ECHO Restaurant

Let’s be honest about Diagonal Mar. It’s not the Barcelona of your romantic, postcard-fueled fantasies. There are no crumbling Gothic stones here, no narrow alleys smelling of damp earth and history. This is the new Barcelona—a landscape of glass, steel, wind-swept plazas, and the kind of architecture that looks like it was designed by a computer that’s never felt the sun. It’s a world of convention centers, shopping malls, and business travelers wearing lanyards like tribal jewelry. In this high-gloss purgatory, finding a meal that doesn't come out of a deep-fryer or a pre-packaged plastic wrap can feel like a desperate search for water in a desert.\n\nEnter ECHO. Tucked inside the Hotel SB Diagonal Zero, right across from the massive CCIB convention center, ECHO stands for Ecological, Contemporary, Healthy, and Organic. Usually, when I see an acronym like that, I want to run for the nearest dive bar and order a double bourbon. It smells of marketing meetings and focus groups. But here’s the thing: ECHO actually manages to deliver something real in a neighborhood that often feels artificial. It’s a Mediterranean restaurant that understands its audience—people who are tired, hungry, and looking for a clean, well-lighted place to eat something that tastes like it actually came from the earth.\n\nThe room is all high ceilings and glass, a minimalist stage that reflects the corporate surroundings, but the kitchen is doing the heavy lifting. Start with the beef carpaccio. It’s a protein rush to the cortex, sliced thin enough to be translucent, hit with the sharp, salty bite of parmesan and a drizzle of oil that hasn't been sitting in a plastic jug for six months. It’s simple, it’s clean, and it works. Then there’s the cuttlefish—the sépia. In this part of town, you expect something rubbery and sad. Instead, you get a plate that’s been kissed by the plancha, served with that aggressive, unapologetic hit of garlic and parsley that reminds you, despite the skyscrapers outside, you are still very much in Spain. It’s the kind of dish that leaves you with garlic breath for the next three meetings, and frankly, that’s a small price to pay for a moment of culinary honesty.