Mont Bar (*) – Barcelona, Spain

My final restaurant visit on my trip to Spain (the others, in order, were El Celler de Can Roca (Girona), SUTO (Barcelona), Cocina Hermanos Torres (Barcelona), and Lasarte (Barcelona)), Mont Bar – like Lasarte – is in the Eixample part of town, a stone's throw from SIPS, a bar that won the World's Best Bar award in 2023, and who have collaborated with Mont Bar here for a rather special cocktail. More on that later, as well as the cocktail tasting menu at SIPS in the post-script.

Mont Bar is the brainchild of Iván Castro, a Catalonian from a small village in Val d'Aran called Mont. Coming from a family of restaurateurs, Castro opened Mont Bar in 2013, and appointed Head Chef Fran Agudo (who had graduated from the same culinary school in Girona as Joan Roca, and worked under him at El Celler de Can Roca before time at Albert Adrià's now closed creative tapas restaurant Tickets) in 2020. Mont Bar has held a Michelin star since 2023.

In terms of service and ambience, Mont Bar punches above one star; servers are chatty and bedecked in suits, tables are interspersed with jutting marble counters where solo diners can enjoy a meal, and music is kept low as there is a decent (but not overwrought) amount of explanation that comes with each dish.

The tasting menu consists of 18 courses (plus petit fours), the first eight of which are snacks, six are savoury, one is a cocktail, and three are desserts. Of the snacks, not one missed the mark, but there were some distinct favourites: the pesto, tomato and mozzarella canapé was like the first bite of a fine Neapolitan pizza, the sea bass ceviche toast had a nice tang imparted by the inclusion of physalis fruit, and the pickled foie gras and crispy brioche had flavour as deep as the deep Atlantic ocean. But the bite I held in deepest devotion was the mochi. That this thing held together is almost miraculous, packed as it was with sobrasada and cheese. But hold together it did, until my teeth pierced the thin dough and the meaty, tangy flavour burst forth. My favourite bite of the meal and of the entire trip.

Moving onto the savoury dishes, the mushroom dish (which was mushroom front to back) and the Turbot with beurre blanc and caviar (nice enough but the sauce could have been taken further) were so-so, whereas everything else was excellent. The tomato dish was sweet and a little spicy, the tuna belly was melt-in-the-mouth delicious, and the pigeon was simple yet refined, the cacao adding a nice depth of flavour.

Then the cocktail, which was both a surprise and a gift. Sweet, salty and peppery (the former due to the cocktail itself, the latter due to the accompanying leaf dotted with several different seasonings), it was an inspired choice to collaborate with SIPS and position this as a segue from savouries to desserts.

The rice sandwich with nori and caviar was light and creamy (barely a hint of umami from the nori), the raspberry and hibiscus dessert was bright and slightly tart, and the fig dessert was lovely to look at but didn't quite achieve a satisfactory balance (flavours were overwhelmed by the powder atop which the fig arrangement sat).

Overall, I am glad I booked into Mont Bar. The majority of the courses left a good impression, with some standouts that were so impressive (the mochi and the cocktail) that – if I try hard enough
– I can recall the flavours of a week later. While not my favourite meal of the trip (but then, it joins some truly esteemed company), it certainly has some of the most memorable dishes. A restaurant deserving of a Michelin star.

Courses:

1. Pesto, tomato and mozzarella canapé (pictured second)
2. Tomato consome and mint
3. Sea bass ceviche toast
4. Sandwich of chicken skin and calamar
5. Vol-au-vent of "quisquilla" shrimp, tosazu and wasabi
6. Crispy brioche, pickled foie gras and onion sablé
7. Wagyu terrine, raifort and foie
8. Mochi of "sobrasada" and Mahón cheese
9. Tomato, wasabi and escabeche
10. Tuna belly with pine nuts emulsion
11. Ceps, mushroom ice cream and miso
12. Turbot a la beurre blanc and caviar
13. Red shrimp, free-range chicken and potato fritters
14. Pigeon cooked two ways and cacao
15. Bombay Premier Cru Mil Fuls by SIPS
16. Rice ice cream sandwich with nori and caviar
17. Raspberry, roses, hibiscus and Kokoro tea
18. Figs, cottage cheese and fig leaves
19. Petits fours

PS. For cocktail lovers that might be thinking of heading to Barcelona, two very well known bars are Paradiso and SIPS, the first winning World's Best Bar in 2022, the latter in 2023. SIPS has a front room (Drinkery House) which serves drinks from a menu, and a back room (Esencia) that requires pre-booking and serves a tasting menu of drinks (10 drinks on the short course, 15 on the long). If you are a cocktail lover or have an interest in Mixology, I highly recommend booking into Esencia for some creations that barely look like cocktails, as well as some pretty stellar highballs and the finest Bloody Mary one could hope for. In addition, a trip to Paradiso is well worth it, especially for the Kryptonite. It is a singular drink.