves at home in his city centre palacio. How kind.

It's here that we spend our best Barcelona moments, lording over our new home from the terrace, suspended between the starry sky and the Rambla de Catalunya, as the street chatter, guitar and clink of glasses mingle at a polite distance below.

Then it’s just one more blissful big-bed sleep, one more brilliant breakfast, and one more fleeting scheme of squatting – so lovely and homey and ours it feels – before we head back to the station via a Gaudí (and a Gaudí crowdy), content that at least if we leave, there’ll be another Sagnier-grade hotel welcome next time. Hasta pronto.

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Price per night from $264.90