Sundowner at Set Cadaqués

Category: Food & Wine · Read time: 6 min

An olive tree, the sea, and a very good glass of wine.

There are places you visit, and places that visit you back.

Cadaqués is firmly the latter.

Before we talk about where to drink, we need to talk about where you're drinking in.

Cadaqués is not a typical Costa Brava town. It never has been. Tucked behind the Cape de Creus peninsula — the easternmost point of the Iberian peninsula, geographically isolated enough that until the 1960s it was only reachable by sea or a single vertiginous mountain road — it developed on its own terms, and it shows. The white-washed houses stack up the hillside like a fever dream. The light here is extraordinary — famously so, which is precisely why Salvador Dalí chose Port Lligat, a ten-minute walk from the village centre, as his home and studio for the better part of his life.

Dalí brought with him a particular kind of person. Picasso came. Marcel Duchamp came and stayed so long he learned to play chess in the local café. The poet Federico García Lorca wrote here. Later came the designers, the gallerists, the architects. What Cadaqués had — and has resolutely refused to give up — is a quality of light, a quality of silence, and a quality of crowd that has no equivalent on this coastline.

It still attracts a refined, discerning visitor. The kind who reads the menu before they book the table. The kind who knows the difference between a vi de la terra and a DO Empordà. The kind, in short, who ends up at Set Cadaqués.

The Plaça de Frederic Rahola — the olive tree has been here longer than any of us.

The Building Has its own Biography

Set Cadaqués occupies the ground floor of Can Zendrera, one of the most architecturally significant buildings in the village — listed in the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia. The building sits directly on the seafront promenade, in the Plaça des Portitxó, a beautiful square presided over by a single ancient olive tree.

Its history reads like Cadaqués itself: formerly a place where sardines were salted, it later became the family home of the Zendrera publishing dynasty — the editors who, among other remarkable cultural contributions, brought Tintin to Spain. There is something entirely fitting about a building with that heritage now housing one of the most quietly talked-about bars on the coast.

Set is run by Joan Rodés, a Cadaqués native — and that provenance matters. This is not an imported concept or an outside investor's vision of what a Costa Brava bar should look like. It is the product of someone who grew up here, who understands the quality of light at six in the evening, the temperature of the tramuntana in October, and what it means to build something that genuinely earns its place in the square.

The interior of Set — where the outside always finds a way in.

The Terrace

Let us be direct: the reason to come to Set Cadaqués is the terrace. Specifically, a table on that terrace as the sun begins its slow descent into the bay.

The terrace sits beside the ancient olive tree, facing directly onto the sea — close enough that the line between bar and beach feels almost academic. The Plaça des Portitxó is one of those rare spots where Cadaqués reveals itself entirely: the arc of the bay, the boats at anchor, the white houses shimmering across the water, and above it all, the particular Mediterranean gold that settles here in the hour before dark.

The crowd is effortlessly mixed — locals nursing a second glass, French architects on their annual pilgrimage, young Barcelona families who discovered it last September and have been coming back ever since. Nobody is performing. Nobody is in a hurry. It is, without qualification, one of the finest places to simply be on the entire Costa Brava.

The kind of place where no one is in a hurry — and everyone is exactly where they want to be.

What to Order

The wine and cocktail list is the real star — and rightly so. Set has quietly built a reputation for natural wines and Empordà labels that most bars in the region haven't caught up with yet. Ask what's open. Drink whatever Joan recommends. That is the correct approach.

The food is honest, considered, and deeply Catalan in its references. The tapas are excellent — the artichoke and burrata is a thing of quiet beauty, finished with toasted hazelnuts and a generous pour of local olive oil. The mar i muntanya dishes hold their own, and the daily specials reflect whatever came off the boats that morning. Order those.

And if the sun is out — which in Cadaqués, even in October, it usually is — an Aperol Spritz on the terrace is not a cliché. It is a completely reasonable life decision.

What to order:

• A glass of DO Empordà white — ask for a natural or orange wine if they have one open

• The mar i muntanya tapas if available

• Whatever the daily special is — it will reflect what came off the boats that morning

  
  

A Note on Timing

Set Cadaqués is at its most magical in the shoulder season — April, May, September, October. The summer crowds thin, the light softens, and the terrace feels like it belongs to you. August is glorious but arrive early or book ahead; the square fills fast and the right tables go first.

If you're making a day of it — and you should — arrive in Cadaqués by late morning, walk to Port Lligat to see Dalí's house, meander back through the old town, and let Set Cadaqués catch you on the way back to the car. You will not leave when you planned to. That is entirely the point.

The Details

Address: Pl. des Portitxó, 8, 17488 Cadaqués, Girona Open: Wednesday – Sunday, 12:00 – 23:30 Closed: Monday and Tuesday Reservations: Strongly advised July and August, especially for terrace tables at sunset. Walk-ins welcome in shoulder season. Website: setcadaques.com

Getting there from Tossa de Mar: 1hr 20 min by car via the AP-7 and GI-614. The final mountain stretch into Cadaqués is spectacular — slow down and take it in. There is no train. There is no shortcut. That is entirely the point.

Cadaqués deserves more than a single post. A full guide to the town — where to eat, where to stay, what to see, and which corners to keep quiet about — is coming soon.

In the meantime, if you're staying with us in Tossa de Mar, Cadaqués is an hour and twenty minutes from the apartment. We'll tell you exactly where to park.