Last Saturday I had my first experience at a three star restaurant, that I booked all the way back in August 2024. I have previously only had one two star meal (180 Degrees in Tallinn) and quite a few one star meals.
The day started as almost a complete disaster. We were staying in Barcelona and our local train to Sants got held up quite a bit and we missed the train, so we had no real choice but to get a taxi and take an additional 140 euro hit. Worth it in the end…
There is only one menu now I believe, the feast menu, and we also opted for the wine pairing. There was a lot of food and a lot of wine (including 2 glasses of complimentary sparkling wine before the pairing even started!) so it is going to be dfficult to go into lots of detail about every dish unfortunately. Also, I have a nut allergy, so some of these dishes were amended from the original for me.
Appetisers:
Picture 2: Three-sided consomme with the faces of the three brothers (beef/mushroom/cocoa been infusion). Even though I had seen this picture before, it was still very cool to see this being prepared in-person. It was very enjoyable too!
Picture 3: Summer truffle brioche/sandwich both of these were excellent bites of food. Lots of flavour and a melting feeling in the mouth.
Picture 4: 5 different appetisers at once, the ones furthest to the left were poularde cannelloni and squid and they were 2 of my favourite bites of food from the whole meal. The other dishes included sand eel with bergamot and vegetable sea and mountain.
Not pictured: The olive course (the infamous olive tree which had an olive ice cream + there was also a further olive accompaniment). Funnily enough, I remember having an over the top dislike of olives as a child and have never eaten them as an adult, so this was a moment of personal growth for me to try this course lol. By no means my favourite due to the bitter taste it leaves in your mouth but I actually didn’t mind this at all.
Picture 5: Langoustine, the presentation of this dish is very cool and was matched by the bite of food itself.
Picture 6: I believe this must be octopus civet looking at the menu lol. Enjoyable IIRC but not much else to add.
Picture 7: Moray + Oysters. The moray was good but the oysters were the first miss of the day, and I say this as someone who loves oysters, it was accompanied in cava and unfortunately the cava completely overwhelmed the taste of the oyster.
Picture 8: The wine pairings was underway by now as you can see! This was unfortunately a substitute dish for foie nougat due to the aforementioned allergies, it was also the final appetiser. Unfortunately I can’t remember exactly what it was but it was pleasant enough! I was a bit gutted to miss out on the foie though.
So, onto the mains, the first one was not pictured, but the beetroot part was kind of a miss, I think that is just due to not particularly enjoying the flavour though rather than it being an inherently bad dish.
I had another substitute course after this due to the snow peas having pine nut cream.
Picture 9 was the lettuce course. The one in the middle was easily my favourite, followed by the one on the right and then the left.
The zucchini course is not pictured and was once again substituted due to allergies.
Picture 10 was the sardine which was amended due to containing hazelnuts- this was an excellent piece of fish, the puree did not compliment it super well IMO but there has to be an asterisk there as it was not the original accompaniment.
Picture 11 was the glazed aubergine without the peanut sauce. Not much else to add, it was good but not a stand out dish.
Picture 12 was the hake with leek- again the fish was very well cooked and the leek complimented it quite well.
Picture 13 was the prawn without the almonds veloute, very enjoyable nonetheless though.
Picture 14 continues the sea part of the journey and was the grilled fish of the day (without pine nuts), again this was cooked to an outstanding standard, aside from the oyster all the seafood dishes were very good.
The surf and turf is unfortunately not pictured! Picture 15 was the guinea fowl which was very enjoyable, as you can probably tell the wine pairing had started to catch up with me by this point so it is difficult to give more complex analysis…
Picture 16 was the final main, the duck, and the coconut, signalling the end of the mains and the start of the desserts. Again, both very enjoyable.
Picture 17 I just took because it was a slightly surreal method of presentation, all part of the fun.
Pictures 18-19 were the confit/strawberries & cream respectively. The desserts as a whole were enjoyable but not the strongest part of the meal.
The final picture was the coffee to finish which was very enjoyable and a great way to finish the meal in a separate room, and yes I got a Baileys with it to end the meal!
Some final thoughts:
I didn’t really go over the wine pairing at all but for a 3 star michelin meal it is outstanding value at 160 euros, you get 19 small glasses overall (the equivalent to about a bottle and a half), with lots of Spanish wines but also some French and Italian ones and possibly a couple of other countries I have not remembered. All the wine complimented the food very well. I never usually go with the wine pairing but it felt like an absolute must here as part of the experience, unless you are a non-drinker.
The service was extremely professional and the meal was brilliantly choreographed, things were explained in quite a lot of detail and a great deal of dishes had a story behind them. Chef Joan greeted us at the start of the meal as well.
All in all I had a brilliant afternoon and it was definitely the best dining experience I have had. It was such a well executed meal and it really felt like the pinnacle of fine dining, with the cooking perhaps being more traditional than some of the more “innovative” three star meals, but also some surrealist bits mixed in like the VR towards the end. I think aside from the oyster dish there is very little I would criticise and I think at under 500 euros per person it is reasonable value for money on a special occasion as well. This feels a little harsh but what I would add is that whilst almost all the food was very enjoyable, I wouldn’t say they were any mains that were mindblowingly good, although the seafood/fish courses were definitely the highlight. I will go with a well earned 9.5/10 overall and describe it as the ultimate professionals meal.
musicman1980
We are going on Saturday for lunch. It will be our first Michelin starred experience. To say we are excited would be an understatement!
cabeerman
Still the best meal / wine lunch I’ve ever had by far, across any Michelin meal. Glad it’s still delivering.
NYnosher
We went to El Celler nearly a year ago and had an amazing experience as well. We did it back to back with Disfrutar (dinner at Disfrutar, followed by lunch the next day at Celler) and it was probably the most insane 24 hours of eating I’ll ever experience
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Last Saturday I had my first experience at a three star restaurant, that I booked all the way back in August 2024. I have previously only had one two star meal (180 Degrees in Tallinn) and quite a few one star meals.
The day started as almost a complete disaster. We were staying in Barcelona and our local train to Sants got held up quite a bit and we missed the train, so we had no real choice but to get a taxi and take an additional 140 euro hit. Worth it in the end…
There is only one menu now I believe, the feast menu, and we also opted for the wine pairing. There was a lot of food and a lot of wine (including 2 glasses of complimentary sparkling wine before the pairing even started!) so it is going to be dfficult to go into lots of detail about every dish unfortunately. Also, I have a nut allergy, so some of these dishes were amended from the original for me.
Appetisers:
Picture 2: Three-sided consomme with the faces of the three brothers (beef/mushroom/cocoa been infusion). Even though I had seen this picture before, it was still very cool to see this being prepared in-person. It was very enjoyable too!
Picture 3: Summer truffle brioche/sandwich both of these were excellent bites of food. Lots of flavour and a melting feeling in the mouth.
Picture 4: 5 different appetisers at once, the ones furthest to the left were poularde cannelloni and squid and they were 2 of my favourite bites of food from the whole meal. The other dishes included sand eel with bergamot and vegetable sea and mountain.
Not pictured: The olive course (the infamous olive tree which had an olive ice cream + there was also a further olive accompaniment). Funnily enough, I remember having an over the top dislike of olives as a child and have never eaten them as an adult, so this was a moment of personal growth for me to try this course lol. By no means my favourite due to the bitter taste it leaves in your mouth but I actually didn’t mind this at all.
Picture 5: Langoustine, the presentation of this dish is very cool and was matched by the bite of food itself.
Picture 6: I believe this must be octopus civet looking at the menu lol. Enjoyable IIRC but not much else to add.
Picture 7: Moray + Oysters. The moray was good but the oysters were the first miss of the day, and I say this as someone who loves oysters, it was accompanied in cava and unfortunately the cava completely overwhelmed the taste of the oyster.
Picture 8: The wine pairings was underway by now as you can see! This was unfortunately a substitute dish for foie nougat due to the aforementioned allergies, it was also the final appetiser. Unfortunately I can’t remember exactly what it was but it was pleasant enough! I was a bit gutted to miss out on the foie though.
So, onto the mains, the first one was not pictured, but the beetroot part was kind of a miss, I think that is just due to not particularly enjoying the flavour though rather than it being an inherently bad dish.
I had another substitute course after this due to the snow peas having pine nut cream.
Picture 9 was the lettuce course. The one in the middle was easily my favourite, followed by the one on the right and then the left.
The zucchini course is not pictured and was once again substituted due to allergies.
Picture 10 was the sardine which was amended due to containing hazelnuts- this was an excellent piece of fish, the puree did not compliment it super well IMO but there has to be an asterisk there as it was not the original accompaniment.
Picture 11 was the glazed aubergine without the peanut sauce. Not much else to add, it was good but not a stand out dish.
Picture 12 was the hake with leek- again the fish was very well cooked and the leek complimented it quite well.
Picture 13 was the prawn without the almonds veloute, very enjoyable nonetheless though.
Picture 14 continues the sea part of the journey and was the grilled fish of the day (without pine nuts), again this was cooked to an outstanding standard, aside from the oyster all the seafood dishes were very good.
The surf and turf is unfortunately not pictured! Picture 15 was the guinea fowl which was very enjoyable, as you can probably tell the wine pairing had started to catch up with me by this point so it is difficult to give more complex analysis…
Picture 16 was the final main, the duck, and the coconut, signalling the end of the mains and the start of the desserts. Again, both very enjoyable.
Picture 17 I just took because it was a slightly surreal method of presentation, all part of the fun.
Pictures 18-19 were the confit/strawberries & cream respectively. The desserts as a whole were enjoyable but not the strongest part of the meal.
The final picture was the coffee to finish which was very enjoyable and a great way to finish the meal in a separate room, and yes I got a Baileys with it to end the meal!
Some final thoughts:
I didn’t really go over the wine pairing at all but for a 3 star michelin meal it is outstanding value at 160 euros, you get 19 small glasses overall (the equivalent to about a bottle and a half), with lots of Spanish wines but also some French and Italian ones and possibly a couple of other countries I have not remembered. All the wine complimented the food very well. I never usually go with the wine pairing but it felt like an absolute must here as part of the experience, unless you are a non-drinker.
The service was extremely professional and the meal was brilliantly choreographed, things were explained in quite a lot of detail and a great deal of dishes had a story behind them. Chef Joan greeted us at the start of the meal as well.
All in all I had a brilliant afternoon and it was definitely the best dining experience I have had. It was such a well executed meal and it really felt like the pinnacle of fine dining, with the cooking perhaps being more traditional than some of the more “innovative” three star meals, but also some surrealist bits mixed in like the VR towards the end. I think aside from the oyster dish there is very little I would criticise and I think at under 500 euros per person it is reasonable value for money on a special occasion as well. This feels a little harsh but what I would add is that whilst almost all the food was very enjoyable, I wouldn’t say they were any mains that were mindblowingly good, although the seafood/fish courses were definitely the highlight. I will go with a well earned 9.5/10 overall and describe it as the ultimate professionals meal.
We are going on Saturday for lunch. It will be our first Michelin starred experience. To say we are excited would be an understatement!
Still the best meal / wine lunch I’ve ever had by far, across any Michelin meal. Glad it’s still delivering.
We went to El Celler nearly a year ago and had an amazing experience as well. We did it back to back with Disfrutar (dinner at Disfrutar, followed by lunch the next day at Celler) and it was probably the most insane 24 hours of eating I’ll ever experience
The menu is in English? That’s weird