Mirazur 20th Anniversary Collab with El Bulli

As I only heard about the collaboration with Ferran Adria via this subreddit, I thought it’s only fair to share our experience. It’s was not marketed as a four hands dinner but Mirazur invited Ferran to curate and help develop the anniversary menu.

For people who have reservations and want to be surprised: spoiler alert !

The experience was structured in separate acts. It started with a welcome drink and a short guided tour through the exhibition they prepared for the 20th anniversary.

Welcome

The first welcome snack/drink was an El Bulli classic and Ferran Adrià’s take on a dry martini:

• **Spherified olive + martini spray** — you eat the olive and follow up with sprays of vermouth from a bottle. Fun start to the experience.

Exhibition

Mirazur created a small museum about its history, the creation of the menu, and the approach they took towards coming up with a 20th anniversary menu.

As the exhibit is in French, one of the chefs guided us through the exhibition and explained the exhibits and the process. If you’ve read What Is Cooking: The Action: Cooking, The Result: Cuisine, you’ll recognise some of the process and approach. Quite a few of the exhibition pieces about the more general approach are borrowed from El Bulli.

Different from El Bulli or Disfrutar, Mirazur does not have a history of meticulously cataloguing and archiving menus, nor a long tradition of signature dishes that stay on the menu at all times. So part of the preparation for the menu involved hunting down old reviews and blog posts about Mirazur that had photos, to track down what Mirazur used to look and taste like 20 years ago.

As they wanted to do a more extensive menu than the usual 9 course menu they offer, they tried to reduce the amount of gluten and carbs as much as possible to be able to serve more courses without diners feeling too full midway through.

Part of this exhibition was also another welcome drink:

• **Champagne served from a rose** — you pick the rose from a flower wall after which it’s filled with champagne. I will never get bored of champagne.

Flowers (Terrace)

The next act was set around flowers and served on a terrace overlooking the gardens and the Côte d’Azur.

• **Génépi cocktail**— cocktail made from alpine flower, solidified with liquid nitrogen, cool presentation

We were then asked if we wanted to have some more champagne, with two options presented. Apologies if I don’t remember exactly what the options were, but the cheaper one was about €20 per glass and the more expensive option was €60 per glass and from 2006, the “birthday” of Mirazur.

Next snacks:

• **White caviar, savoury meringue, garlic flowers** — excellent

• **Hazelnut goat cheese and violet** — equally great

Cuisine (Kitchen Counter)

Oysters, two ways:

Served at the kitchen counter with a view of the sea. Chef Mauro came to greet us and accompanied this act.

• **Oyster without oyster** — recreating the flavour of an oyster with a sage leaf and a few droplets of something (pulling a blank), followed by a shot that was slightly salty. It accomplished what it set out to do — if I had my eyes closed, I would have been sure that this was an oyster.

• **Real oyster with foam** (don’t remember exactly what it was) — great

You also get a small illustration that shows we’re all the seafood comes from in terms of distance to Mirazur and distance to the sea level.

A fun continuation of the experience. My wife is not a fan of oysters and actually enjoyed this take on them more than any we’ve had so far, which is high praise.

Ode to Nature (Main Dining Room)

Moving on to the main dining room, which also has a fantastic view of the Mediterranean. Love the architecture.

• **Asparagus salad** (green apple, artichoke?, fennel?, flowers) — great, every bite tasted different

• **Beetroot with caviar** — fantastic: earthiness, nuttiness, subtle sea notes

• **Peas, kiwi, vanilla, green apple** — very unusual combination but worked great

• **Charred beans** — more legumes; very tasty

• **Tarte artichoke** (reimagined as taco) — fantastic, lighter version of their signature dish, now I really want to try the original

Japan

• **Poutine caviar** (with baby anchovies) — visually stunning, very intense salty sea flavour a bit too salty for my taste; served with a baby anchovy cracker (looked great, but a bit too dry/chewy and not that interesting taste-wise)

• **Quisquillas** (blue shrimp: fried head, raw brain + eggs, body) — eat one combined and one in parts; great texture differences and quite sweet

• **Shiokara + fossilised squid** — squid in ink was great (hints of yuzu); fried element less interesting

• **Nanakusa-no-sekku** (7 herbs on a cracker, served on origami with a poem) — great taste

• **Sea urchin ravioli** — creamy, sweet, with a nice umami/briny undertone; excellent uni

Mediterranean

• **Foie gras marinated in anchovy salt**, glazed with caramelised (forgot what) — homage to salt smuggling (they used to hide salt I kegs that were topped with anchovies); transforming foie gras into an anchovy in form, texture and taste. I found it slightly too subtle, but others loved it

• **Pine chawanmushi with pine candy** — great idea and execution; The aroma of pine and the taste of pine nuts instantly take me back to summer holidays in the Mediterranean from my childhood, deeply nostalgic.

• **Pigeon and sea cucumbe**r — umami bomb; surprisingly little “sea” flavour and texture wise the sea cucumber was quite similar to mushrooms, if thy had told me that this was pigeon with mushrooms, I would have believed it

• **Tuétano** (bone marrow) with caviar — A homage to El Bulli’s bone marrow with caviar? another umami bomb; reminded me of great ragù alla bolognese but with some nuttiness from the caviar; quite similar to previous dish in terms of the flavour profile

• **Spaghetti eucalyptus, cassis** — like a funky cacio e pepe; interesting but not exceptional

• **Mole** (cacao, chilli, cinnamon) — very good, but relatively classic interpretation compared to other dishes

Citrus / Desserts

• **Sorbet coquillage** (citrus sorbets & granitas in mussel shells + mandarin with sake + forest strawberries) — fantastic

• **Naranjo en fleur** (almond + ? + orange) — great

• **Cotton candy** with yuzu sorbet — great

• **Birthday cake** (lemon) — great lemon tart

Petit fours:

Favourites: olive oil praline, mint, almond

Pairing

We tried both the heritage and the non-alcoholic pairing. Aside from one wine (a red paired with the pasta dish), the wines and non-alcoholic pairings worked very well.

The wine pairing included quite a few 2006 vintages (including champagne), in line with the anniversary theme, as well as a sherry and a sake. Personally, I slightly preferred the non-alcoholic pairing, but I’m not deep into wine, so that might just be my inexperienced palate.

Price

We paid €480 pp for the menu in presale (later increased to ~€520, I think).

Pairings:

• Heritage: €350

• 2006-only: €750

• Grand crus / rare vintages: €950

• Non-alcoholic: €250

Sharing a pairing was no problem.

Service

Exceptional at the beginning, with some minor hiccups once the restaurant was at full capacity and tables were at different stages of the tasting menu.

Overall Experience

A very fun evening and definitely worth the price of admission. Mirazur has a great sense of place. A large part of the ingredients come from their own gardens and from the Mediterranean, which you see throughout the experience.

The dishes centered around vegetables, citrus and flowers were the starts of the show for me. After Mil only the second restaurant I’ve been to where I would not hesitate to order a vegetarian menu. Found the Japan and Mediterranean sequences slightly weaker, as some of the flavour combinations felt a bit less surprising, but that’s complaining at a very high level. With 25+ dishes/snacks/cocktails, you can’t expect everything to match your personal taste.

It doesn’t dethrone Jordnær as my favourite tasting menu or Mil as my favourite overall experience, but I think it’s not far behind and I liked this slightly more than Disfrutar (classic menu, living table) in terms of the overall experience. Would definitely come back for their normal menu.