El Celler (*) Girona, Spain

For those not interested in the details, the quick summary of this place is: mediocre food, repetitive flavors, and below average service for a 3 starred Michelin restaurant, served one member of our party a piece of ceramic (choking hazard) and did not adequately remediate the issue, and gave 3 of 6 of our party members stomach problems after dinner. Save your money and a trip to Girona if you're going from Barcelona and go to Cocina Hermanos Torres, a restaurant that truly lives up to the 3 Michelin star reputation.

Here is the detailed account of our experience at El Celler:

I dined at this restaurant with a party of 6 on the 20th of May. One of the people in my party had the misfortune of finding shards of what appeared to be ceramic from one of the plates as she was eating. She found them while eating the food and had to spit them out and place the pieces on the side. She notified the waiter that picked up the plates about the pieces of ceramic, and unfortunately, only received a "sorry for that" as a reply, with no other gesture of apology provided by anyone else the rest of the night.

Given their reputation as a 3 Michelin starred restaurant, not only is the presence of the ceramic pieces in the food appalling, but the nonchalant attitude towards the incident afterward was extremely disappointing. While we certainly did not expect the restaurant to compensate her meal, a small token or gesture in the form of a small discount, free beverage, replacement plate, anything, would have been greatly appreciated. This is far from what we expect from a Michelin establishment given our experience at a variety of other restaurants of similar caliber we have dined at, and cannot overstate how alarming it is that a choking hazard can make it past quality control and nothing is done to repair the situation even after politely bringing it to the staff's attention.

The dessert part of the meal was fun and delicious, which was about the only highlight of the evening.

Below are other details where El Celler completely missed:

• Bread taken away from one of our party members without asking if they were done
• No folding or replacement of napkins when someone left their seat
• Being rushed at the end of dinner for seemingly no reason as there were other patrons eating that we could see and working through dessert courses we had already finished
• Not asked to check in a coat, and instead given a random chair next to our table to throw our stuff on it
• Uncomfortably warm temperature
• Not everyone having their chair pulled out and pushed in
• Seeing other people just standing around and not escorting our party to the bathroom or being helpful in other ways
• Gave 3 of 6 members of our party stomach aches and loose bowels after dinner

Admittedly, some of the above can sound nitpicky, however, this meal stands in a stark contrast to a meal we had the very next day at another 3 Michelin star restaurant, Cocina Hermanos Torres. Better in every way, they outclassed El Celler and provided food and service above and beyond what I've come to expect. Every single issue I had with El Celler was not present at Hermanos Torres, and did the opposite of what El Celler did to make our experience comfortable and exceptional.

You might also be wondering if I tried providing feedback to El Celler on this. I did, and not because they requested it via an email follow up like I have seen other restaurants do, rather, through the contact email on their website that same night. No response from them yet, which doesn't surprise me considering the apathy demonstrated during our dinner.