In this sense, Pujol has evolved significantly since my first visit in 2010. It is now not only a restaurant that recreates ancient dishes, but a restaurant that pushes Mexican cuisine forward by creating new ones. In the beginning Pujol looked inward at Mexico’s rich culinary history, cataloging, studying, and improving upon very old dishes. Pujol still does this but with more confidence, now looking outward as well, placing one of the oldest cuisines into the context of international dining.

Enrique Olvera’s cuisine is humble; you’ll be hard-pressed to find caviar or foie gras at Pujol, let alone at local fondas throughout the country. I’ve never seen black truffle on the menu although huitlacoche, the mushroom that grows inside corn kernels south of the border, is in abundance. Chef Olvera’s cuisine is local, and that’s likely unintentional: that’s just how things are done in Mexico.

Full disclosure: Having enjoyed Chef Olvera’s food tremendously, I have since been to Pujol nearly twenty times over the past few years, and have come to know him on a personal level. I haven’t seen a bill for my last four meals. After awhile, I suppose Chef Olvera began to wonder why the same pale gringo with a camera kept coming back. The answer is simple: Pujol is one of the most interesting restaurants in the world.

Though the menu changes several times a year, one course that has been served each time I’ve visited is a hollowed out gourd of elotitos tatemados con mayonesa de café y polvo de chicatana, smoked baby corn with coffee mayonnaise dusted in salty ant powder. The subtle acidity from a splash of lime lifts the creamy mayonnaise, while the smoke and ant powder contribute an addictive umami to the otherwise meatless dish. This snack is a tribute to the Mexican street vendors selling corn until the late hours of night.

As the restaurant evolves, simple deconstructions like a quesadilla in a shot glass (2010) are being replaced with more original flavor combinations based on Mexican fundamentals. Take for instance Chef Olvera’s pescado del día en ceniza de cebolla, a lightly seared filet of snook dusted in onion ashes served with a nutty green mole. The green mole lacks any sweetness whatsoever, so the flavor is of pumpkin seeds and savory herbs. What’s fascinating is how the charred onion layer concentrates the flavor of the green mole adding a subtle bitterness, much like how a burnt tortilla tempers a Pueblan or Oaxacan mole’s sweetness. A single thin slice of serrano pepper adds an additional element of spice. This dish rests inside a sweet white onion layer and is eaten with the hands. It would be difficult to think of a more balanced dish.

A staple of Chef Olvera’s cooking has been take a regional street food, study its flavors in depth, and enhance them. This is more than a cosmetic change, e.g., serving a taco on a plate: you won’t be able to find this ingredient quality and attention to flavor elsewhere.

Sopes, a street food from Culiacán, Sinaloa, are ovular sheets of grilled masa traditionally topped with meat, fresh cheese, and acidified cream. In his sope de erizo, Chef Olvera takes this traditional street food and substitues the meat and cream with a thick layer of floral and creamy Ensenada sea urchin roe, brightened with a thin slice of raw onion. The urchin is lightly torched, mimicking the flavor of masa toasted on the comal.

Barbacoa tacos, a central Mexican dish of sheep slow-roasted in deep pits underground, is enhanced at Pujol with an avocado cream, spicy serrano chiles, and a poblano pepper tortilla. The sheep is very carefully slow-roasted for 24-hours producing a succulent, concentrated cut of meat. This is a dish that frankly, is tastier than any street version I’ve had.

If Mexico City had an official dish it would likely be tacos al pastor, the Mexican version of doner kebab kicked up with pineapple and cilantro. Served on rotating spits throughout the city, sheets of pork and pineapple are shaved off in one fell swoop into a corn tortilla. It’s a heavy dish in which the tortillas are sometimes dragged through a layer of dripping pork fat before stuffed with pork. Chef Olvera’s version is clean and lacks visible oil, where pork is replaced with snook.

One of the unique qualities of Mexico is its abundance of unique fruits, vegetables, and herbs that don’t grow elsewhere. To showcase Mexico’s produce, Chef Olvera creates his versions of the Gargouillou. The difference is, unless you’re familiar with Mexican cuisine, you probably haven’t heard of many of the ingredients.

La Milpa, literally translated as “the cornfields,” is the place where the vegetable foundation of Mexican cuisine begins. ” Chef Olvera pays tribute with a wooden slab holding colorful local squash, zucchini blossom, jumiles, pipicha oil, and small tomatoes. Binding the dish together are puréed beans and fresh cheese.

In a minimalist version of the garden dish, ensalada de nopales, Chef Olvera explores acidity and herbal freshness coming from the nopal cactus (served fresh and dehydrated) sweetened with green pea shoots.

Even heavy dishes, such as the Yucatecan bald pig in a pork reduction with bean salsa, are well-balanced in the context of the rest of the meal — rare to find a meat course that doesn’t weigh you down elsewhere. The pork fat contrasts against the splash of lime in the pork reduction and the spice of the yellow chile.

A meal at Pujol is a culinary tour of Mexican cooking with Chef Olvera as your guide. Some of the courses are hundred year old dishes brought up to date, others are creations using Mexico’s ingredients and techniques as a foundation for creating something new.

Mexican cuisine is incredibly regionalized; it’s difficult to find a restaurant that serves fine dining pan-Mexican cuisine without sacrificing quality. There are only a few restaurants that do this. (Two that come to mind in the U.S. are Topolobampo in Chicago, and lately Gran Eléctrica in Brooklyn.) Pujol is one of these restaurants, showing each region of Mexico at its best.

Having trained at the Culinary Institute of America, Chef Olvera also has the outside perspective of his country’s cuisine that is necessary to make it approachable to the rest of the world. He has a unique ability to summarize Mexican cuisine in a handful of courses so that the meal is enjoyed by locals and foreigners alike.

Mexico is a country whose food is often neglected, partly because of the lack of modern chefs creating new dishes and pushing it forward. Enrique Olvera is bringing this cuisine to the international spotlight where it rightfully belongs.

Related Posts:

• Café Passmar
• Pujol
• Favorite Meals of 2011
• Favorite Dishes of 2011
• Frontera Grill

As most baristi will agree, coffee is temperamental.  The hardest part of the extraction process is consistency.  A great espresso comes with no guarantee of one just as good the next. It is imposible to name a single shop with the most consistently good espresso, because there is no such thing as consistently good espresso. It is only possible to share where and when all the variables, ranging from the barista to the weather, aligned to create an incredible extraction.

In this list, I present the top five espresso shots I’ve had this year.

#5 Kafé Esaias, Stockholm, Sweden (Nov 21, 2011 / La Marzocco Strada MP) (Photos)

This shot was pulled from da Matteo‘s Guatemala beans which, while bright, were tempered by the beans’ darker nutty flavors. Barista Charl draws some of the finest latte art I’ve ever seen, from an ornate rosetta to a fish swimming in the ocean.

#4 The Queens Kickshaw, Astoria, NY (May 25, 2011 / La Marzocco Strada MP) (Photos)

This shot was made with Coffee Labs beans from Nayarit, Mexico, full of berry notes with a gentle acidity. The flavor was remarkably like strawberry — add a dash of milk and it would have been strawberries and cream. Owner/Barista Ben Sandler is obsessive with the quality of his espresso, often pulling multiple shots until the extraction is perfect. This was the shop that opened my eyes to the burgeoning culinary scene in Astoria. Go.

#3 Nozy Coffee, Tokyo, Japan (Jan 3, 2011 / Synesso Cyncra)

At Nozy, espresso is pulled from a variety of single origin beans, each generally high in acidity and fruit notes. The shop is located just outside the city center, creating a calmer suburban atmosphere in which to enjoy a cup of coffee. The staff is young, but don’t let that be misleading: they are very experienced. This cafe is a must visit for any coffee lover while in Tokyo.

#2 Bear Pond Espresso, Tokyo, Japan (Jan 2, 2011 / La Marzocco FB80)

Barista Katsu Tanaka has strict guidelines for his espresso. So much so, in fact, that his shop in Shimokitazawa only serves espresso between the hours of 10 and 12pm, when he is personally in house to pull the shot. He has a strong dislike for sourness and shies away from acidity. The result is a thick, chocolately shot with a subtle hint of smoke. His extractions are so viscuous, one could likely turn an espresso cup upside down without any liquid spilling out. A visit to Bear Pond Espresso is worth a trip to Tokyo alone.

#1 Sweetleaf Coffee and Tea, Long Island City, NY (Nov 15, 2011 / La Marzocco Strada EP) (Photos)

Sweetleaf was the first cafe in New York City to receive La Marzocco’s Strada EP, the newest electronic paddle version of its popular Strada series. This machine allows baristi to focus on the myriad other variables of the extraction while the machine handles the pressure profiling automatically. When co-owner Rich Nieto received this machine he said, “all hell broke loose” in learning how to use it. It’s clear that the time and effort the team at Sweetleaf put into mastering this machine has paid off. This was not only my favorite shot of the year, but likely that I’ve ever had. The shot, pulled from Ritual Roaster‘s Volare beans from Guatemala, was extremely balanced, straddling the line between fruit and acidity. The texture was smooth like velvet leaving behind a creamy, buttery mouthfeel. I can’t wait to see what happens in 2012 as Sweetleaf further masters this powerful machine.

Honorable Mentions:

• Blue Bottle Coffee, Williamsburg, New York
• Café Passmar, Mexico City, Mexico
• Johan & Nyström, Stockholm, Sweden
• Ritual Coffee, San Francisco
• Stumptown Coffee, New York

Related Posts:

• The Queens Kickshaw
• Sosta Espresso Bar
• Gocce di Caffè
• Café Passmar
• Bear Pond Espresso

A few events in particular made 2011 one of the most exciting eating years in recent memory. The closing of El Bullí, perhaps the most hyped restaurant of the decade, passed the spotlight to other deserving restaurants like Quique Dacosta and Sant Pau for the first time. Hopefully 2012 will bring these restaurants the international attention they deserve.  Sean Brock continued to promote the incredibly varied and delicious cuisine of the American South, inspiring other American chefs to look into the rustic cuisines of their childhoods and bring them to the dining room. Mexican cuisine started to gain more international attention, led by the refined cooking of chefs like Enrique Olvera. And chefs like Joshua Skenes reminded us that the simple cooking techniques are often the most diffiult, requiring unwavering attention and patience.

Only time will tell how these restaurants develop in 2012. Happy New Year.

Below is a list of my top ten favorite meals from 2011.

#10 Amaranta, Toluca, Mexico (Chef Pablo Salas) (Photos)

An hour west of Mexico city lies the landlocked state of Mexico, home of Toluca-native Chef Pablo Salas. Chef Salas uses ingredients and techniques from his home region to create rustic pan-Mexiquense dishes not typically found elsewhere in Mexico.

#9 Mistral, Stockholm, Sweden (Chef Fredrik Andersson) (Photos)

At Mistral, each course was a minimalist work of art, highlighting the varied scope of flavors and textures found in locally harvested Swedish vegetables. This meal—paired entirely with white wines—was light and fresh, exposing the rich produce available throughout the country. Chef Andersson has a unique understanding of balance, combining different vegetables to create a synergy that makes nature taste its best.

#8 Frantzén/Lindberg, Stockholm, Sweden (Chefs Björn Frantzén and Daniel Lindeberg) (Photos)

This was a meal utilizing traditional cooking techniques to take advantage of Sweden’s finest ingredients. With an emphasis on slow cooking and a blatant obsessiveness over ingredient quality, Chef Björn Frantzén takes exceptional care to enhance each ingredient’s natural flavor. It is only a matter of time before this restaurant receives its third Michelin star.

#7 Sant Pau, Sant Pol de Mar, Spain (Chef Carme Ruscalleda) (Photos)

At Sant Pau, Chef Carme Ruscalleda melds her wild imagination with traditional Catalan cooking to create an experience both unique and inspiring. Her use of color and appreciation for fine art makes her platings some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Most importantly, the cooking was exact and meticulous, with each colorful ingredient contributing to the dish’s flavor as well as creative presentation.

#6 Manresa, Los Gatos, California (Chef David Kinch) (Photos)

With a masterful understanding of ingredient quality and simplicity, Chef David Kinch knows when to step back and let nature speak for itself. My meal here in 2011 was refined and comfortable: this restaurant has really transitioned from a local, neighborhood place to one that deserves a lot more international attention than it’s currently receiving. The restaurant currently has two Michelin stars, but if this isn’t a three star restaurant at this point, I’m not sure what is. In the meantime, now is the perfect time to go; I have a funny suspicion the restaurant is about to get a lot busier.

#5 El Bullí, Roses, Spain (Chef Ferran Adrià) (Photos)

This was a magical meal where the cumulative experience was far greater than each individual course combined. My recent meal emphasized progressions of flavor, where three or four courses in a sequence balanced each other out, rather than the individual components of a dish by itself. The interactivity of the meal was nonpareil, with our table full of fun and excitement at every course.

#4 Pujol, Mexico City, Mexico (Chef Enrique Olvera) (Photos)

Mexico has a rich and varied culinary history that remains relatively unknown outside of the country. What makes Pujol particularly special is how its talented chef, Enrique Olvera, takes traditional nostalgic Mexican dishes, de-constructs, improves, and later re-assembles them for the dining room. Chef Enrique Olvera is at the forefront of exploring and sharing his country’s incredible cuisine with the rest of the world.

#3 Husk, Charleston, South Carolina (Chef Sean Brock) (Photos)

The American South remains full of mystery and legend, with Chef Sean Brock leading a new culinary movement to uncover its past and bring the Southern dishes he grew up with into the dining room. His obsessiveness over ingredient quality and flavor is creating a market for small regional farmers to re-grow ancient grains that haven’t been seen south of the Mason-Dixon line in over a hundred years. 2011 was a very exciting year for American cuisine. If things continue on this path, 2012 will be even more exciting.

#2 Quique Dacosta, Denia, Spain (Chef Quique Dacosta) (Photos)

Quique Dacosta is currently the most exciting restaurant in Spain. My second meal at Quique Dacosta fused the simplicity of local ingredients with highly conceptual, precise cooking of Chef Dacosta that told a cohesive story about the region and its history. This was a beautiful meal full of surprises, both visually, and in terms of flavor.

#1 Saison, San Francisco, California (Chef Joshua Skenes) (Photos)

My meal at Saison took me by surprise. Made as a last-minute, same-day reservation per the recommendation of my friend Chuck, Saison was my favorite meal from 2011. Each course had an element of fire from the outdoor hearth, whether seen in roasted bones used to make a sauce or in a piece a meat being cooked directly over the embers. With a firm understanding of a kind of simplicity that captures the essence of what makes Japanese cuisine so special, Chef Skenes is able to leverage Saison’s hearth to accentuate and broaden the natural flavors of fish and meat without distracting from the ingredients’ natural flavors.

Related Posts:

• Favorite Dishes of 2011
• Pujol Revisited
• Manresa
• Saison
• Sant Pau

For me, 2011 was a year of many discoveries. It was the year I had the realization that Mexico is on par with some of the greatest culinary destinations of the world, including Japan, China, France, and Italy. It was a year where the food scene in Sweden skyrocketed forward and is now on track to catch up with neighboring Denmark. It was also a year where I realized one does not have to travel very far for exceptional eating. Some of the best restaurants are right here in the United States, and San Francisco, Charleston, and Chicago are leading the pack.

This list was inspired by the wonderfully varied posts by my friends Chuck Eats and the Ulterior Epicure, with whom I shared many of the below meals. It was particularly interesting how our varied tastes led to different determinations of favorite dishes of meals we both thought were exceptional.

Of all the places I’ve visited this year, these are the dishes that particularly stood out.

#25 Birria de lengua de res (Birria “el Zalate”, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico) (Photos)

Stewed cow tongue topped with crispy raw onion, cilantro, and finished with a squeeze of lime. The meat so soft it could be eaten with no more than a spoon. The stew was served with corn tortillas.

#24 Espardenyes (Rafa’s, Roses, Spain) (Photos)

When shellfish is this fresh, it rarely needs more than a dash of salt and olive oil to create an outstanding dish. Even though El Bulli is closing, Rafa’s remains one of the most delicious local restaurants in town.

#23 Onion, ricotta, shortbread crumble (Eleven Madison Park, New York) (Photos)

A slowly roasted onion with layers that, when spread open, looked more like a flower than a vegetable. The subtly sweet onion was served with warm ricotta, a crunchy shortbread crumble, and diced pickled onion.

#22 Summer fruits and vegetables (Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, New York) (Photos)

A beautiful slab of garden vegetables, fruits, and herbs that was as fun to eat as it was delicious. Each bite was different was a different combination of flavor and texture that all seemed to work together.

#21 Raw lamb with kale (Mistral, Stockholm, Sweden) (Photos)

Sheets of raw lamb with fried and air-dried chips of crispy kale. As the only meat course during this meal, when taken in context, the flavors were more akin to a fish than a meat. The pairing with this dish was also exceptional, a buttery glass of champagne “comme autrefois.”

#20 Sea urchin, abalone, salmon roe cocktail (Donguri, New York)

A martini glass of abalone, sea urchin, and salmon roe with a light vinaigrette and sprinkled with fresh herbs. With shellfish this fresh, minimal preparation is all that is needed to create an exceptional dish. The only problem with this dish was how quickly it was finished.

#19 Tabacco, funghi porcini, & noci (Il Canto, Siena, Italy) (Photos)

What was once a place where I had one of the worst meals of my life recently served me one of the most hauntingly interesting dishes I’ve had in recent memory. Slices of raw porchini mushroom covered in mushroom dust and raw tobacco. The tobacco-sting somehow made the mushrooms taste sweet. I am now convinced Chef Paolo Lopriore is a genius who is not afraid to take risks, even if it leads to some dishes not sitting well.

#18 Structures of Peach (Schloss Berg, Germany) (Photos)

Chef Christian Bau, at the forefront of the “new German cuisine” movement, has a commanding understanding of textures and complimentary flavors. In this dish, decorated with spheres of different textures and flavors of rose, champagne, and red fruits, everything comes together into a light and fruity dessert lifted with a hint of champagne.

#17 Tomato Velvet Maresme King Prawns (Sant Pau, Sant Pol de Mar, Spain) (Photos)

This dish consisted of prawns just barely cooked sitting atop a carrot-prawn bisque. There was a beautiful vegetal sweetness from the carrots that nicely complimented the prawns. Chef Carme Ruscalleda is truly one of the greatest chefs in Spain whose cuisine will hopefully receive more attention now that neighboring El Bulli has closed.

#16 Cemita de Milanesa (Cemitas Lupita, Cholula, Mexico) (Photos)

Thinly pounded and breaded veal cutlet served with herbaceous pápalo (Bolivian coriander), hand-pulled local quesillo, freshly scooped avocado, sweet and smoky chipotle, and crispy red onions, is drizzled with olive oil and served inside a scooped-out sesame-egg roll. This seemingly simple sandwich, made at a small stand at the back of a hectic market in Cholula, is one of the most complex tasting and delicious sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. This sandwich is worth a trip to Cholula alone.

#15 Pozole de Hongos (Topolobampo, Chicago) (Photos)

This dish showed me that Chef Rick Bayless has a masterful understanding of Mexican sauces and their flavors, and most importantly, his ability to reproduce them in the kitchen. This variation of pozole was one of the best pozole dishes I have ever eaten, with just the right amount of subtle smoky spice dancing on the tongue until the last bite.

#14 Beets cooked over the embers (McCrady’s, Charleston, South Carolina) (Photos)

These beats soaked up the flavors of the fire during the slow roasting which, when combined with the caramelized sugars of the beets, made one of the best tasting beets I’ve ever had.

#13 Caviar and Hazelnut (El Bulli, Roses, Spain) (Photos)

Caviar sitting in a hazelnut cream sitting next to balls of spherified hazelnut in a caviar cream. In this yin-yang of caviar and hazelnut, it was difficult to pick favorites: both sides were exceptional.

#12 Boiled meats … not boiled (Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy) (Photos)

Boiled meats is a particularly nostalgic dish for Chef Massimo Bottura who grew up eating them in his home. As a homage to his roots, chef Bottura created a skyline of different parts of beef and pork sitting behind a vegetal foam made to resemble central park. This New York City tribute was inspired a recent trip.

#11 Vuelve a al vida (MeroToro, Mexico City, Mexico) (Photos)

The former chef of Ensenada’s Laja, Jair Téllez, recently opened a Baja-style seafood restaurant in the heart Mexico City. Despite being in the middle of the country, the fish is unbelievably fresh. This chilled dish, based off the Mexican “return to life” tomato drink known for alleviating hangovers, features chunky stripes of sea urchin and barnacles with cubes of fresh cucumber and flakes of parsley. I could eat this dish all day.

#10 Marinated mackerel and sesame ice cream (La Vie, Osnabrück, Germany) (Photos)

I know I love a meal when I anxiously await the next course. This was the case at La Vie, where I was sitting at the edge of my seat in anticipation. For this appetizer, wedges of mackerel sat next to a subtly sweet sesame ice cream the nutty taste of which still lingers in my mouth. The flavor of sesame really complemented the oily skin of the mackerel. This dish was chilled, fresh, light, and full of flavor.

#9 Sashimi on ice (Kozue, Tokyo)

Few things make me happier than a plate of fresh sashimi. Here, slices of sweet shrimp, red snapper, fatty tuna, fluke, sea urchin, and squid are served on a bed of shaved ice keeping them chilled until the very last minute.

#8 Chocolate (Alinea, Chicago) (Photos)

For this dessert, Chef Achatz stepped out of the kitchen, rolled out a silicon table cloth, and began plating our table with dessert. Before our eyes he created a gorgeous edible painting, splashing sauces of blueberry, chocolate, and caramel. This dish was as delicious as it was interactive and exciting. Chef Achatz is truly thinking outside the box not just for flavor, but also for the dining experience as a whole.

#7 Taquito de barbacoa (Pujol, Mexico City) (Photos)

Choosing favorite dishes from Chef Enrique Olvera’s 2011 menus at Pujol was painfully difficult: there were too many. In this dish, eaten in the fall, slowly roasted pork was laid over a poblano-infused corn tortilla and topped with serrano chile, small dollops of poblano cream, and a smoky and tangy chipotle sauce. With dishes like this, Chef Olvera reminds us that Mexican cuisine should be receiving a lot more attention than it does, and that it has a cultural depth and flavor palate that competes with the greatest cuisines of the world.

#6 Scallop in three servings (Frantzén/Lindeberg, Stockholm, Sweden) (Photos)

With this dish, Chef Björn Frantzén demonstrated his deft understanding of Japanese cuisine and his ability to apply it to Scandinavian ingredients. For the first part, a scallop was cooked in its shell with a lemon sabayon and topped with shaved truffle. Then, the second part was served raw after having been marinated and bound in confit of its roe with a bouillon of dried scallops, algae, and dried girolles. Lastly, for the third serving, the cooking juices were poured into the shell and drank as a soup.

#5 Chile en Nogada (El Mural de los Poblanos, Puebla, Mexico) (Photos)

A breaded poblano pepper stuffed with minced pork, nuts and dried fruits, topped with a chilled walnut cream sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and fresh parsley. August in Puebla is my favorite time of the year: walnut season. It’s the only month of the year when chiles en nogada should be eaten. This dish, created by nuns to represent the colors of the Mexican flag, is truly one of Mexico’s greatest dishes. And El Mural de los Poblanos serves the best version of it I’ve ever tasted.

 #4 Chufas (Quique Dacosta, Spain) (Photos)

Local tigernuts and chocolate-covered foie gras in white truffle cream broth. The dish was spotted with house-infused white truffle oil. The mixture of sweet, salty, and vegetal is what made this dish so interesting. Chef Quique Dacosta’s cuisine is original, spontaneous, and exciting. With this restraint in particularly, it was unbelievably difficult picking a favorite course from my three meals.

#3 Flight of fish (Saison, San Francisco, California) (Photos)

A seemingly simple assortment of sea bream, lobster, pen shell clam, horse mackerel, kindai bluefin tuna belly, amber jack, and striped jack had very complex tastes. The bones of each fish were slowly roasted over Saison’s open hearth and infused into white soy, creating a separate soy sauce for each fish which was discreetely brushed atop. Skene’s “bone sauce” added a depth to each piece of fish without overpowering its delicate natural flavors.

#2 Raw milk panna cotta, Monterey bay abalone (Manresa, Los Gatos, California) (Photos)

A warm panna cotta topped with an abalone gelée, sprinkled with fresh abalone. The creamy, milky panna cotta was a brilliant accompaniment that brought everything together without distracting from the subtle flavor of the abalone. This understated dish was full of the flavor of the deep sea.

#1 Smoked trout rib (Husk, South Carolina) (Photos)

An impromptu dish Chef Sean Brock contrived, made from parts of a fish ordinarily considered scrap, turned out to be my favorite bite of the year. The smoky meat of the trout hugged its thick plank of spine: we had to work for the delicious meat. The sweetness of the barbecue glaze in combination with the subtle smoke made this finger-licking dish my favorite of 2011.

Related Posts:

• Favorite Meals of 2011
• Pujol Revisited
• Manresa
• Saison
• Frontera Grill

It was four years since my last visit to the French Laundry. Since then, Chef de Cuisine Corey Lee left and opened San Francisco’s Benu, with Timothy Hollingsworth taking his place. It’s an interesting situation being the chef de cuisine at a restaurant of this caliber where the executive chef no longer cooks. On the one hand it’s an incredible opportunity for a chef to propel his career, but unfortunately, the dishes still have to further the concepts and passions set forth by someone else: Thomas Keller.

Sometimes there’s synergy between an executive chef and a chef de cuisine, and at other times, a discontinuity. While I’ve never been lucky enough to eat dishes prepared by Thomas Keller, Chef Hollingsworth comes close to what I’d imagine chef Keller’s cooking to be: precise and composed. My last meal was delicious, but it felt sterile and soulless. This time around it was better: there were glimpses into chef Hollingsworth’s inspirations.

This was my first time at French Laundry for lunch service, and the dining room felt very different. Candle light was replaced by bright sunlight pouring in through the windows. The mood was more casual, the ambience lighter and more approachable. It felt less intense.

Our meal started with an iPad, holding an electronic copy of the restaurant’s wine list. Having simply heard that the restaurant handed iPads to diners to choose their wines I might have thought it was gimmicky, but it was actually really helpful. For the first time I could search through a wine menu and filter by the grapes I liked.

Our meal started with a glass of champagne and some small snacks.

Warm gougères - Piping hot puff pastries of cheese, with a generous helping of salt to really focus the flavor.

Salmon cornets – “Grab a cornet and eat it in two bites,” our waiter instructed us. There’s a reason these black sesame cones filled with salmon, dill, and red onion crème fraîche are always on the menu: they’re delicious.

Oysters and Pearls - A sabayon of pearl tapioca with Island Creek oysters and a generous dollop of white sturgeon caviar. This is a very rich dish that is unbelievable every time. My friend the ulterior epicure likens the texture of the sabayon to “warm mayonaise.” While he has a point about the dish’s creaminess, for me the refreshing brininess of the caviar really helps cut through the fatty mouthfeel of the butter. The 3-bite portioning also helps, although I would have no problem eating three of these. This course remains one of my favorites of Thomas Keller.

Royal Ossetra Caviar, Compressed Summer Melon, Nasturtium and Black Pepper Crème Fraîche – This was a dish that was far prettier than it was tasty. In fact, it looked like the ingredients were chosen for their aesthetic value rather than their flavor: what did the mealy flavors of the flowers contribute to the dish? The melon helped bring out the minerality of the caviar, but everything else on the plate was mere decoration, or at least I didn’t get it.

Moulard Duck Foie Gras “En Terrine,” French Laundry Garden Strawberries, Cucumber, Young Coconut and Greek Basil – This was the first time I didn’t like one of The French Laundry or Per Se’s foie gras dishes. This was really disappointing. The golden, buttered brioche was warm, rich, and perfect — it was even replaced half-way through the course. But the liver itself was flavorless tasting like dense whipped cream. The basil seeds looked great on the plate, but they really didn’t add anything to this dish either. The two supplemental courses I was the most excited for: the ossetra caviar and the foie gras, were the most disappointing of the afternoon.

A little bit down from the previous two courses, we splurged and ordered a white burgundy, a 2006 Puligny-Montrachet 1re Cru Les Folatières. This was a younger sister of one of my favorite white burgundies, one that we ordered at El Bullí in 2010. Its flavor was of apricot and honey. This marked the point where our meal took a turn for the better.

Spanish Mackerel “En Escabèche,” Heirloom Tomatoes, Crispy Artichokes, Mizuna and Pine Nut Vinaigrette – A bowl of mackerel and colored vegetables. The strength of the mackerel helped it stand up to the fried artichokes. This was a dish about textures, every bite was a different combination of crunchy and smooth. I thought this course was brilliant.

Atlantic Cod “Confit à la Minute,” Summer Squash, Toybox Tomatoes, Parsley and Sweet Garlic Cream - A large filet of atlantic cod wrapped in squash with tomatoes and garlic cream. The cod itself was pretty flavorless, but the squash helped add a bit of vegetal flavor and texture. The tomatoes added a hint of acidity. This dish was about everything except the fish.

Sweet Butter-Poached Maine Lobster Tail, Fennel Bulb, Mission Fig, Marcona Almonds and Aged Balsamic Vinegar – Supple chunks of sweet lobster claw over sweet corn with fig. The real highlight of this dish was the crunch of the sweet corn with the richness of the salty butter. The lobster claws were a bonus. The fennel and marcona almonds didn’t add much to this dish, but the corn and lobster was so fantastic I really enjoyed this course.

Devil’s Gulch Ranch “Épaule de Lapin,” Black Eyed Peas, Arrowleaf Spinach, Glazed Bing Cherry and Black Truffle-Maple Jus - Making the transition from fish to meat came a small rabbit loin  glazed in a black truffle and maple jus. This was a heartier dish served in a small portion which left us wanting more. This was a great course.

Smoked Liberty Farm Pekin Duck Breast, Royal Blenheim Apricot Purée, Romano Beans, Mustard Frills and Turnip “‘Mostarda” - Thin slices of thick-skinned duck with a fruity apricot purée to contrast against the duck’s fat. I would have liked that the skin be a little bit crispier to give some textural contrast, but the doneness was perfect — almost like a piece of lean tuna. Really liked this course.

Snake River Farms “Calotte de Bœuf Grillée,” Dill Pasta, Red Beets, Horseradish Mousse, Roasted Shallot and “Sauce Borscht” – A gorgeous, beet-read cut of grilled beef served over a “borscht” sauce. The acidity from the vinegar in the sauce really made this dish, cutting through the fatty mouthfeel of the beautifully marbleized meat. The beef was uniformly rare with a paper thin crispy surface from where it touched the grill that gave it just a hint of char. This was a great dish.

Before the cheese course and desserts, we stepped onto the patio and took a 45-minute break. The weather was absolutely perfect.

“Comté Reserve,” Eggplant, Sultana Raisins, Marcona Almonds, Frisée and Red Snapper Essence – For this composed cheese course, slices of 24-month aged comté were wedged between small eggplant and patches of frisée. I love comté; I really didn’t understand everything else on the plate. It just seemed arbitrary. Call me a purist, but I like comté by itself.

“Caramélia Chocolate “Crèmeux,” Gros Michel Banana, Georgia Peanuts, “Dentelle” and Salted Popcorn Ice Cream – A cylinder of sweet milk chocolate mousse contrasted against salty popcorn ice cream and caramel. This was a great dessert, really a balance of sweet and savory. The peanuts and crispy caramel layer added a textural contrast making this one of the few chocolate desserts I have enjoyed.

“Nectarine Melba,” Sicilian Pistachio “Pain de Gênes,” Andante Dairy Yogurt, “Biscotti,” and Raspberry Sorbet – A delicate pistachio cake crowned with slices of ripe nectarine. To the side was a biscotti crumble and a raspberry sorbet. This dessert was fruity, sweet, and full of color.

Coffee and Doughnuts - A Thomas Keller signature: cinnamon-sugared doughnut holes with a “cappuccino semi-freddo.” This dessert is always available at both Per Se and The French Laundry and with good reason: it’s one of the best. Simple balls of deep-fried dough coated in in cinnamon and sugar.

After coffee & doughnuts, we ordered some real coffee. Too bad there were no more doughnuts.

Mignardises – A selection of chocolates: (clockwise) olive oil, meyer lemon, peanut butter and jelly, michigan cherry, hazelnut, and ginger.

At the end of the meal we took a walk into the kitchen where Chef Hollingsworth and team were preparing for dinner service. The tone in the kitchen was remarkable: no yelling or shouting, everything was in order and the staff focused, calm, and collected. It felt like an operating room in its precision with Chef Hollingsworth its chief surgeon.

Would I go back? Absolutely. Chef Hollingsworth made the French Laundry worth re-visiting. But right now, it would be mostly for the experience, the service, and the way the restaurant allows diners to spend a relaxing meal with friends. The service is flawless, the wine list nonpareil, and the Napa valley gorgeous. The meal was good — better than my experiences under chef Corey Lee, but it still lacked that spark that I can only imagine existed when chef Keller was in the kitchen. As Chef Hollingsworth grows, he’ll be able to direct more of the restaurant’s culinary vision, hopefully pouring some of his own passion into the cuisine.

Open thoughts:

• How has the French Laundry changed since Thomas Keller stopped cooking?
• What are some differences you’ve noticed between chefs Corey Lee and Timothy Hollingsworth?
• How does chef Corey Lee’s cuisine at Benu compare to his cuisine at The French Laundry?
• Is it necessary for a restaurant to convey time and place?

Related Posts:

• The French Laundry
• Manresa
• Saison
• L2O
• Alinea Revisited

My journey at The French Laundry began with a trip through the garden. With an hour to spare before our reservation, we explored the autumn-colored late-season tomatoes practically falling off their vines in ripeness. I turned to my left and noticed, in shock, a farmer pruning the vines and discarding these perfect tomatoes. “We’re clearing the vines out today, want some tomatoes?” he asked. That may have been the fasted I’d ever ran looking for a bag; as I knew, The French Laundry grows and has access to some of the finest ingredients in the world.

During the first decade of the restaurant’s operation, Chef Thomas Keller melded California’s impeccable ingredient quality with innovative fine dining. The restaurant has won numerous awards and accolades, arguably making it the most famous restaurant in the country. We hoped to find the same inspiration that made the restaurant famous now that chef Keller is no longer in the kitchen. Our meal overall tasted very good, but it felt uninspired.

I loaded up three shopping bags with the freshest and sweetest tomatoes I’d ever seen. Onlookers thought I had a bit too much to drink, ravaging the tomato vines in a suit with a garbage bag. These three hefty bags of heirloom tomatoes made it to my car, back to my hotel, and on the plane with me to New York the following day. You should have seen the faces of TSA as bags of tomatoes passed through the X-Ray machines.

We brushed the dirt off our shoes and walked across the street to the restaurant.

Our table was a quiet one on the first floor in the corner of a hundred-year old house. The dining room was dimly lit and romantic with nothing but whispers and the clanking of utensils and glassware to be heard. We ordered a glass of champagne and settled in for our first course.

Gruyère gougères – Warm cheese puffs piped with Mornay sauce. These were generously salted and went nicely with a crisp glass of champagne.

Salmon cornets – Small cones of raw salmon tartar in a sesame tuile with sweet red onion crème fraîche. Our waiter asked us to pick a cone from the specially made holder; we ate it in our hand like a savory ice cream cone. These cones were outstanding, a balance of a sweet nutty tuile with fatty salmon and light vegetal crème fraîche.

Soupe de musquée de provence with kakai pumpkin seeds - A thick, creamy pumpkin soup with crunchy bits of pumpkin seeds. The flavor of the soup was earthy and rich. I liked the idea of a textural contrast, but the hard, shiny surface of the pumpkin seeds made for too stark of a contrast; the broth just slid off the sides without integrating.

Paired with a Schramsberg Vineyards, “J. Schram,” California, 1999

Oysters and Pearls – A sabayon of pearl tapioca with beau soleil oysters and white sturgeon caviar. This Thomas Keller classic is always on the menu at both Per Se and The French Laundry. This incredibly rich, buttery hollandaise-like sauce works great with the cold briny caviar and plump oysters. The remarkable thing about this dish is that it is always identical. After having this dish about a dozen times now between Per Se and The French Laundry, I don’t think I have ever noticed a difference. It is always a great way to begin a meal.

Sashimi of pacific kahala – Thin slices of Applewood smoked kahala served with blis maple syrup. Our waiter brought us a covered glass with thin cuts of kahala, and when the cover was lifted a small cloud of Applewood smoke was released. This was a dish where the puff of smoke smelled better than the fish tasted, or did not taste for that matter. The fish was relatively flavorless by itself. A dash of soy sauce may have helped to extract some of the flavors.

White truffle custard - Served in an egg shell with a ragoût of Perigord white truffle. This wasn’t a very fragrant dish despite the inclusion of white truffles, instead, the truffle added a mushroom-like earthiness to the custard that was addictive. After three bites the egg was hollow; we wanted more.

I generally don’t comment on wine pairings because I think they’re more about the experience of drinking wine with friends than enhancing the flavor of each course. However, this is one of the two best wine pairings I have ever had. The sweetness of the fruity, fortified wine really contrasted against the salty, earthiness of the truffles. The net effect was a stronger truffle flavor, as if eating this dish through a magnifying glass. The sommelier should win an award for this combination.

Paired with a Barbeito, Sercial, Madeira, Portugal 1978

Air-cured wagyu with 100-year-old balsamic vinegar - Thin, translucent slices of heavily marbleized wagyu beef garnished with arugula leaves, toasted pine nuts, and sweet, syrupy aged vinegar. This was the oldest vinegar I had ever tasted. I can only imagine the size of the original barrel. (I’ve heard rumors that 500L reduces to 1L in 75 years.) This was a composed meat course that I really enjoyed; the air drying of the fatty beef really helped to concentrate its flavor while reducing the fatty feeling in the mouth. That being said, I couldn’t help but notice a glaring sterility on the plate. The modernization of such a rustic dish somehow made it seem less appealing.

Paired with Naia, Verdejo, “Naiades,” Rueda, Spain, 2005

The French Laundry had held off on bread service due to our request for an extended tasting. But how can one say no to a buttery, shiny, caramel-colored bread such as this?

Hand-cut tagliatelle – Served with parmigiano reggiano and shaved burgundy white truffles. This was the highlight course of the night, and likely of all the meals I’ve had at Thomas Keller restaurants. This dish was straightforward and delicious: flour, egg, butter, parmigiano-reggiano cheese, white truffles, salt, and pepper. That’s it. The white truffles were unbelievably fragrant. This dish is proof that simple is sometimes better.

Paired with a Tor, Chardonnay, “Durell Vineyard,” Sonoma, 2004

Columbia river sturgeon confit à la minute – Served with potato rissolée, english cucumber, pickled pearl onions, sorrel, salmon roe, and dill crème fraîche. I love fish; it’s my favorite food. But a 6-bite chunk of white fish in the middle of an extended tasting, especially after a shaved white truffle course, is just boring. The best part of this dish was everything around the fish, the way the pickled onion interacted with the salmon roe and fruit. A good dish on its own, the river sturgeon was a let down after some of the other courses.

Paired with a Schloss Gobelsburg, “Renner,” Grüner Veltliner, Kamptal, Austria 2005

Sweet butter-poached Maine lobster mitts - Served over sautéed foie gras, hazelnuts, sunchoke purée, and a coffee-chocolate emulsion. This was another incredible dish, a surf and turf of lobster and foie gras. The liver was creamy, buttery, sweet while the lobster well-salted and also buttery. The coffee-chocolate emulsion gave off a slight bitterness which made the foie taste even sweeter (much in the same way that grapefruit can enhance foie gras’s sweetness as well). The ground roasted hazelnuts added a perfect textural contrast against the soft meats. This was a delicious, decadent course.

Paired with a Spencer Roloson, Viognier, “Noble Vineyard,” Knights Valley, 2005

The lobster and foie gras was also served with a selection of six different salts: sal gris, fleur de sel, black lava, himalayan, and local salts. It was fun to try the different salts, each with varying salinity and minerality. Our waiter left the salt tray on the table for us to enjoy with bread service.

Scottish red-legged partridge - Served with glazed chestnuts, caramelized splendor apples and spiced bread purée. I loved how the salty, crispy skin really brought out the flavor of the partridge. I really liked this course, but again, something about the course felt very sterile.

Paired with a Brewer Clifton, Pinot Noir, “Rio Vista,” Santa Rita Hills, 2005

Rib-eye of Elysian Fields farm lamb “plat de côte braisée” - Served with toasted pearl barley, niçoise olives, sweet peppers, and baby artichokes. This course was proportionally inconsistent with the other courses: 10-bites of meat in a tasting of this size induces palate fatigue. The meat itself was cooked very nicely with a uniform doneness throughout the interior and a lightly singed caramel skin. The meat was juicy and earthy, indicative of the cattle’s grass diet. This dish would have worked much better as part of an à la carte menu, but it weighed down the meal and was overshadowed by the tagliatelle and foie gras – lobster dishes.

Paired with Ridge, “Home Ranch,” Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot / Petit Verdot, Santa Cruz Mountains 2002

Tomme brûlée - Torched sheep’s milk cheese with a gratin of broccolini and sauce mornay. Both Per Se and French Laundry serve a cheese course but it’s always composed, usually paired with cooked or raw vegetables. This cheese from France’s Basque region was earthy and nutty. There was nothing particularly wrong with this course, but I’m a simple guy: I like my cheese, and a lot of it, by itself. Heck, I don’t even put it on bread.

Persian lime sorbet - A light citrus sorbet served with coconut granité. This refreshing course cleansed the palate, especially the oils from the warm cheese from the composed cheese course.

Coffee and Doughnuts - A Thomas Keller signature: cinnamon-sugared doughnuts with a “cappuccino semi-freddo.” Like oysters and pearls, the kitchens of Per Se and The French Laundry have the production of this dish down to a science. It is always consistent, always delicious. The cappuccino semi-freddo had a texture of a pot de crème with a fluffy mouse up top. It had the distinct taste of coffee without having much of the oxidized flavor coffee-flavored products sometimes have. Its sweetness was just right. This was delicious. The doughnuts were served hot.

Paired with a Domaine Fontanel, Rivesaltes Ambré, 1997

S’mores - Peanut butter parfait, caramel délice and sauce à la Guimauve flambée. The best part of this dessert was the salted peanut butter with its brittle-like sandiness. This dish was a bit of a stretch from a s’more, perhaps the connection is the “guimauve flambée” or burnt marshmallow.

Paired with a Kiralyudvar, Tokaji, “Cuvee Ilona,” Hungary, 2001

Mignardises - We finished the meal with a parade of sweets including marzipan, pumpkin pâtes de fruit, and small macarons.

Then came a vanilla bean pot de crème with a thin layer of sweet strawberry preserve at the bottom.

Last, a selection of chocolate truffles. These truffles were absolutely delicious, but at this point in the meal I was very full. I wish I could have put a few of them in a box to bring home.

I enjoyed the meal. There was nothing particularly wrong with it. In fact, it was technically flawless and well-executed. The ingredient quality was impeccable. The service was some of the best I’ve experienced in a restaurant. Given the lengths we’d travelled to eat here, our waiter made us comfortable and kept us laughing throughout the evening. The sommelier was incredible. But something still felt like something was missing.

I couldn’t put my finger on it until a few days after, at which point the problem with the meal became quite obvious and glaring: there wasn’t much character.  While this works for dishes that never change, like oysters and pearls, the salmon cornets, and coffee and doughnuts, once the assembly line went off track everything else felt impersonal and disconnected: like a museum tour of what fine dining should be, disconnected from time and place.

Would I go back? Absolutely. But I’d be driven more by the romantic idea of eating in Napa in an old house with friends over a long dinner with great wine. The restaurant does one seating for lunch and one for dinner, so diners are almost never rushed. After the meal the courtyard is open to continue the conversation, lasting long into the night. The French Laundry, for me, is more about the experience than it is the food, and while that’s not something I look for in a restaurant, there are times when the experience is what’s important.

Open thoughts:

• Must Thomas Keller to be in the kitchen to maintain the same quality of food?
• How important is the non-food experience when factoring in enjoyment of a meal?
• Is soul a prerequisite for good food?
• How much freedom is Corey Lee given to explore his own concepts?

Related Posts:

• The French Laundry Revisited
• L2O
• Alinea Revisited
• Alinea
• Sant Pau

I have since been back half a dozen times, each time a completely different menu and experience. Each meal has been progressively better. The ever evolving cuisine reveals a chef with tremendous versatility, precision, and passion. For these reasons, I believe Chef Kinch is currently the best chef in America.

In person, chef Kinch is soft-spoken and humble, rarely talking about himself or his current inspirations. The best way to understand chef Kinch is to understand his food. This is what makes each visit to Manresa special: each meal is a speechless conversation with chef Kinch, and he has a lot to say. During my first few visits, his food spoke of recent trips to France, revealing inspiration from Alain Passard and Michel Bras. He returned obsessed with vegetables, forging a partnership with Cynthia Sandberg of Love Apple Farms. More recently, his food spoke of visits to Tokyo and Kyoto: walks through tsukiji market and kaiseki meals at Koju. While chef Kinch’s cooking is enjoyed by everyone, it speaks even louder to diners who have eaten in Paris and Tokyo. David Kinch is a foodie’s chef.

One of the things I most admire about chef Kinch is his disregard for culinary politicking. Like Quique Dacosta of Spain, his cooking style reflects his current passions, regardless of what’s en vogue. Noma‘s ascension to the top of Pellegrino’s best restaurants list has not affected Kinch’s food in the slightest. This is a breath of fresh air. He’s a no-nonsense culinary rebel.

Manresa, named after the small Spanish north west of Barcelona, is about an hour south of San Francisco. A winding path leads from a quiet street to the restaurant. After passing the reception desk, the newly added modern dining room hangs left while the original dining room remains off to the right.

Black olive madeleines and roasted bell pepper pâtes de fruits – Our meal started with a Manresa staple, a cake-like madeline of black olive and a sugar-coated jelly of roasted red bell pepper. These two vegetal snacks, disguised as sweets, hint at the restaurant’s deep connection to local produce. It’s hard to describe these as delicious, but there is an addictive quality to them.

Roquefort cheese sablé – A crispy, salty, cheesy snack that really complimented the crisp green apple from our champagne.

Paired with N.V. Diebolt-Vallois Champagne Blanc de Blanc Brut à Cramant

Garden beignets, crispy kale, vinegar powder - Warm beignets counterbalanced with the subtle acidity of the vinegar powder. The crispy kale added a vegetal bitterness. This was a small arrangement of textures all held together by the leafy green taste of the garden.

An elemental oyster - A local oyster lightly poached in its own shell, topped with an ocean water gelée, and a sprinkle of nori flakes. The oyster was impeccably fresh — sweet and briny — and the subtle poaching enhance the oyster’s natural sweetness. The ocean water gelée extended the texture of the oyster making it taste twice the size. The umami of the dried seaweed enhanced the shellfish’s natural flavors.

Paired with Hangar One Kaffir Lime Vodka

This pairing with the vodka was too intense for me. While the vodka did have a clean taste and a pleasant citrus component from the kaffir lime, the burn of the alcohol distracted from the delicate flavors of the oyster.

Fig leaf curd, coriander granita, marcona almond, strawberry gazpacho - Wow. This was summer in a bowl. A rich lather of chilled strawberry gazpacho was poured into an herbal, ice cold coriander granita. This was an exceptionally fragrant and balanced dish highlighting the fresh produce of late summer.

 Japanese sardines with beets, watermelon, radish, and a garden sorrel sauce - A small sardine carried by the fresh vegetal bitterness of the chilled sorrel sauce. The sweet chunks of compressed watermelon and beets added a hint of sugar to an otherwise savory dish. This was a minimalist dish exemplifying how the freshness of raw vegetables can enhance the freshness of the sea. A simple dish with little cooking, where chef Kinch took a step back and let the natural ingredients speak for themselves.

Raw milk panna cotta, Monterey bay abalone and an abalone-dashi gelée - This was an exceptional dish, one that demonstrated chef Kinch’s deep understanding of Japanese cuisine and simplicity, and how to apply those techniques with local ingredients. With a texture like chawanmushi, room temperature raw-milk panna cotta formed the base of this dish. The panna cotta was covered with a thin layer of transparent abalone gelée.  The gelée was delicately salted and dotted with chunks of warm, meaty abalone. This was one of the most memorable dishes I’ve tasted this year.

Albacore tuna, runner beans, crispy bean shell bouillon, lemon verbena, olive oil - This was chef Kinch’s sashimi course in a traditional kaiseki sequence. The tuna was lean but still buttery with an herbal note that grounded the dish to California.

Razor clams – A small bowl of razor clams with wild rice, chrysanthemum and roast chicken gelée, topped with fennel fronds. This was another incredible dish. Chewy, plump grains of wild rice topped with chunks of razor clam whose meaty flavor was enhanced by the roast chicken gelée. The chrysanthemum and fennel fronds added an anise-like herbal dimension that kept each bite interesting. This was a dish that took me back to the rice courses from some of my favorite kaiseki experiences in Japan.

Paired with a 2007 Izadi Viura from Rioja

A summer tidal pool - A David Kinch classic, a dish that has taken on various forms over the years. This was the best version yet. Chunks of Monterey bay abalone, sea urchin, foie gras, local spot prawn, and hinoki mushroom swimming in a beautifully salted dashi broth. It was as if chef Kinch took a list of my favorite Japanese ingredients and combined them into one dish. This was a simple dish with a very complex flavor; sweet sea urchin and prawns, buttery foie gras, meaty abalone and earthy hinoki combined into a broth of absolute perfection. This is a dish where chef Kinch exercised culinary restraint, letting a simple dashi broth serve as the clean canvas for the natural flavors of the sea.

Paired with a 2009 COS Rami 50% insolio and 50% grecanico from Sicily IGT

Into the vegetable garden - A handpicked showcase of the day’s herbs from Love Apple Farms combined into a beautiful, colorful potpourri. I loved this dish and Kinch’s local interpretation of the gargouillou. This dish was a collection of textures both smooth and crunchy and herbal flavors ranging from sweet to bitter. My only complaint is that it’s a bit awkward to eat these delicate, almost weightless leaves with a full-sized fork and knife; it would have been easier with a pair of fine chopsticks or culinary forceps. This is a dish that connects Manresa to its surroundings, a reminder that California has the finest produce in the country.

Paired with a 2010 Domaine du Salvard Sauvignon Blanc from Cheverny

The meal could have ended right here and it would have been one of my all time favorite dining experiences. The last seven dishes made one of the best sequences in a restaurant I’ve ever had. What came was still outstanding, but of a very different foundation from the first half of the meal. The meal took a turn from Japan and headed back to Europe.

Late season fava beans - A risotto made from late season fava beans with a farm egg, morel mushrooms, and sheep’s milk ricotta. This was a very original, creative dish where the chewy fava beans were cooked to mimic the texture of risotto. The butter and generous salting carried this dish, enhancing the earthiness of the mushrooms. The ricotta thickened the sauce making it really texturally close to a risotto.

Paired with a 2009 Bruno Clair Rosé of Pinot Noir from Marsanny

Monterey bay abalone - A firm medallion of abalone cooked in brown butter topped table-side with a pesto of pickled cucumber and walnut. A few leaves of Malabar spinach added a vegetal, tannic component to the dish. The butter really helped bring out the flavor of the abalone, and the pickled cucumber pesto brightened the meatiness of the shellfish.

Poached halibut - Thick cuts of poached halibut served with thinly sliced young celeriac and romanesco. This was one of my least favorite courses of the night. There was nothing particularly wrong with the dish, but after a heavenly sequence of abalone, razor clams, sea urchin, spot prawn, and foie gras, giant chunks of poached halibut seemed boring. This would have been a great dish as part of a smaller tasting menu, but at this point in the sequence, it didn’t make much sense.

Paired with a 2006 Domaine de la Tournelle Terre de Gryphees Chardonnay from Arbois, France

Suckling porcelet – A generous cut of young pig served with chanterelle mushrooms, apricot-anise purée, courgette velouté, and a pistachio pesto. This was a heavier course and although fatty, the crispy skin really helped diversify the texture; the crunch was the best part of this dish.

Paired with a 2007 Jacques Puffeney Trousseau from Arbois France

Potatoes and duck fat “paillasson” – A crispy hash of potatoes cooked in duck fat, garnished with fennel and turnip. There were also small drops of bitter orange and olive. This was a very balanced dish with almost no oily mouthfeel, despite having been fried in duck fat.

Paired with a 2008 Domaine Maume from Gevrey-Chambertin

Summer berries and cream - Summer berries, both roasted and raw with a lemon cream. Underneath the berries was a bed of açaí granite and yogurt sorbet. This was light and sweet with the cream sauce giving the dish some substance, but the lemon ensuring it tasted bright and refreshing.

Paired with a 2008 Pride Mountain Cabernet Franc from Sonoma County

Chocolate-caramel cremeaux – Dollops of chocolate-caramel cream with fleur de sel ice cream and a popcorn custard. I really don’t like chocolate-flavored desserts (I love pure chocolate) but this was pretty good. Mainly because there wasn’t much bitterness in the chocolate, and the popcorn added a buttery, nutty component that made this really interesting.

Paired with a 2009 Earl Champalou Les Tries de Champalou Chenin Blanc from Vouvray

The cheese cart – Bent river, Blond d’Espèce, Pleasant Ridge reserve, Amarello de beta spacious, Garden Variety’s Moonflower, Gabriel Coulet Roquefort, Redwood Hill’s Bucheret, Chèvriere Cendre, and Cypress Grove Midnight Moon.

We chose a few pieces from the cart: Roquefort, Chevrière cendre (concord grape ash), Gouda-style Midnight moon, Cow’s milk Pleasant ridge reserve, and Bent River.

By this point in the meal, we were left with a gorgeous gradient of wines.

Petits fours - Strawberry pâtes de fruits and chocolate madeleines. We finished the meal much in the same way we started, only with fruit instead of vegetables.

I loved my recent meal at Manresa. The cooking was consistently flawless, and the flavors balanced and delicious. While this was an incredible tasting, the meal really felt like two tastings in a single sitting, one of Japan and one of France and Spain. I’m tempted to return to try the shorter menu next time in hopes that it could be even more focused.

The overall experience was refined and comfortable: this restaurant has really transitioned from a local, neighborhood place to one that deserves a lot more international attention than it’s currently receiving. The restaurant currently has two Michelin stars, but if this isn’t a three star restaurant at this point, I’m not sure what is. In the meantime now is the perfect time to go; I have a funny suspicion the restaurant is about to get a lot busier.

Related Posts:

• Saison
• RyuGin
• Les Ambassadeurs
• Favorite Meals of 2011
• Favorite Dishes of 2011

Chef Skenes is obsessed with flavor and how best to enhance it. In contrast to restaurants that over-embellish dishes and add complexity at the expense of flavor, Skenes takes away. Flavor is paramount for chef Skenes; everything else comes secondary. There is a firm Japanese influence in his cooking rooted in its simplicity, from his cuts of sashimi and live prawns to his use of sea vegetables. Skenes builds on this base of Japanese ingredients and applies fire, culminating in a magical and unique cooking style.

At the center of Saison is its hearth, an open wood-burning oven which nearly every dish utilizes in one form or another. Roasting over the hearth deeply intensifies the flavor of the ingredients. Sometimes Chef Skenes uses the hearth to roast an entire fish or meat, other times he’ll roast the bones as a component for a stock used to make a sauce to accompany a meat. Whether intense or subtle, the subtle smokiness and depth from the wood-burning hearth seems to make its way into every dish. The result is an addictive, rustic, wholesome flavor that makes every bite interesting.

The restaurant itself is set back in a barn-like industrial space off a quiet street in San Francisco’s Mission district. It was only after hearing the clanking of pots and pans that I realized I was in the right place. While the restaurant is soon to change locations, the current warehouse-like space is beautiful. The warm glow from the embers of the hearth permeates through one of the two dining rooms. The space is pastoral and romantic, its unassuming decor exemplifies the simplicity of the food Saison serves.

Reserve caviar – Wild reserve caviar from white sturgeon lightly smoked over the embers of the hearth. The smoking is just for a few seconds to firm the texture and add a smokey depth to the flavor.

Alongside the caviar was a Sardinian “music paper,” a thin cracker cooked in the hearth topped with a layer of smoked crème fraîche, artichoke citronne, artichoke purée, shad roe, egg yolks and whites, ficoide glaciale (ice plant), salt wort from Saison’s farm, and wild foraged herbs. This herbal garden was dusted with gold leaf.

Trio of canapés - Three plates of bite sized snacks.

The first was a Marin miyagi oyster filled with diced cucumber, borage, and drizzled with olive oil and a dash of fermented lime. Its flavor was bright, briny, and clean.

Second was a glass of tubers: giant carrot purée with parsnip milk and a purée made from crisp and roasted parsnip. Underneath was a creamy layer of salted egg yolk, oxalis tuber and leaves. The dish was garnished with mallow flower and crispy ice plant.

Third, a sandwich of sliced radish topped with radish gelée. Inside was bitter melon glazed with roasted pig butter and nasturtium honey. The delicate balance of sweet and bitter is what made this dish, and prevented the sweetness of the honey from becoming cloying.

Flight of fish - A selection of seven colorful fish, some aged and some straight from the sea.  From left to right: Red sea bream (aged 3 days), lobster tail wrapped in white radish, pen shell clam, horse mackerel, Kindai bluefin tuna belly, striped jack (aged 5 days), and amber jack (aged 7 days). With the exception of the Kindai bluefin tuna, all of the fish were wild and caught with a rod, line, and reel. This was a seemingly simple dish; it was only after speaking with Chef Skenes that I understood the great amount of detail that went into each piece of sashimi to deepen the flavor.

Each fish was brushed with a white soy sauce infused with the bones from that fish, lightly roasted over the embers of the hearth.  Chef Skenes calls this “bone sauce.”  While the subtle addition of “bone sauce” is imperceptible by looking, I couldn’t help but notice a meaty depth to the fish; an umami quality that enhanced each fish’s flavor.

The flight of fish was served with a rice crackling dusted with river vegetable, shrimp floss, and perilla salt. To the side was a small bowl splashed with a “bone vinaigrette,” a vinaigrette of wild seaweed, dried fish, and citrus infused with the roasted bones of the above fish.

This was an absolutely brilliant course, both conceptually and in terms of flavor. It was essentially a tour of the textures and flavors of the sea, each fish enhanced with aging and the smokey embers of the hearth.

Brassicas - Various wild strands of the mustard family (ruby streaks mustard, malabar spinach, arrowhead and oxheart cabbage) each either poached or gently roasted over the embers of the hearth until crispy. Toasted grains add texture to the dish, including barley, emmer wheat, wild rice, and sonora wheatberry. The broth, poured tableside, was made from wild seaweed and an assortiment of dried fish including flying fish, sardine, and bonito. Drizzled throughout the dish were puffed grains to add textural contrast.  Crowning the dish was a small quail egg.

Vegetable aspic – A transparent bowl of fava beans, peas, zucchini and squash roasted over the fire of the hearth. Burried within was a crispy chip of eggplant skin and a generous wedge of buttery avocado. All of the vegetables were bound with a gelée of tomato consommé. The vegetables and their consommé sat atop a corn pudding glazed in olive oil with pimenton de la vera and basil seeds soaked in basil water.

This dish was a balance of textures and temperatures all held together by the subtle smoke and meaty quality of the tomato consommé.

The vegetable aspec was served with a salt made from prawn roe. The salt had the concentrated taste of shellfish, which also tasted really, really good on bread with butter.

Crustaceans - A dungeness crab ragôut gently warmed in crustacean butter, served with santa barbara sea urchin and wild nasturtium leaf which had been gently roasted over the fire of the hearth until a crisp.  Our waiter added a cool meyer lemon whipped cream, and later poured in a crustacean bouillon table side, made from lobster, crabs, and spot prawns. This was unbelievable.

To the right was a live spot prawn just pulled from the tank and gently poached in its own sea water. The prawn was sweet and exceptionally fresh. I could have easily eaten a hundred of them.

Pasternack’s rabbit - Rabbit meat ground with foie gras and rolled into collard greens. This was gently poached in rabbit bouillon. Also in the bowl were kidney and liver roasted over the embers with herbs.  Most of the herbs, leaves, flowers, and tips were wild and foraged, everything else came from White Crane Springs community ranch.  Our waiter poured in a reduction made from rabbit bones slowly roasted over the embers of the hearth. This was a gamey, buttery chunk of meat that was enhanced by the vegetables and the subtle depth from the hearth.

Heartbreads – Medallions of heart breads from Four Story Hill farm. These are slowly roasted over the embers with berbere spices, brown butter, and fir honey. This was a magical combination of oozy, buttery, and rich veal hypothalamus coated in sweet and crispy honey. Again, the subtle hint of smoke from the hearth really added an element of depth to this dish.

Nuvola di percora – Warm nuvola di pecora piped into a freshly baked brioche with honeycomb. This was one of the most memorable desserts I have ever tasted. Salty and velvety nuvola di pecora oozing out of a light and fluffy butter brioche coated in a layer of thin, crispy honey.

When sliced in half, the sticky honeycomb cracked in two and the warm cheese poured out of the center. This was a dynamic dish that tasted great when placed on the table piping hot, and as it cooled and the cheese began to firm.

Preserved lemon A mixture of meyer lemon cream, lemon sorbet, and candied lemon from meyer lemon preserved on Jan 27, 2011. This was a mix of temperatures and textures all held together by the brightness of the lemon. The preservation process tempered the acidity making the lemon taste sweet with a hint of bitterness, rather than overly sour.

Melon – Melon with sparkling vanilla sorbet, and shiso cake.

Popcorn ice cream - A cool and creamy sphere of buttery popcorn ice cream, nicely balanced with a dash of salt.

Candied raspberries - The natural flavor of raspberry enhanced with a thin layer of sugar. The sugar crystals also added a textural contrast to the soft raspberry. These were addictive.

Chef Joshua Skenes is onto something big. Of all the restaurants I visited in the bay area during my recent trip, this is the meal that keeps haunting me. Skenes use of the hearth as a tool for flavor intensification defines his very unique cooking style. Every course had at least one component that was touched by fire. It’s this traditional cooking that makes Skene’s food rustic, honest, and straight-forward.

I can’t wait to go back. If Chef Skenes continues on his current track, with time, his cooking can only get better.

Related Posts:

• Manresa
• Favorite Meals of 2011
• Favorite Dishes of 2011
• The French Laundry Revisited
• L2O

Owner Ben Sandler is the barista in charge. While he’s made it clear from the beginning the Kickshaw is not only about coffee, they happen to serve a great shot; one of the best in the city, in fact.  Single origin coffees from Coffee Labs Roasters rotate in the grinder, most of the lots trackable online to a specific farm ensuring fair-trade practices. In addition to espresso drinks pulled from the Strada MP, the Kickshaw does V60 pour over and, more recently, 12-hour cold brew coffee on tap.

When talking with Ben, one quickly discovers his insatiable curiosity as he speaks enthusiastically about how he plans to tinker with this and toy with that; he’s always thinking of something new and exciting.  This explains the Queens Kickshaw being the first shop in New York — and perhaps the country — to serve cold brew coffee on tap. It explains the constantly changing rotation of artisanal beers and the ever changing single-origin beans in the grinder. It also explains the experimental dishes behind the counter, such as house-fermented berries used to make fruit shrubs. What really makes the Queens Kickshaw special is its juxtaposition of three seemingly different foods: coffee, beer, and grilled cheese. Only when they are under one roof in a shop open most of the day and night does the combination make sense.

The front of The Queens Kickshaw facing Broadway.  In addition to one of the few shops in the city with great coffee, it’s perhaps the only one open serving coffee of this quality until 1am.

Cafe Cortado, single-origin Nayarit Mexican beans - Two ounces of milk to two ounces of espresso.  These Nayarit beans had a subtle acidity that, when combined with the steamed milk, yielded a flavor similar to strawberries and cream.

Double ristretto of beans from Nayarit, Mexico – A single shot pulled from a 18g double basket. This shot was fragrant and fruity. While the La Marzocco Strada MP does allow for manual paddle control to adjust the pressure of the extraction, it seems like that feature goes unused: the paddle is simply too sensitive for baristi to manipulate. However, that doesn’t seem to affect the quality of the shot.

Cappuccino - A welcome morning shot of espresso with 5oz of steamed milk and a gorgeous rosetta.

Iced matcha tea - A concentrated shot of unsweetened whipped matcha tea with oversized cubes of ice. This is absolutely delicious; its flavor is grassy and bright.

From the beginning, the Kickshaw was set up to serve beer on draft from the existing tubing piped up from the basement. Given the limited amount of retail space, Ben explains, it was a natural extension to keep the cold brew in the basement and push it up through the tap. Apparently the first few cups that he served this had a hint of beer left over, which actually tasted quite good when combined with the coffee. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like this on the menu soon.

Cold brew on tap - A chilled glass of concentrated cold brew coffee piped up from the basement through the tap line. The flavor was light and citrusy making it refreshing.

Fontina Val d’Aosta – An open-face sandwich of marinated mushrooms and basil pesto on focaccia. A cheesy, earthy blend of mushrooms and pesto with a semi-firm Italian cow’s milk cheese atop a springy focaccia. The cheese itself is woody which pairs really nicely with the mushrooms. This is one of my favorite sandwiches on the menu.

Manchego and ricotta – Grilled multigrain bread sandwiching manchego and ricotta cheeses with minted eggplant and capers. The first thing I noticed about this sandwich was the butter and how it brings out the flavor of nuts from the bread. This pairs well with the nuttiness of the Spanish sheep’s milk manchego, whose tanginess also helps reduce the buttery mouth feel. The bite of acidity from the capers adds another layer of complexity. This is a very good sandwich.

Cheddar and mozzarella - Thick wedges of buttery brioche pouring with white cheddar cheese. This is the quintessential sandwich that comes to mind when I imagine grilled cheese. The light and fluffy bread soaks up the butter on the griddle adding a bit of weight, while the griddle adds texture and a gorgeous golden-brown color. The balance of sweet butter and salty cheese is what makes this sandwich a classic.

Arahovas Feta – An open-face focaccia topped with feta, red pepper, and dill. A lighter sandwich with minimal saucing, led by the frutiness of the red pepper spread.

Egg & cheese - A morning favorite. Thick slices of crustless, buttered brioche sandwiching egg, ricotta, and gruyere with thyme and a maple hot sauce. The balance of sweet, spicy, and salty combined with the umami from the cheese makes this a great sandwich.

Great hill blue - Crunchy cranberry-raisin bread oozing with Great Hill blue cheese, prune jam, and fresh pears. This is my favorite grilled these sandwich at the Kickshaw. The balance of sweet dried fruit with the salty intensity of the blue cheese keeps every bite interesting.

Hellgate Farm Open Market - Recently on Sunday’s, Astoria’s Hellgate Farm has set up a stand inside the Kickshaw selling organic locally grown produce. All the fruits and vegetables are grown are grown in Queens utilizing the courtyard and roof of a townhouse just down the block. Tough to imagine a better way to enjoy a summer Sunday than starting with a shot of espresso pulled from a Strada MP and leaving with a basket of fresh tomatoes and mission figs.

The Queens Kickshaw is a shop that features several concepts at once: coffee, beer, grilled cheese, and occasional farmer’s market without spreading itself too thin.  The Kickshaw is at the forefront of a new wave of artisanal shops and restaurants opening up in this outer borough. If you haven’t ventured into Astoria yet, this is a pretty good reason to do so.

Related Posts:

• Favorite Espresso of 2011
• Sosta Espresso Bar
• Gocce di Caffè
• Café Passmar
• Bear Pond Espresso

Unlike pâtisseries such as Pierre Hermé which pride themselves on constantly introducing new and unique flavor combinations, Ladurée takes a much more straightforward approach.  Most of the macarons are single-flavor, with a few being a combination of two, at most.  This emphasis on simplicity allows Ladurée to completely focus on ingredient quality and taste, ensuring each macaron is the best of its kind.

Not only does Ladurée have the most true-to-life flavors, but the texture of their macarons is also the lightest and most delicate.  The inside layer of crème is modestly thin, preventing the cookie from becoming cloying.  This is also a boon for someone impatient like I am who sometimes can’t help not waiting for the cold cookies to warm to room temperature since the thin layer warms up more quickly.  These cookies are delicate, airy, and delicious.  They are the most mouthwatering cookies on the planet.

Downstairs at the Champs Élysées location, ordering a box of macarons to go is a very efficient process.  The counter is configured like an assembly line with one person helping to find the right size box and another to help fill it.

At Ladurée, moderation is very important; I try to never get more than 30 macaroons during a single visit.  The vanilla, pistachio, rose, and licorice flavors are my favorite, each one an unembellished concentrated representation of the natural ingredient from which the small meringue sandwiches were made.

The pistachio macaron has a pastel green shell with light brown specks. The flavor is sweet and nutty with a very subtle hint of salt. The texture is a bit more gritty than the other macarons, a reminder that this cookie does come from ground nuts.

A floral aroma dominates the rose macaron, with a subtle flavor of vanilla.  Unlike other rose flavor sweets, there is not the slightest bit of soapiness.

I think the most interesting flavor is the ink-black réglisse macaron, or licorice, a flavor that combines the sweetness of vanilla with the cool mouthfeel of licorice.  I don’t really like licorice and generally try to avoid it, but for some reason the licorice macarons are absolutely incredible, I believe one of the greatest dessert pastry flavors ever created.

Upstairs at the Champs Élysées location lies the tea room. It feels a bit like stepping back in time to Paris’ belle époque: opulent gold leaf leads to delicate porcelain and an eclectic mix of antique chairs suitable for royalty.  The service upstairs is a bit more “relaxed” than downstairs, so be sure to leave plenty of time for afternoon brunch.

Ladurée has the finest macarons in the world, but they also have excellent pastries.  Pastries are baked in the morning, so try to arrive early if you plan on ordering croissants.  The croissants are buttery and flaky with a unique cavernous interior that makes them appear extraordinary large.

The pain au chocolat aux amande, piped with a green almond paste and thin layer of dark chocolate, is nonpareil.  Unlike most croissants aux amandes which recycle day’s old croissants by re-baking them with a layer of sticky frangipane, these are fresh, crispy, and flaky.  These are some of the only almond croissants in the city that are not are not flooded with powdered sugar.

Ladurée’s kouglof amande, a sweet brioche of raisin and almond sprinkled with sugar, is phenomenal.  When freshly baked in the morning it retains moisture like a sponge without the slightest hint of dryness.  Hard to imagine a pastry that pairs better with a cup of French Press coffee.

When Pierre Hermé was still the executive chef at Ladurée he created the recipe for the Ispahan, a giant raspberry macaron sandwiching a rose water crème dotted with lychee. When Chef Hermé left to open his own shop, Ladurée retained the recipe along with the right to continue producing it. This pastry is a wonderful balance of flavors and is quite beautiful, but the even more impressive ispahan left along with Pierre Hermé.

Ladurée will always hold a special place in my stomach.  No matter what crazy or inventive flavors competing bakeries create, Ladurée remains a beacon for consistency and unequaled taste.  It is truly one of the most magnificent bakeries in the world.

Related Posts:

• Pierre Hermé
• A Croissant Tour of Paris
• Ladurée
• A Baguette Tour of Paris
• Alain Ducasse

And this is what Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill attempts to do. From my recent meal I got the sense that while the restaurant was good, it was at one point even better. The menu could not have been more enticing: no Tex-Mex fajitas, chili con carne, or taco bowl salads. Instead, dishes from the Yucatán to Ensenada were spread across three pages. The menu was a patchwork of the finest local cuisines found throughout Mexico. Chef Bayless’s extensive travel throughout Mexico and research of its cuisine was immediately apparent.

Unfortunately, a lot of the preparations were imprecise and flavorings lax. Excessive sweetness and dried out meat made some of the dishes that could have been exceptional taste much less so. Frontera Grill is a restaurant with tremendous potential that needs a dose of culinary upkeep.

The atmosphere was relaxed and lively. Buena Vista Social Club and Celia Cruz played in the background. Despite having a set reservation time, this is a restaurant where the tight-packed nightly churn required a short wait. While waiting we had a short look through the shelves of Rick Bayless cookbooks and mail-order salsas; the tomatillo looked just right with its thin viscosity and forest green color dotted by golden husk tomato seeds.

Guacamole and totopos – Thin, crispy corn tortilla chips with chunky guacamole. The guacamole was generous on the lime and sprinkled with white onion, a few leaves of cilantro, and radish wedges. The tortillas tasted very flat, without the intense flavor of corn which normally makes them so addictive. A pinch of salt helped to bring out the sweet corn flavor, but these were nothing to write home about.

Coctel de atún tropical - A martini glass of Hawaiian big eye tuna with chunky mango and an avocado-tomatillo guacamole. Though very sweet from the ripe mango, this was a delicious course. The acidity of the tomatillo really enhanced the bite of the lime without making the dish cheek-puckering sour. The greens sprinkled on top helped to add a bit of vegetal bitterness to slightly reduce the sweetness. This was my favorite course of the night.

Callos de hacha en aguachile - Slices of raw, sweet scallop in a chile water spiced with serrano pepper wedges. This was another great course that walked the tightrope between too much acidity and not enough. The lime added a bright note while the subtle flavor of the scallops could still be tasted.

Tostaditas de tinga – Small corn tortillas topped with a lump of pork stewed in chipotle. The flavoring of this dish from Puebla was just right, a delicate balance of tanginess and spice. Unfortunately, the meat was a bit dry which shouldn’t be the case for a pork stew. This dish is typically abundant with moisture, with excess stew running off the tortillas.

Flautas de camarón – Small flutes of deep-fried tortilla filled with shrimp, garnished with peeled orange, pickled onions, watercress leaves, güero chiles, and potato cubes. This was a dish that would have been best served simple. The flautas were excellent by themselves, but the sweetness of the orange combined with the already sweet tomato sauce made the dish cloying. The tomato sauce tasted a bit too much like a marinara sauce and not enough like a cooked salsa.

Birria de chivo - Red chile-braised Pleasant Meadow farms goat a top a plump fried sope. Unfortunately, the meat was pretty dry, and that was the focus of the dish. The stew beneath the sope has a musky, barnyard flavor that was really delicious. The iceberg lettuce added a fresh crunch that kept each bite texturally interesting.

Tacos al pastor – Frankly, this is a dish that shouldn’t be on the menu. Tacos al pastor really need a rotating pork spit to develop the right texture, slices of pineapple and a sprinkle of raw onion and cilantro. There was none of that here. This dish was stewed pork and onion in what tasted like a chipotle tomato sauce. This seemed more like fajita filling than the outrageously delicious Mexican street food. This was my least favorite course of the night.

Eating at Frontera really brought back some of my best memories of traveling in Mexico. Before I visited Frontera I had heard from a few Mexican friends who had been there several years back that the cuisine was better than much of the food in Mexico. While I don’t agree, I do think that there is potential for this restaurant to be much better than it currently is. There is too much of a discrepancy between how the menu reads and how the food is prepared. This may be because chef Bayless, with an in-depth understanding of Mexican cuisine, is essentially no longer in the kitchen. Hopefully the meticulousness of the preparation improves. The US could sure use a great Mexican restaurant.

Related Posts:

• Mariscos Cepy’s
• Pujol Revisited
• Favorite Dishes of 2011
• L2O
• Café Passmar

After two meals at Alinea, one of my biggest complaints was the lack of progression and seemingly disconnected structure of the meal.  Next’s Paris 1906 menu, on the other hand, was extremely concise and structured, telling a story and sharing the experience of eating in the city of lights at the turn of the century.

During my two visits to Alinea my favorite course both times was the Escoffier, the course in the extended tasting menu that took the table back to 19th century France.  Here, the entire Paris 1906 menu was based on Escoffier’s dishes.  The recipes of Auguste Escoffier in combination with modern cooking techniques and Chef Achatz’s and Chef Dave Beran’s meticulousness made this an incredible meal.

The service was light and fun, with our waiter making jokes and keeping us laughing throughout the meal.  The atmosphere was relaxed and experience enjoyable, despite its formality.  The reservation process was a little annoying, but that’s mainly due to the restaurant’s popularity.  Overall it seemed very open and fair, enabling anyone with flexibility to have an opportunity to dine here by trading reservations via their Facebook group.

Quail egg with anchovy
Rabbit boudin
Leeks stuffed with mushroom duxelles
Brioche with foie gras torchon and mustard seed apricot jam
Truffled egg custard with salted cod and lemon.

Hors d’Oeuvres - The meal started with a regal collection of canapés served on a silver platter.  Many of Escoffier’s recipes were designed for large dinners with grand presentations, and its clear that Next was trying to re-create that grandeur on a smaller scale — more appropriate for, say, a table of four.  The foie gras brioche with apricot jam was the highlight bite in this course, creamy buttery foie gras with a tangy bite from the apricot.

Potage a la Tortue Claire – Turtle consommé. A clear broth soup from concentrated stock, garnished with a mirepoix of celery, carrot, onion, and parsley leaves.  The intense flavor was simultaneously fishy and meaty.  A clear tribute to the French soups of centuries ago.  This was simple and pure.

Filet de Sole Daumont – Sole filet with a crawfish mousse-stuffed mushroom and a breaded ball of crawfish roe.  The sauce Normande was the highlight of this dish, both tangy and buttery.  It was truly reminiscent of a course from Paul Bocuse.  This dish was a reminder that classical French cuisine need not be stale and boring; when the sauce is prepared correctly the flavor is exciting and alive.  This was my favorite dish of the night.

Suprêmes de Poussin – A thin filet of poached chicken breast layered with a cream sauce.  To the left were medallions of braised cucumbers stuffed with chicken forcemeat.  The texture of the cooked cucumber was almost identical to Chinese winter melon, watery and mild adding a mild vegetal component to the concentrated forcemeat.  The chicken diamond was supple and juicy.  This was a very good course, but the flavor of cooked cucumber really took some getting used to.

Caneton Rouennais à la Presse – A giant platter of duck with a blood sauce made from pressed duck.  After roasting the carcass of the duck is pressed to extract the juices (blood) of the animal, which is turned into a rich, meaty sauce.  The texture of the duck was very tender, and the flavor earthy from the fresh rosemary in the center.  As with the sole Daumont, the highlight of this dish was the sauce; I was eating it with a spoon.

Next has an antique duck press used exclusively for this course.  This is one of two duck presses that I have ever seen, the other being at Tour d’Argent in Paris.  Though a pretty barbaric method of making sauce, it sure was delicious.

Gratin de pommes de Terre à la Dauphinoise – Alongside the duck came thinly sliced scalloped potatoes covered in stringy melted comté and filled with cream.  The salty potatoes carried a layer of crispy, toasted cheese.  This was great.

Salade Irma – A small salad of nasturtium blossom, asparagus and radish with a light cream sauce served after the main course in traditional French fashion.

Bombe Ceylan - An ice cream semi-sphere covered in cocoa powder over a chocolate cookie garnished with rum-soakced cherries.  This dish was pretty lackluster, with the coldness of the ice cream really making it difficult to get much flavor from the mild ice cream.

Mignardises - Salted caramels, beet pâte des fruits and round pistachio nougatines.

The Paris 1906 menu only lasted three months and the concept of the restaurant has now changed to Thailand.  Chef Achatz recently announced the following menu based on the experience of childhood.  With the focused themes helping to keep a unified structure of the meal, I think this restaurant has the potential to become one of the most interesting restaurants in the United States.  I can’t wait to return.

Related Posts:

• Alinea Revisited
• Alinea
• L’Ambroisie Revisited
• Favorite Dishes of 2011
• Manresa

Our meal at L2O was a back-and-forth mix of traditional Japanese kaiseki with modern French cuisine. The restaurant really shined when it stuck to the simple and authentic Japanese dishes, as chef Gras has a remarkably precise cooking style that highlighted the very subtle flavors found in fish and vegetables. Had I not known about chef Gras, I might have thought he grew up in Japan.

L2O also served some dishes that were a fusion of the two cuisines. This was the restaurant’s most interesting aspect. The richness of butter can really intensify mild flavors, particularly the subdued flavors of mushroom and cooked fish. But at times it seemed like two different chefs were cooking the meal, taking turns between French and Japanese styles. Sometimes their was synergy in the sequence of courses, other times dissonance.

The atmosphere at L2O was an ethereal experience that transported us to a Tokyo ryokan. The hostess led us through the main dining room into the private tatami room behind sliding rice paper doors. We were asked to take our shoes off before entering. Despite the evening chatter in the dining room, behind these doors everything went silent. Our waitress, with grace and poise, kneeled to floor level to introduce our tasting menu and take our drink order.

Oyster, frozen sake, rice wine vinegar
Tuna, tomato, hibiscus, foie gras snow
Kinmedai, ohba
Escolar Jamón, espelette
Shimaaji, red miso, radish, soy salt

We started the meal with a collection of small plates, all served at once. The tuna and foie gras snow stood out, frozen flakes of buttery foie gras contrasting against a subtle acidity from slivers of tomato. The kinmedai, or golden eye bream, was also a favorite, a lean and clean tasting fish minimally seasoned with shiso leaves. This dish was remarkably authentic in its purity.

Fluke, shiso, caviar – A slate grey disc of raw fluke top heavy with ossetra caviar. A cold, salty, and briny layer caviar seasoned the crisp and clean tasting fluke. A thin layer of shiso added a subtle refreshing flavor, contrasting against the buttery mouthfeel of the sashimi. This dish was as delicious as it was beautiful.

Sashimi platter, fluke, kampachi, kinmedai, shimaaji – These four slices of sashimi formed a gradient of fattiness from lean to slightly less lean as well as from white to pink. The fish was served chilled and was outstandingly fresh. This course came straight from Japan, and I loved it.

English pea, nameko – Switching gears from traditional Japanese to modern French we were served a creamy warm pea broth with pearls of plump sweet green peas, dotted with small nameko mushrooms. The flavor was vegetal and buttery, and the generous salting really helped bring out the subtle earthy flavor of the mushrooms. This dish was rather unexpected, but an interesting contrast against the light and delicate sashimi courses we had prior.

Tofu, itogaki, white miso – A tofu custard covered in flakes of dried bonito with a white miso broth. This was a very interesting mix of east meets west. The dish looked innocently European, almost like a panna cotta, but was dominated with the strong flavor of a dashi broth. I very much enjoyed this course.

Octopus, coconut, olive oil, sea bean – Medallions of octopus covered in a coconut cream drizzled with olive oil and spears of sea bean. This dish seemed out of place at this meal, a little too much like Spanish octopus and olive oil dashed with paprika.

Scallop, champagne – A fat chunk of pan seared scallop in a buttery champagne broth. This dish was delicious. The golden sear on one side of the scallop added a toasted flavor which really brought the dish together. The scallop was basically raw and translucent on the inside maximizing its sweetness.

Lamb tartar, shiro ebi, tarragon, pickled mango – Pink lamb tartar laced with pickled mango covered with a layer of sweet raw white shrimp. On the top was a small pile of greens. It’s dishes like this that remind me how much I prefer my shellfish and meat served raw. This was a very simple dish that stole the show; with ingredients this fresh, heavy seasoning is not necessary.The pickling process removed the sweetness of the mango and replaced it with a mild acidity that cut through the fatty mouthfeel of the lamb. The white shrimp was the sweetest component of this dish, and when combined with the lamb, created a surf and turf of chewy, sweet meat scattered with crunchy bites of bright mango. The tarragon added an herbal component which helped bring out the flavor of the meat.

Kampachi, yuzu, tapioca, black lime – Seared kampachi with a bright, buttery yuzu sauce. Underneath the filet was a pile of translucent pearls of tapioca sprinkled with the rind of black lime. Unfortunately, the fish was overcooked which really dried it out, but it had tremendous potential. I love the way the tapioca picked up the tangy buttery sauce.

Lobster, foie gras, surume ika – A thick lobster tail and scored surume squid resting beneath a foie gras foam. This was incredible, particularly the texture of the squid. Surume ika is a variety of squid that’s simultaneously chewy and crispy. When scored, it develops an addicting texture that’s a lot like grilled sea cucumber. The rich foie gras foam made the buttery poached lobster tail taste even richer. I loved this dish.

Pickled honshimeji, grapefruit – A savory, though acidic, palate cleanser of pickled small mushrooms with skinless grapefruit.

Miyazaki wagyu, beef, sake, potato – A small cut of heavily marbleized wagyu beef thoroughly cooked so as to maximize the textural contrast between fat and meat. There was nothing particularly wrong with the dish — it tasted great — but it was relatively boring compared to some of the previous courses.

I rarely find a grilled meat course interesting as part of a tasting. It usually feels forced, as if somewhere in the chain of command someone said, “hey we really need to have a piece of meat in here somewhere.” There was nothing particularly interesting or special about this dish, aside from the fatty quality of the meat, which I don’t really like anyway. The meal would have been stronger without this.

Dashi – A small bowl of pure, clear dash broth.

Caramel, manjari, espresso snow – A plum-sized sphere of caramel mousse covered in manjari and espresso snow. The flavor was dominated by the taste of oxidized coffee, which I didn’t particularly enjoy.

Macaron – A small lemon macaron marked the end of the meal, a bright and citrusy finale.

What made L2O particularly interesting was how each course went back and forth between authentic Japanese fare and modern French cuisine. But overall it seemed like the most successful dishes were the Japanese ones. Also interesting were the courses that blended Japanese with French, such as the pickled honshimeji mushrooms and grapefruit. The purely French dishes were the least interesting.

I can’t wait for my upcoming reservation at L2O to see how the restaurant has evolved over the past two years. The concept of French influenced Japanese kaiseki is fascinating, and there aren’t enough places that do it successfully here in the US. I believe L2O has the potential to make waves by combining the best of each cuisine, creating something original and new. Only time will tell..

Related Posts:

• Chihana
• Koju
• The French Laundry Revisited
• The French Laundry
• Manresa

While the dining room still felt icy, the service warmed up, a little. Our waiter seemed genuinely friendly, cracking jokes and making us smile throughout the meal. Once in a while, however, someone else from the kitchen brought our food and seemed a bit more distant and, well, self-satisfied. I think we got really lucky, our waiter was great.

We ordered a glass of champagne and began the meal.

Golden trout roe, dijon, rutabaga, grapefruit – Amber beads of Michagan steelhead roe swimming in a squash broth with medallions of dijon mustard and black licorice. Here we had an unlikely combination of ingredients that worked very well together. The brine of the true roe countered any bitterness from the grapefruit, the result being something just slightly less sweet than an orange but with equal acidity. The dijon added a kick of short-lived spice. This seemed like Achatz’s version of “Oysters and Pearls;” instead of two plump oysters we had two medallions of meaty dijon mustard custard. The dish also had temperature contrast — warm medallions in a chilled broth. This was a great start to the meal.

Yuba, shrimp, miso, togarashi – A crispy stick of deep-fried tofu skin wrapped with a translucent shrimp speckled with black and white sesame seeds. At the base of the stick was a sweet and tangy miso cream. The best part of this dish was the sweet raw prawn and the toasty, nutty flavor the sesame gave it in combination with the yuba. Some bites tasted like buttered toast, one of the most delicious foods on the planet.  The miso paste at the bottom was very concentrated, even overpowering. Anything more than a quarter drop prevented me from tasting anything except the miso paste.

Octopus, eggplant, coriander, red wine - A fork carrying a cube of octopus purée topped with coriander and red wine gelée.   The fork hovered precariously in a specially-made bowl above an eggplant foam. I loved the sweet creamy texture of the octopus, but the flavor wasn’t obvious.  I also don’t think the eggplant did much for this dish.

Our waiter returned with three orange flags and placed them on our table. He explained that they would be used for a later course.  What could these be for?

Oyster leaf mignonette; scallop, hitachino, weizen, old bay; razor clam, carrot, soy, daikon – An oyster leaf served on the half shell of a real oyster topped with a traditional mignonette sauce.  The green leaf tasted very similar to an oyster, with the same metallic and briny aftertaste.  The scallop was buttery and sweet, and topped with a beer foam.  The razor clam was very savory and was garnished with root vegetables.

English Pea, olive oil, chamomile, green apple – In the first part of this trio of dishes, we were shown a sprouting garden of pea leaves growing from a sweet pea soup.  The flavor was fresh and vegetal, with natural sugars coming from the peas.

The upper dish was lifted away to reveal the second part of this dish, consisted of chilled freeze-dried peas with a spring pea meringue.  This was a beautiful potpourri of different textures and spring garden colors.  The flavor was savory with a hint of sweetness coming from the peas.  The texture was quite starchy.

For the last part of the trio, a frozen pea purée with green apple sorbet and frozen greek yogurt.  This was very sweet and perhaps would have been best served as a dessert.

By this point in the meal, I noticed that many of the courses so far had bowls and plates perfectly shaped for the function of the dish. I asked our waiter which came first, the concept or the plate? He told us it was a fifty-fifty split: sometimes the plates are designed by the artistic team and the kitchen uses those constraints to develop a dish.

Hamachi, west indies spices, banana, ginger – A chunk of yellowtail deep-fried in tempura batter, banana, and ginger skewered with a vanilla bean. This tropical bite was crispy and sweet, a nice contrast to the previous cold sorbet.

Wild mushrooms, pine, sumac, ramp - A collection of foraged mushrooms minimally cooked so as to maintain their textural integrity.  The mushrooms were earthy and nutty.  The pickled ramps offered an acidic contrast to keep each bite interesting.  The pine was fragrant and light.  The sumac held everything together.  This was a brilliant dish.

Hot potato, cold potato, black truffle, butter – This dish was just as good as I remembered it. So much so that I pleaded for another. In this Achatz signature dish, a piping hot carved potato is held above a cold buttery potato soup. When sliding out the skewer the hot potato mixes with the cold potato soup creating a mixture that is simultaneously hot and cold in the mouth. The truffle was remarkably fragrant and the heat from the potato helped to activate its aroma. There’s a reason this dish is always on the menu, it’s outstanding.

Short rib, olive, red wine, blackberry – This was a very complicated dish that required 100% attention to the instructions to enjoy. It’s also a dish that can be easily ruined if not done properly.

The flags our waiter had placed on the table were removed from their flagpole and laid over a four-sided asterisk elevating the edges into a bowl. the orange flag, we were now told, was a tomato pasta and we were about to make our own ravioli. In front of us was a plate of multiple toppings: smoked salt, blackberry, black garlic, and pearl onions.

Since the ravioli had to be folded there wasn’t a chance to easily re-season, it had to be done correctly the first time. Unfortunately, I put on a pinch of the tablespoon of salt, which was ten times more salt than necessary. I had over salted my dish making it inedible. The short rib, it appeared, was already salted. I destroyed my own dish, for which I accept responsibility, I just wish I had been warned about salt prior. This could have been a highlight dish of the night; instead frankly, it was awful. My dining companion who left out all salt, loved it.

Black truffle, explosion, romaine, parmesan – A single raviolo of black truffle stock topped with parmesan cheese, lettuce leaf, and a thin slice of black truffle. It’s hard not to love the creamy, meaty flavor of the parmesan and black truffle. The raviolo “popped” in my mouth like an adult gusher. This was great.

Agneau, sauce choron, pomme de terre – A recipe straight from Auguste Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire. As a 300-year old dish from a 100-year old cook book, this course was served on antique dishware. The wine glass was beautifully etched with birds and leaves. Here, two lamb medallions sat atop an equally shaped buttery puff pastry with potato. The flavor was buttery and rich. Wow.

Between this course and the Escoffier dish I had last year, Chef Achatz has clearly demonstrated a masterful precision with his cooking that equals some of the founders of modern French cuisine (Paul Bocuse). In a way, I wish more courses were like this. This was my favorite course of the night.

The Escoffier dish was paired with a glass of Cedar Knoll Vineyard’s 2006 cabernet, a dark fruit-forward wine with hints of black currant and vanilla.

Venison, cherry, cocoa nib, eucalyptus – Our waiter placed a bowl of ruffled eucalyptus leaves in front of us for a minute or two to appreciate the pine-like aroma of the plant. The bowl revealed a metal skewer just poking through the pile of leaves. When our waiter returned, he explained the dish: a tender medallion of deer topped with sweet cherry and bitter cocoa nib. I’m not sure if the cherry and cocoa nib enhanced the flavor of the dish but it sure made it unique.

This course stimulated my sense of smell as much as it did my taste buds. Chef Achatz pays as much attention to the visceral components of a dish, how it affects a diner’s sense of smell and touch, as the flavor itself.

Snow, yuzu – A conical palate cleanser made from liquid nitrogen-frozen yuzu. The shape resembled a snow cone, a tribute to American childhood nostalgia. Like being handed an ice cream cone, there was no way to rest this dish on the table until it was finished. The frozen conical dish also chilled the air around it heightening the fresh sensation as my face felt cool from its presence. The flavor was bright and clean.

Sweet potato, cedar, bourbon, pecan – Sweet potato, pecans, a cayenne cotton candy, and bourbon glee were placed in front of us on a block of very aromatic cedar. The aroma was evocative of a winter’s night in the mountains. The warm and cozy sensation this dish gave was particularly interesting as it followed the frozen snow cone, a pair of dishes that chilled and then warmed. The flavor was woodsy and sweet, the sweet potato tasted like a well-cooked carrot with a dash of brown sugar. The bourbon added a boozy component that helped counter the dish’s sweetness. This was wonderful.

Lemongrass, dragon fruit, finger lime, cucumber – A glass tube was rested in front of us with its contents suspended in liquid. It was fun swaying the cylinder back and forth before finally eating it, much like a kaleidoscope. I ate the dish with a single suck through the translucent glass tube, the flavor was light and crisp, dominated by the acidity of the lime. The dragon fruit didn’t have much flavor, but it sure looked pretty with its black-on-white seeds.

Chocolate, blueberry, honey, peanut – A dessert even more grand and spectacular than the last time. Our waiter removed all dishes from the table and unrolled a rubber table cloth. Another waiter placed down small bowls of blueberries, honey, peanut nugat, liquid nitrogen frozen mousse, and berry sauce. Chef Achatz himself stepped out of the kitchen and began to plate our table.

Much of the process was like watching Jackson Pollock at work, a splash of chocolate sauce here, a drizzle of peanut nougat there. Chef Achatz did all this without making eye contact or saying anything for that matter. When he poured the caramel onto the cloth I noticed the drops were self-forming into perfect squares. I broke the silence and asked him about this to which he replied, “have you seen Harry Potter … we call it magic.” My best guess is the tablecloth has some kind of capillarity that interacts with polar sauces, but I guess some things are better left a mystery.

The dish never got boring. Since this was a shared dessert for three people, each person picked and played with different combinations of ingredients making every bite taste different. This is the most memorable dessert I have ever had.

The funny thing about plating the entire table is that I didn’t realize how beautiful the design was until I got home and started editing the photos. When you’re sitting at the table and inside the work of art it’s a bit like looking at an impressionist painting a few inches from the work: it’s hard to see the big picture. Only when I got home and saw the photo with my wide-angle lens did I notice the bigger work of art. This was a pretty good example of how a camera can actually enhance the experience at a restaurant.

Surprise is a tremendous part of the enjoyment of molecular gastronomy. At dinner the dining room was still very quiet which meant that the scripted dish descriptions were delivered two or three times before our plate arrived. We didn’t have much surprise. At El Bulli, for example, the dining room was gregarious and relaxed which muted out the wait staff explaining the dishes; to us, every dish came as a surprise. It’s not an easy problem to fix, but I think focusing on lightening the severity in the dining room would make a better experience for everyone.

I enjoyed my meal. But while most of the dishes tasted very good they still lacked a story linking them together. Overall the meal felt disconnected to time and place and lacked the higher level harmony found at Quique Dacosta, El Bulli, and Sant Pau. Yellowtail with banana and vanilla? That’s delicious, but why? What’s the background story? Seems more like a tropical Carribbean treat. El Bulli seemed disconnected during my first visit, but upon returning it emphasized the concept of sequences — four or five dishes chained together to share a cumulative experience. That really helped.

While the meal was more balanced than in 2009, there was still too much sugar.  Some courses, like the sweet pea trio, might have been better served as a dessert.  The hamachi skewer was exceptionally sweet as well.  Is Chef Achatz pandering to a palate that truly demands this quantity of sugar?

I think Achatz’s concept at Next, choosing a quarterly theme for the meal, will link the dishes together in a way that will force chef Achatz and chef Beran to tell a story. The time and place will be central to the meal. Alinea still feels like a hit list of the chef’s best dishes.  That being said, I still hope to go back … in a year or two.

Related Posts:

• Alinea
• Next: Paris 1906
• El Bulli Revisited
• L’Astrance
• El Bulli

Molecular gastronomy, or avant-garde cuisine, challenges the way diners interact with food.  The meal becomes as much about the  experience as it does about the flavor.  The challenge is to create a unique and exciting experience without sacrificing the taste.  Alinea was my first domestic experience with molecular gastronomy where the dishes were not only fun and exciting, but they tasted great, too.

Our menu, titled the “grand tour,” consisted of 24-courses each overlaid with grey orbs of varying opacity to indicate intensity, portion size and sweetness.  The color of the orb indicated the dish’s intensity: darker meant more intense.  The position of the orb indicated the dish’s sweetness: to the left meant savory, to the right meant sweet.  The size of the orb represented the size of the plate: bigger orb, more food.  We were given not a menu for the evening’s food, but a guide to help us with pace.

Roes, traditional garnishes - Glistening orange spheres of salmon roe paired with crème fraîche, lemon, and buttered brioche foam.  The acidity of the lemon contrasted nicely against the buttery brioche foam, with the light oceanic flavor from the roe bringing everything together.  This was a great start to a long meal.

Foie gras, daikon, shiso, yuzu – A spoonful of foie gras garnished with fennel and shiso sitting above a pool of peach juice and shiso foam.  Our waiter instructed us to eat the foie then quickly drink the juice.  Delicious.

Pork belly, iceberg, cucumber, thai distillation - Our waiter first handed us a glass of “thai distillation,” or distilled habanero chili.  By distilling the chili we were left with all the sweetness of the pepper without the spice. It was strange to eat because my mouth anticipated the heat but it never came. Instead, the flavor was bright and refreshing.  Then, our waiter instructed us to eat the pork belly crowned with iceberg lettuce, cucumber, banana, and basil seeds in a coconut sauce.  I thought the iceberg was too watery and took away from the delicate flavors on the plate.

Green almond, juniper, gin, sugar - Each corner of the solidified gin was seasoned differently.  It was hard to differentiate the flavors though since this was eaten in one bite.  This was a boozy, sweet and sour snack to refresh our palate.

Soft shell crab, carrot, five spice, duck – Half a battered soft shell crab atop a carrot puree with duck confit and drops of spiced prune puree, hearts of palm, radish, and wild flowers.  The spiced prune puree tasted similar to hoisin sauce.  On the plate we also had a crumbly, dry sesame meatball with crisp peas and black sesame seeds.  Though a bit sweet, this was one of my favorite dishes of the night.

Blue crab, carrot, five spice, duck – Continuing with the crab theme, a shot glass of thick pieces of blue crab with ginger ice, lychee, cinnamon foam, carrot, and shreds of duck.  The dish contained many of the same ingredients as the previous dish except here, the berry-like sweetness of the lychee brought out different flavors.  I’d never tasted sweet crab before; but I sure hope this wasn’t the last time.

Black truffle, explosion, romaine, Parmesan - A small ravioli filled with black truffle tea topped with a thin shred of Parmesan cheese and romaine lettuce.  Our waiter told us to eat this in one bite, or else it might splash our neighbors.  The ravioli “popped” in my mouth with the strong salty, meaty flavor of the truffle.  This short and concentrated bite left me wanting more (a lot more).

By this point in the meal I realized that each dish had very detailed instructions on how to eat it.  You really have to pay attention at Alinea, tuning out for one second can affect the outcome of the course.

Pigeonneau à la Saint-Clair – Wow.  This was the dish that showed me what chef Achatz is capable of.  A technically flawless, crispy, buttery, flaky tart carrying a fluffy quenelles of squab forcemeat, truffle jus, and thick medallions of mushroom.  The dish came from Auguste Escoffier‘s 1903 cookbook, Le Guide Culinaire.  In an avant-garde meal where everything feels like it’s from the future, it was refreshing to be served something from the past.  Is this considered molecular gastronomy? Unclear, I think. This was undoubtedly my favorite dish of the night.

Frozen disc of dijon mustard, passionfruit sorbet, and allspice – A small palate cleanser, the subtle spice of mustard with the sweetness of the passionfruit.

Bacon, butterscotch, apple, thyme - A strip of bacon hanging from a tightrope wrapped with apple leather.  Next to the bacon was a sweet potato with a cinnamon stick skewer.  This was a course with a really strange and arbitrary presentation.  It’s almost like Cirque du Soleil had some fun in the kitchen. The overall flavor was fairly sweet.

Hot potato, cold potato - This is a course that always stays on the menu at Alinea.  And with good reason: it’s delicious.  A skewered hot potato medallion crowned with black truffle hangs suspended over a cold potato soup.  The heat of the potato activated the aroma of the black truffle.  Our waiter instructed us to slide the skewer out of the bowl to combine the hot potato into the cold soup, and to eat it immediately.  The result was a swirl of hot and cold temperatures dominated by the fragrance of truffle and the buttery taste of the potato soup.  This was absolutely delicious.

Yuba, shrimp, miso, togarashi - A stick of deep fried tofu skin with a helix of shrimp wrapped around.  The shrimp was spiced with black and white sesame and chives.  The miso paste at the base was quite sweet.

White asparagus, arugula, white pepper, honey – This dish was presented as a clear glass cylinder in the center of a white bowl filled with white asparagus, arugula, white pepper, and honey.  Our waiter then lifted the glass which spilled the contained soup into the bowl.  The freshness of the arugula puree was immediately apparent, it smelled like freshly cut herbs.

At some point during our meal, our waiter placed a conical vase on the table.  We didn’t really pay much attention to it.  But now, the waiter poured a warm liquid into the vase and a char-smelling smoke erupted covering our table with the smokey smell of the grill.  This was a nostalgic course that transported us outside to a summer barbecue.

Wagyu beef, powdered A-1, potato, chips- A simple cube of wagyu beef with a crispy potato hash and A1-style herbs.  The meat was extremely tender and juicy.  The potato had a crispy shell but soft and moist interior, like a custard.  With this dish Alinea tapped into an American nostalgia that I could understand and relate to in a way that would not have been possible at Spain’s El Bulli or Tokyo’s Tapas Molecular Bar. This was essential to my enjoyment of this course.

Lemon soda – A fizzy dissolving packet of lemon soda.  The powder foamed in my mouth.  The carbonation really removed all remnants of grease after the chunk of wagyu.  The sour flavor made this fun to eat.

Bubble gum, long pepper, hibiscus, crème fraiche - A clear tube filled with hibiscus jelly, vanilla creme fraiche, and bubble gum-flavored tapioca.  The other end of the glass was hollow so we were instructed to “suck out” the ingredients as if through a straw.  The flavors were all pretty muted.  I could have skipped this course.

Watermelon, lime, nasturtium - A cocoa butter ballooon sphere holding a shot of watermelon juice atop a nasturitum puree.  The fresh grassy flavor of the nasturtium complimented the sweetness of the watermelon.  The lime added a subtle acidic kick.  This was pretty refreshing.

Transparency of raspberry, yogurt – A crispy, hard candy raspberry and yogurt flavored shell.  This was prettier than it was tasty.

Rhubarb, cheesecake, onion, lavender air - Our waiter brought out a linen pillow filled with lavendar-scented air.  On top of the pillow he placed a plate of rhubarb sorbet and goat-milk cheesecake.  The weight of the plate caused the lavendar air to leave the pillow at a rate pretty consistent to the speed at which we ate the dish; it lasted about 5 minutes.  Beneath the rhuburb sorbet were actually thin strips of onion.  Somehow the sweetness of the onion actually enhanced the flavor of the rhubarb without adding that raw onion spicy burn.  There was also a small cloud of cotton candy which was plain old fun to eat.  This was a really creative dessert.

Chocolate, blueberry, tobacco, maple – Our waiter removed everything from the table and laid out a flexible waterproof tablecloth.  Another waiter then brought over small ramekins of tobacco whipped cream, walnut shortbread, blueberry in four textures (pickled blueberries with red wine and port, blueberry jam), and spherified maple syrup.  Chef Dave Beran then stepped out of the kitchen and began to “plate the table.”  He explained that this dessert is designed to change the perception of how food is placed in front of us.   Interestingly, all of the blueberries were the same flavor but because of the textural change some seemed more acidic, others more fruity and even drier.  This was an incredible dessert where no two bites were the same.  Wow.

Pound cake, strawberry, lemon, vanilla bean - A medallion of pound cake with strawberry and a stick of vanilla.  The dish was shaped like a lollipop.  The inclusion of this dish seemed pretty arbitrary.

I really enjoyed the meal.

My biggest complaint is that I wish it told more of a story.  Most of the menu seemed like someone hit shuffle and mixed up the ordering of courses; there was little progression.  There was also a lot of sugar which can become cloying after twenty four courses.

Also, the service felt a little uncomfortable.  Everyone seemed nervous; the wait staff didn’t appear relaxed and welcoming in a way that put us at ease.  The presentation of the dishes was too rehearsed.  The minimalist decor in combination with the lack of music meant that anything above a half whisper could be heard by a neighboring table.  This also meant that during service, tables that were a few dishes ahead of us had their dishes described not only for themselves but also for most of the room.  By the time our plates came, we knew what we were getting.  Part of the fun of molecular gastronomy is the surprise, and there could have been more of it.

I knew I would be returning the next time I was in Chicago.  This experience challenged what type of food I consider to be molecular gastronomy.  The squab chef Achatz served was straight out of Auguste Escoffier’s 1903 Le Guide Culinaire, cooked and served exactly as described in the famous book.  Was this molecular gastronomy or avant-garde cuisine?  Hard to tell; but it was my favorite course of the night.  It was this course that inspired the creation of Next and its Paris 1906 menu.

At this point Alinea has become a truly iconic American restaurant, and Chef Achatz continues pushing forward with new flavors and concepts.  I’m glad I returned in 2011, the food was even better.

To be continued …

Related Posts:

• Alinea Revisited
• Next: Paris 1906
• El Bulli Revisited
• L’Astrance
• El Bulli

The menu read very straight forward: a handful of dishes with a single main ingredient supported by a fruit, vegetable, liquor, or combination of the two.  The beauty of this menu lies in its apparent simplicity; it was refreshing to not have to read a laundry list of ingredients, or an ironic single-word title.

The service was a bit odd.  At first it seemed like the wait staff had just gotten home from work and we were intruding in their living room.  There was a sense of lethargy or general lack of enthusiasm.  But as the clock crept towards midnight (the Spanish eat late) and the restaurant’s service calmed, things livened up.

The formica-lined interior, red and white, seemed like it came from the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Everything was built in and slid out from a concealed drawer: the wine, glasses and utensils, even the cheese cart!  The staff dressed in all black with red cuffs and belts.  The only thing missing from the set was Keir Dullea going for a jog around the ceiling.

We started with a glass of Oriol Rossell Brut Nature Cava, a blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Meuiner.  The flavor was crisp and full of citrus fruits predominately grapefruit.

Amuse bouche, melon and clam - A small bowl of melon gelee with local raw clams.  What made this dish really special was the way the musky, almost butterscotch flavor of the raw cantelope interacted with the brine of the clam.  It completely held back the brine  while allowing the clam’s natural sweetness to come through.  It was an oceanic-filter.

Amuse bouche, rabbit terrine – A cylindrical rabbit terrine wrapped in summer truffle piped with almond cream.  The truffles weren’t particularly fragrant, and the terrine tasted more like butter than meat.  This was not a great bite.

King prawns with almonds and tarragon - This was a dish I could have easily repeated twenty times.  Two prawns lightly poached in their own salt water, laid across a streak of tarragon with an almond crème fraîche.  The barely cooked prawns were succulent and despite being from the ocean, tasted sweeter than they did salty.  The tarragon added a bright herbal note while the cool almond cream kept the dish grounded.  This was wonderful.

Sardine tartar with tomatoes and prunes - Small cubes of fresh sardine brushing against a tomato soup with a streak of red tomato paste and basil.   The Andalusian-style tomato soup is close to gazpacho in flavor, but thicker and richer.  It amazingly contains no cream; it’s thickened with bread and olive oil.  The tomato soup’s sweet vegetal flavor supported the lightly acidic raw sardine giving it body.

“After eight” foie gras - Lobes of buttery foie gras topped with a chocolate sauce and mint foam.  The dish was inspired by the English mints.  The refreshing coolness from the spearmint cut through any residual grease from the foie gras making this fatty ingredient somehow taste a bit lighter.  The chocolate added a hint of sweetness and bitterness.  I loved this plate.

Monkfish with saffron rice and zucchini flower - The highlight of this dish was everything except the main ingredient.  The saffron rice with zucchini flower and saffron sauce were outrageously delicious.  The saffron contributed a meaty quality to the broth and when combined with the texture of the rice, it stood on its own as a principal ingredient.  The monkfish, though juicy, seemed like an after thought to me.

Suckling pig with porcini and perigordini - A thick cube of suckling pig with porcini mushroom and a sauce made from mustard, black pepper, brandy, and “nata” the residual fat that floats from unhomogenized milk.  (By the way nata, I learned, tastes very good in drip coffee.)  The skin was crispy and the interior meat succulent and juicy.  The best part of this dish was the sauce.  I sort of wished the suckling pig was replaced by a thick wedge of buttered bread.

Kid with parsnips and cherries – A braised young goat shank with a tick of licorice, parsnip purée, and cherries.  The texture of the goat was much like lamb.  Since the goat was still young it didn’t have much of the barnyard taste that develops when the animal gets older.  The meat was very fatty, but unlike the suckling pig, there was no crispy skin.  This dish was frankly too soft and sticky for me.  But my friends at the table seemed to really enjoy it.  For me, one bite was enough.

Pigeon with mango and armagnac – A small piece of roasted pigeon with diced mango, lavender, and an armagnac sauce.  The pigeon was served with a purée made from the liver.  This was a great dish.  Due to the odd shape of the drumstick, every bite of the pigeon tasted different: some crispy, others soft and juicy.  There was significant textural diversity.

Cheese course - A collection of local cheeses, Tou de Til.lers, Piramide del Quirol, Cabra de la Garrotxa (Bauma), Taleggio, Torta de la Serena, and Blau de l’Avi Ton served with membrillo.

Pistachio soufflé with lime - A spongy pistachio soufflé served out of its ramekin with a lime sauce.  The toasted  pistachio flavor softened the acidity of the lime.  This dessert was well-balanced and quite colorful.

Strawberries with orange and yzaguirre - Sliced strawberries with orange sorbet floating in a yzaguirre broth.  The broth actually had beef stock in it, which might sound strange, but its slight fattiness really complimented the acidity of the orange sorbet and tartness of the strawberry.  This was a wonderful dessert, probably my favorite course of the night.

Peach salad with beets - Sliced peaches with beet sorbet.  I loved how the vegetal sweetness of the root vegetables interacted with the tartness of the peach.

Petits fours - warm chocolate cake, whisky chocolate squares, mango custard squares.  The warm chocolate cake was a nice touch, really ensures their freshness and prevents the small pastries from drying out.

I really like what chefs Oriel Ivem and Guillem Pla are doing: taking traditional Catalan ingredients and cooking preparations and adding a modern twist.  But I wish the restaurant could move beyond the notion that each main course needs a huge chunk of meat or fish.

The most interesting part of all the main courses was everything except the meat.  I would have been much happier with significantly smaller portions of meat and fish, or frankly, none at all.  After the third bite, the flavor becomes redundant.  Though, I suppose, a main course without meat seems like a tough sell in Barcelona.

Related Posts:

• Saison
• Sant Pau
• Quique Dacosta Revisited
• Quique Dacosta
• El Bulli Revisited

We sat in the smaller of two dining rooms overlooking the Mediterranean.  Subtle crashes of waves mixed with the whispers of waiters sliding about setting the remaining tables and bringing apéritifs for other early diners.  The tone was calm and collected, and felt in many ways as if we were eating in a restaurant in Japan.  What broke through the quiet was a sound I will never forget, the crisp crackling of our waitress slicing through our table’s loaf of bread.

The bread, made especially for Sant Pau, holds a thin wave of dough affixed to the surface before baking to exacerbate the crispiness of the crust.  As our waitress sliced thick wedges for our table our neighboring table looked for the source of the noise.  It was a very pleasant head-turning sound.  Frankly, it may have been the finest bread I’ve had at a restaurant, a sourdough loaf with a moist spongy inside.

We started with a few amuse bouches.

Courgette flower with yellow tempura -  Squash blossom tempura, a delicate hash of squash blossom lightly salted and served hot.  This was surprisingly light on the oil.

Cold rice with yellow chunks, potato and cheese yellow cake - A yellow potato gratin gently covered in a crispy layer of cheese served with a quail egg topped with rice.

Starter broth - A fine “pesto soup” served lukewarm.  The flavor of pecorino and parmesan was very mild, adding nothing more than a gentle salting.  The freshness of basil was apparent, but also muted.  On the one hand I would have liked a bit more flavor, but there was something very satisfying about the pureness of the thin broth, its simplicity, and how it let me distinguish each of the ingredients.

Gastronomic Mondrian - Our first course was presented as a protected work of art, shipped from the kitchen to our table.

When the wooden crate was lifted, a gorgeous work of art stayed behind.  We were served a cod brandade with red, green, and yellow pepper squares, piped with black olive borders.  When mixed the flavor was delicious: lightly salted cod mixed with sweet peppers alongside a mild acidic bite from the olives.  The flavor of Spanish olive oil from the emulsified cod was particularly fruity, brought out by the sweet peppers.  I loved this dish.

Maresme king prawns, cherries, and chopped cucumber - Succulent barely-cooked prawns swimming in a thick tomato cream, dotted with cherries and chopped cucumber.  The prawn was the sweetest element on the plate.  It had a sweetness that immediately gave away the shellfish’s freshness.  This dish nearly brought our table to tears … in a good way.  The mild tangy flavor of the tomato with the lushness of the butter really brought out the sweet, lobster-like flavor of the prawn.

Vegetable ravioli and joselito ham, with carrot, daikon, aubergine, courgette - A ravioli of green vegetables wrapped in slices of carrot, squash, radish, and eggplant.  When sliced in half, a thick puree poured out.  The thinly shaved joselito ham added a salty meat flavor to a predominately vegetable-based dish.  The carrots and radish added a crunch against the smoothness of the ravioli.  The flavor was of peas and butter.  This was exceptional.

Ray and dewlap - A thin slice of ray with a jurvert sauce and beetroot vinaigrette.  This was the least interesting of the main courses.

Cleaver wrasse 2011 - Two wedges of local parrotfish in a light curry with spirals of liquorice with beans and chayote.  The fish was lean with a crispy skin, and the curry contributed a tannic element that supported the fresh mouthfeel of the liquorice.  This dish was exceptionally balanced.

Pirineo foal with herbs, mushrooms, and a vegetable bale - Fat medallions of young horse with a mushroom and vegetable bouquet.  The meat was extremely lean with little to no visible fat.  The texture was similar to buffalo meat.  The sauce was a red wine demi-glace — well salted — that brought out the natural flavors of the meat.

Cheese course - A selection of local cheeses — each with paired accoutrements.  The cheese course came with a guide that explained every element on the plate.  Having the key in front of us that explained each cheese, its source, and its pairing, really enabled us to concentrate on the flavor.  It was also a lot of fun as it augmented interactivity.  Instead of trying really hard to remember the ingredients, they were laid out simple and clear.

Refreshing infusion - A basil-infused water poured over a peach sorbet.  The basil water had no sweetness whatsoever.  Its simple and pure taste was similar to our first course, the pesto “starter broth.”  Chef Ruscalleda has a masterful understanding of sweetness, and how to apply it carefully.  The sorbet was only mildly sweet, but as it mixed with the unsweetened basil water its subtle sweetness became apparent.  This course was refreshing indeed.

Transparent cube, berries, shiso, raspberries - Four walls of transparent gelatin locking in a cube of raspberry, strawberry, apple, coconut, and shiso ice cream.  This was light and refreshing.

Under a green roof tile - Inspired by the shape of Spanish roof tile, a thin matcha tea and white chocolate tile covered slices of strawberry and raspberry sorbet.  This was my least favorite of the desserts, but the presentation had a nice contrast of colors.

Blanc - White chocolate, rice, lemon verbena, gin, olive oil, and yoghurt in a glass.  The white chocolate cap suspended the lemon verbena sorbet.  When cracked, the ingredients mixed together.  The rice added an earthy grain component that helped temper the acidic bite of the sorbet.

Moon - Undoubtedly, one of the most imaginative desserts I’ve had.  Our waitress instructed us to “slide” the moon from left to right along the iridescent track of white chocolate.  The “moon” spilled coconut into the chocolate ganache laced with fresh shiso.  The dish was evocative of the night sky.

Black chocolate - A pool of dark chocolate with mint, coconut, fruit, nuts and sweet peppers.

After our meal, we were escorted to the adjacent terrace where we faced the kitchen below and restaurant above.  Our ears heard only the sounds of waves crashing behind us.

Petits fours - Raspberry crumble, financier, coconut marshmallow, puff pastry cake and pumpkin angel hair, Portuguese tocinillo, strawberry with sweet wine and pistachio, liquorice and sherbet stick, limoncello jelly, chocolate rice and almond, and a berry macaron.

There’s really only one word that sums up my recent experience at Sant Pau: magical.

This restaurant is currently not getting the attention that it deserves.  Everything about this meal, the serene and collected tone in the dining room, the imaginative and inventive quality of the dishes, the pure and precise flavors, and the relaxing finale in the courtyard made the experience ethereal.  Sant Pau is worth a trip to Spain alone, just don’t forget about a visit to Quique Dacosta on the way.

Related Posts:

• Quique Dacosta Revisited
• Quique Dacosta
• El Bulli Revisited
• El Bulli
• Favorite Meals of 2011

Over the course of three meals, we were brought on a comprehensive and well-organized tour of Chef Dacosta’s cooking.  My first visit meal started with a dinner.  The following day my friend the ulterior epicure and I basically hung out all day at the restaurant.  We had two more meals.  I am writing about the second of those three meals, which was my favorite.  You can see photos of the other two meals here.

Amuse bouche – The meal started with a collection of amuse bouches and a glass of cava.  A rapid-fire succession of cinnamon basil, kalanchoe greens and oil, cold hibiscus tea with chicory, pickled raïm, snails, shrimp cakes, kumquats filled with flying fish eggs, and hazelnut oil.  The amuses hit all the spots on the palate: sweet, savory, salty, hot, and cold.

An assortment of delicatessens – Our first course was salty: a colorful gradient of cured roes and fish.  From left to right, we had salt-cured and sun dried fish roes of bonito, lingfish, and sea bass.  We were also served aged octopus with a drizzle of olive oil; the octopus had a bitter taste and the dab of sweet olive oil helped to temper it a bit.  The saltiness of this course seemed to increase my appetite, by the end I was starving.

Cereal paper - A thin crispy wafer of grains to accompany our salty fish roe.

Pickled spring onions - Served alongside the salted fish roes and cereal paper were sweet bulbs of spring onion.  The assertive acidity of the onions seemed to reset my palate between bites of the roe salty.

Dehydrated figs - Our second course, a crumble of dehydrated green figs served atop a fig leaf, was a light sweet and crispy snack.

Dew - Chilled salicornia and ice plant beneath a shaved ice caipirinha.  My dining companion, the ulterior epicure, immediately commented that the gelee tasted “leathery” and could possibly contain a dash of tequila or mezcal.  This dish was cool and refreshing with vegetal undertones.  The crisp of the ice plan bridged the gap between the gelee and the smooth sea beans.

Piquillo Pepper – After our first bite, our waiter asked if we knew what we were eating. Only  that point did I realized it wasn’t piquillo pepper. What we were eating was dehydrated watermelon re-hydrated with charred piquillo syrup.  The texture was indistinguishable from grilled piquillo pepper.  The dish was adorned with small whole mustard seeds which looked like pepper seeds that had spilled out.  The seeds even developed a thin albumin-like coating, really completing the effect.  The syrup was extremely sweet, but the subtle spice from the mustard seeds helped to temper that a bit.  The concept of this dish was brilliant.

Avocado - A smoked wedge of firm avocado bathing in a light bonito broth, topped with shaved smoked avocado seed.  The avocado was firm enough to require a knife, but still very creamy.  Its texture was very buttery but the shaved smoked seed helped cut through the fatty mouthfeel.  The dashi-like broth also helped bring out the latent meaty flavors in the vegetable.  This was a very simple but somehow very satisfying dish.

Chufas - Cocoa-covered foie gras and sliced tigernuts floating in a truffle-oil cream.  Tigernuts, or “chufas” in Spanish, are a starchy and fibrous nut with a crunch like watercress but a flavor like watered-down peanut butter.  They were a bit pasty when eaten raw (our waiter brought us a few to try) but when sliced thin they complimented the creamy truffle broth.  The cocoa-foie gras consisted of chilled chocolate just barely holding together a thin foie gras cream that spilled in the mouth.  The sweetness of the foie gras with the nutty flavors of the tiger nuts and the aroma of truffle oil made this dish intoxicating.  This course catapulted my view on the meal thus far from outstanding to awestruck; Quique Dacosta is not only creative and original, but has the palate and understanding of textures and flavors to match.  Just wow.

Tomato - Frozen shavings of distilled tomato snow covering sun dried tomatoes.  The dish was drizzled with what tasted like pepper-infused olive oil.  As a whole, it tasted like frozen gaspacho, with a subtle cheesiness coming from the pepper oil.

Peas - This plate embodies spring: a cool sweet pea cream broth with wasabi-infused tobiko roe and spring pea shoots.  The fish roe, which usually clumps together, dispersed evenly in the broth adding a short-lived spice to each bite.  I didn’t taste much fishiness from the roe, rather, it seemed they were used more for the textural component — miniature bursts of spice with each bite.  The fresh pea shoots amplified the dish’s apparent freshness.  This was one of my favorite courses of the meal, a dish that at first glance appears simple, but is far from it.

Local baby squid - Local squids dunked in boiling water to partially cook them, served with a concentrated shellfish broth.  The squids were creamy and mildly salted.  The concentrated seafood shot was very salty, and helped bring out the shellfish flavors in the squid.  I loved this dish.

Oyster - A plump oyster gently cooked in its own seawater.  The oyster was served on a bed of piping hot rocks with seaweed found from the area where the oyster was harvested.  This oyster had no saucing other than its own natural salty and briny juice.  This was simply delicious, perhaps the first time I truly enjoyed a cooked oyster.

Fresh spring onions - Three sheets of spring onion bulb acting as a bowl for a drizzled shellfish sauce.  This was a dish where the dominant ingredient was the sauce, and the onions merely a vehicle to collect it.  I didn’t understand the concept of this dish, and its flavor was not particularly exciting.

A tasting of local prawns - This is a dish where Quique Dacosta teases us with the local ingredient quality.  Denia’s shrimp, langoustines, and prawns are perhaps the sweetest I have ever had.  In this dish a single prawn is presented in three different parts:  first the tail, lightly blanched in its own seawater on a sauce made from its roe.  Then the deep-fried head and legs with part of the shell holding a reduction made from the brain.  The third part is a shellfish reduction with Cognac filled with a gelatinous liquid dumpling filled with juice from the shrimp brains.  This dish was exceptional, just the fresh taste of prawn presented from three different angles.

Arroz de galera - Uni-infused risotto with sage, crowned by thin layers of raw mantis shrimp.  The rice was firm and chewy giving it structure to support the sea urchin without it turning into a goey mess.  The interlaced uni had a clearly defined shape.  The mantis shrimp, unlike the Denia prawn, was not sweet, rather it tasted strongly of the sea.  There was also a temperature contrast between the warm risotto and cold shrimp.  This was one of the highlight courses of the meal, utilizing Valencia’s traditional rice recipes with local shrimp.

Seaweed stew - This was a repulsive course, that I actually enjoyed.  I hope that makes sense.  This was a stew made from algae and barnacles served with seaweed toast.  The stew tasted like licking a dock that had been submerged in the seawater for a long, long time.  It tasted slimy and salty, like algae from a wet rock.  I didn’t like the flavor, actually I hated it.  But I loved how, for a few brief minutes, I felt like I had gone for a swim in the adjacent Mediterranean.  Its flavor was very intense and concentrated.  It was very challenging to finish this course, two bites was more than enough.

Monkfish - Thick medallions of breaded monkfish in a shellfish broth with sheets of seaweed and a crustacean roe paste infused with mint.  The generous chunks of monkfish were pan seared making the surface crunchy and leaving the inside lean and moist.  The portioning was very generous making it tough to finish the entire course knowing we still quite a few to go.

Almonds - A Spanish ajo blanco of shaved frozen white almond milk with garlic.  The dish was generously seasoned with olive oil.  This course was light and refreshing without any sweetness.  Condensation began to form on the frozen plate as we ate this course, which made the course seem even more refreshing.

Beet root - By this point in the meal it was clear we weren’t going to be served much, if any, meat.  Maybe that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.  This next course, a deep red beet root violently splashed with a meaty beet sauce captured the essence of a heavier meat course without meat being the principal ingredient.  The sweetness of the beet and saltiness of the beef reduction went together quite nicely, creating a flavor much like during Thanksgiving when cranberry sauce brushes against gravy.  This was a pretty cool concept.

“Which came first?” - An egg-shaped white asparagus gelatin carrying an amber-orange colored chicken stock “yolk” that poured out when eaten.  Halved blanched almonds dotted the yolk.  Despite looking and textually ”feeling” like an egg in the mouth, this tasted like an asparagus cream soup.  This was a remarkable concept.

Bone marrow – This was perhaps the coolest course of the night, even if it shaved five years off my life.  On the plate we saw what appeared to be a rather large veal bone filled with some kind of liquid.  In reality, it was a gelatin made from heavy cream and bone marrow shaped like a bone, filled with a veal stock.  Chef Dacosta really got the texture of the gelatin right — it glistened in the light as a bone would, even with the same color striations.  The plate was dotted with a concentrated licorice paste, and our waiter told us to taste a bit of the paste after eating the bone marrow gelatin.  The licorice’s concentrated stevia-like sweetness combined with the residual fattiness in my mouth to create an almost sweet meaty butter flavor.  I loved this dish; I just wish I didn’t have so much guilt for having finished it.

Matcha tea - A trio of matcha tea desserts: a green tea macaron, an apple foam dusted with green tea, and a compressed granny smith apple soaked in green tea.  Overall a nice transition from savory into sweet.

Orange blossom honey - A light and fluffy honeycomb-shaped spongecake drizzled with orange blossom honey.  Interestingly, the honey tasted more like citrus than it did like honey.  It also wasn’t overly sweet.

And just like that the meal was over.  Hardly any meat, lots of shellfish, and very light on the dessert.  This man was reading my mind.

This was a magical meal and certainly at the same level as El Bulli.  And when El Bulli closes it will be quite sad; but one door closed opens another.  I am confident that Quique Dacosta will finally garner the attention it deserves.

Related Posts:

• Quique Dacosta
• El Bulli Revisited
• Sant Pau
• El Bulli
• Favorite Meals of 2011

Quique Dacosta, at first, seems out of place.  It’s in the center of a tourist town and the tourists don’t eat there.  During high season, a large portion of the town is foreign: most signs are in German.  Regular ferries carry young club-goers eastward to the Balearic islands, while older couples stay behind to enjoy the serenity of the Mediterranean.  Except the restaurant is in exactly the right place; it’s clear that the local seafood has had a profound influence on Dacosta’s cooking.

Though Quique Dacosta doesn’t receive nearly as much hype as his compatriot Ferran Adrià, I’d argue that his cooking is equally as exciting.  And he’s just getting started.  When I made it to Quique Dacosta in 2009 I was blown away by his creative use of local shellfish and vegetables.  When I returned in 2011, I was even more impressed.

Our meal began with Universo Local, the more extensive of the two tasting menus.

White truffle from montgo - A truffle-shaped dehydrated parmesan mousse with the strong fragrance of white truffle.  The concentrated aroma was noticible even before the truffle was placed on the table.  This was Dacosta’s version of a gougère, the French cheesy puff pastry.  The flavor of this dish was a bit too sweet for me, but its fragrance was intoxicating.  It was also light and fluffy — no more than two bites.

The Living Forest - A collection of mushrooms and greens laced with black truffles julienne growing from an edible dirt floor.  The dish was beautiful and evocative of a crawl through the forest floor.  It was an edible piece of art that transported us to the forest.  Despite its beauty, I thought this course too was a little too sweet.  I was beginning to get worried that Chef Dacosta had a heavy hand with the sugar.  Thankfully, this assumption turned out to be wrong.

Primavera - “Spring on the plate” – Lobes of foie gras mixed with raw local prawns, decorated with candied leaves and flowers.  Oh my god!  The creaminess of the sweet prawns blended with the fatty foie gras making them taste even richer.  The buttery taste of the liver amplified the prawns’ sweetness.  This was a dish where the very subtle sweetness from the candied leaves worked — they complimented the shellfish.  Overall this was an excellent dish, both beautiful and delicious.

Essential oyster - A thick slab of oyster atop an oyster leaf, topped with a transparent oyster gelee.  This dish took everything I like about oysters: the soft meaty texture, subtle brine, and sweetness, and amplified them.  The algae used to make the gelee seemed to pair perfectly; it extended the texture of the oyster making it taste like a single piece of enormous shellfish, without diluting the flavor.  The oyster leaf further fortified the briny taste.  This was a strong taste of the sea, fresh and briny without too much salt.  I loved this course.

Iceberg “evoking a hit of the sea” - Continuing with the shellfish theme, algae and sea barnacles covered by a crab and almond “cloud.”  This was another awesome dish, a play on textures concentrating on the taste of the ocean.

The Haze - A miniature sweet pea forest of almonds, mushrooms, small flowers, black truffle, and edible dirt.  The “forest” was served over dry ice creating a fog that covered our table.  The fog actually added to the fish by re-creating the wet damp feeling of walking in the forest in the early morning.  We were transported to the woods.

Our waiter brought a pair of specially made tweezers to eat this course item-by-item which heightened our appreciation for the ingredients; it forced us to eat carefully.  The diversity of textures on this plate, from crispy peas to soft mushrooms made it really balanced.  This was one of my favorite courses of the afternoon.  Every bite was different.

Wood - A generous lobe of roasted foie gras with the skin from toasted Jerusalem artichokes in a duck bouillon.  The toasted skins added a smokey flavor that helped counterbalance the fatty mouthfeel from the foie gras.  The duck broth helped to rehydrate the artichoke skin.  This dish ushered in a sharp transition from light seafood to creamy offal.  I thought the portioning of the dish was a bit large, but then again, can one have too much foie gras?

Ashes - A play on texture and colors in this dark dish.  The ink-black and charcoal colors combined with the crispy squeaking from the dehydrated chips made the experience of eating this dish feel like rummaging through a pile of spent firewood.  The landscape was fantastic.  The flavor was salty with hints of sweetness and a deep earthy flavor from the mushrooms.  The drying of the mushrooms to create this dish actually concentrated their flavor.

Denia shrimp - It’s worth visiting Denia just for this local variety of shrimp.  Gorgeous colors of red, orange, and brown streaked by green and lavender inside.  These prawns — lightly boiled in seawater — were sweet and meaty.  They were served by themselves — no garnish or saucing.  We were instructed to eat as much of the shrimp as possible — head, brain, tail, and even some of the softer legs.  The only thing this course was missing was a second round.  These were some of the sweetest shrimp I’d ever had.

Denia’s pink prawn - It was this course that showed me Quique Dacosta sure knows what he is doing, or at the very least, has an uncanny ability to pander to my palate.  The previous course introduced the raw natural beauty of Denia’s local shellfish.  This course improved upon it without distracting from the natural flavors.  Both courses and their succession showed that Dacosta has a very fine understanding of the area’s local ingredients, when to step in to enhance their flavor, and when to step back and let them speak for themselves.  The prawns were sauced in a broth made from the shrimp’s brain and decorated with local edible flowers.  This dish was stunningly beautiful and was probably the best tasting prawn I’ve ever had.  This was my favorite course of the afternoon.

Sea beet - Sea urchin in a beet root emulsion.  This presented sea urchin in a way I hadn’t tried before, with a sweet vegetal foundation.  This course was a bit heavy on the sweetness, and the cooked flavor of beet distracted from the sweetness of the sea urchin.  It wasn’t my favorite of the afternoon but I was still in ecstasy from the previous courses that I didn’t think much of it.

Coral - Sea urchin, crab, salmon roe, and algae.  This was a fantastic course — a collection of shellfish brought together by the subtle vegetal bitterness of algae.  A potpourri of textures from the sea.  This course was also served cool which made it particularly refreshing.  It was like a briney seafood palate cleanser.

Mark Rothko Saffron – If this course doesn’t represent “art on a plate,” I’m not sure what does.  A generous filet of pan fried red mullet with a puree of celeriac on a transparent glass plate.  Underneath the plate was a maroon-red color gradient used to visually turn the dish into a piece of art similar to the work of Rothko.  This dish tasted great too: smooth and juicy red mullet that developed a shellfish like flavor crowned by crispy skin.

Senia rice - Black rice topped with black truffle, braised woodcock, and black truffle caviar.  This was an incredible dish similar in appearance to the previous “ashes” dish except topped with gorgeous black truffle.  The aroma of truffle was incredibly fragrant, and this paired very nicely with the more mild senia rice.  The crispy “truffle caviar” added textural contrast making this one balanced dish.  This was another highlight of the afternoon.

Orange in the winter - Bright and sweet blood orange in various textures: foam, crisp, cold sorbet, whole fruit.  This was really refreshing and the acidity from the citrus completely reset my palate.

Litchis - A tasting of lychee with different textures: meringue, gelee, powder, foam, and cream.  The sweetness of this course was more pronounced, but the sugar helped to bring out the flavor of the lychee.  I loved this dessert.

Matcha tea - A matcha tea sponge with matcha tea ice cream.  There was a very subtle bitterness from the green tea which tempered the sugar making this a balanced dessert.

We finished this meal with a great big smile on our faces.  The creativity of the plating in combination with the clever flavor combinations made this one of the most memorable meals I’ve experienced.  Even more, the creativity wasn’t random: the dishes had a strong focus on local ingredients and the natural gifts Denia had to offer.

In just a few hours Quique Dacosta had jumped on my radar from a relatively distant chef to one with whom I was already planning a return visit.  I left the meal in awe of my experience and the flavors I had tasted.  There was something special here.  And I don’t think the restaurant is getting the attention it deserves.

But it wasn’t until my most recent visit last week that I discovered why, I believe, Quique Dacosta is soon to become the most interesting chef in the world…

To be continued …

Related Posts:

• Quique Dacosta Revisited
• Sant Pau
• El Bulli Revisited
• El Bulli
• Favorite Meals of 2011

It started as a lazy morning. Waves crashed and fizzled on the sun-drenched shore as we drank tea and coffee at our seaside hotel in Roses. Lunch at El Bullí was the only activity on the day’s agenda.  Unlike last year where we (embarrassingly) overestimated the Costa Brava‘s formality, this time, we left our suits and ties at home. At one o’clock we would casually drive no more than ten minutes to our lunch. We were ready, but in no hurry.

When we did arrive, closed gates greeted us blocking a line of cars with their windows shut and air conditioners on max. It was 1:28pm, two minutes before the pearly gates invited one of the last groups of diners inside before the restaurant closes permanently. Two minutes later they opened. As we entered, we walked down the steep winding driveway onto dusty gravel — a subtle reminder that most of what we’d be eating did originally come from the earth.

At the entrance of the restaurant lies a long glowing corridor illuminated by the large windows peaking into the courtyard. At the other end stands Luís García, the man who decides the fate of one million diners for one of the season’s eight thousand seats. He is the gatekeeper, and once again, he let us in.

Mr. Garcia checked our names on the day’s reservation list and introduced us to our waiter who would chaperon us through the kitchen.  Once in the kitchen, it seemed we weren’t the only ones who wanted a photo of Chef Ferran Adrià. Shutter clicks and flashes went off in rapid succession complementing the tinny clanking of cookware against the stove and counter. The kitchen felt more full than last year with diners capturing as much as possible of the kitchen’s final two weeks in operation. But despite the busyness Chef Adrià made time to introduce himself and to speak with every diner before the meal.

After our kitchen tour we were led to the terrace for an apéritif before our meal.

We sat in the shade at an over-sized table with a view of the Cala Montjoi cove. The echos of children playing at the adjacent beach filled the terrace. We leisurely flipped through the modified wine list — significantly shorter due to the restaurant’s closing — while enjoying the ocean breeze and framed views of the Mediterranean.

As we settled in and narrowed down our wine selection, our waiter brought us some snacks.

Caipirinha sugar cane – Fat stalks of sugar cane soaked in cachaça, rum and lime and garnished with small mint leaves. This was a chewable cocktail. While my friends took the chew and extract approach, I ate the entire stick at once. At the end of the course, however, we all had a plate of dry and stringy bamboo. The taste of alcohol was strong, and the raw sugar cane added a hint of maple to the snack. These boozy stalks put everyone in a good mood.

Gin fizz – A frozen lemon and gin slush topped with hot lemon and gin foam. The hot foam floated atop the slurry mixing with the cold beverage at exactly the point when it hits the mouth. This dish, not unlike Heston Blumenthal’s hot-cold tea, danced in the mouth as the hot and cold beverages found equilibrium. This dish was sweet and acidic with the strong taste of lemon.

Mojito and apple baguette – A delicate and crispy apple meringue sandwiching a frozen mojito gel. This was so light and airy that any pressure while picking this up would cause it to crumble. This was very sweet, as mojitos should be, with the cool flavor of mint and the acidic bite of lime. By this point in the meal, we had all had our share of gin and rum, and were beginning to feel the subtle effects. Our smiles grew larger.

Spherical olives – Green olives “redesigned” to taste better than the real thing. This El Bulli classic is often used as an example for spherification, a technique invented by Chef Adrià where a liquid is shaped into a sphere, causing it to burst in the mouth. The concentrated flavor of olive made these taste better than the real things. The liquid olive “popped” in our mouths spilling a tart juice. These were delicious.

Pistachio ravioli – Sachets of sweet pistachio cream in dissolving rice paper dusted with powdered sugar. The taste of toasted pistachio was very strong; if I had to guess I’d say the pistachio shells were ground into a powder and added to the cream fortify the flavor. One or two whole pistachios were placed inside. The crispy rice paper against the gritty pistachio liquid added some textural contrast. I really liked these.

Mimetic peanuts – A cold crunchy shell in the shape of a peanut filled with a thin peanut cream. The sugary shell melted in the mouth blending with the peanut liquid. By this point in the meal I worried about the sweetness of the courses to come. Everything so far, with the exception of the olives, had been very sweet. But this course was the last.

Parmesan cheese “porra” – A crispy stick of parmesan wrapped in a translucent sheet of parmesan. The salty cheese had an almost meaty flavor which contrasted nicely against the sweetness of the previous courses. It also went very nicely with our glass of cava.

Parmesan “macaron” – Continuing with the cheese theme, we were given a loose marshmallow-like parmesan sandwich with the strong taste and smell of parmesan cheese. There was no detectable sugar in this dish; it was entirely savory. Coating the outside of this macaron was a parmesan crumble, much lighter and fluffier than the real thing.

What seemed to go by in a flash turned out to be over an hour. Our waiter showed us to our table in the dining room. Unlike the last time, the dining room was completely full. Despite never opening officially for reservations this year, it seemed like the restaurant was making a strong effort to get as many diners in as possible before the permanent closing. The tone was more gregarious and lively than last year, when the dining room was only half full.

Gorgonzola balloon – A rather large sphere of frozen Gorgonzola cheese cracked and sprinkled with nutmeg. The flavor was more concentrated than last year making it taste much better. There was a critical mass required for a broken-off piece of the sphere to taste good. Anything smaller than a silver dollar melted into a watery, anything larger had just the right cheese flavor. The sweetness of the nutmeg picked up the cheesiness of the sphere with a subtle spice. I didn’t like this last time. I loved it this time.

Olive oil chip – A thin transparent circular wafer of room temperature solidified olive oil. This was drizzled with additional olive oil and a few specks of sea salt. The natural sweetness of the oil came through with each crunch.

Flowers Paper – A pressed sheet of cotton candy with a colorful bouquet of pressed flowers presented in a folded sheet of Japanese threaded paper. Some of the flowers were pickled, others raw. All of them were colorful. This dish was gorgeous but didn’t taste great. It was, however, a brilliant presentation, and the cotton candy served as a fantastic vehicle for tasting flowers that would normally be used only for decorative purposes.

Boiled Shrimp – A local raw shrimp with the head and tail left on, quickly blanched in saltwater then held from the tail to allow the head to continue cooking a bit longer. This was simple and absolutely delicious. When sucked, the head of the shrimp spilled the salty viscous brain. This dish shows that Chef Adria knows when to take a step back and let nature shine on its own.

Soy Crystal – Flakes of ice with soy sauce and wasabi. The soy sauce seemed a bit thicker and sweeter, like tamari. What was really interesting about this course was how it reacted with the previous boiled shrimp. This dish was an abstraction of Japanese flavors, which in combination with the previous course, left behind a flavor combination similar to just having finished a bite of shrimp sashimi. The icy soy crystals were by no means delicious, but it was quite clever. It set the tone for the next few courses: we were taking a trip to Japan.

Japanese ravioli – Spherified miso soup garnished with small cubes of tofu. The miso soup bursted in the mouth spilling its warm dashi broth. The skin of the ravioli mixed with the tofu creating a bit of texture inside a thin broth. Once in the mouth, this was indistinguishable from traditional miso soup.

Soy matches – Soy sticks with a gold leaf flint. The gold leaf in this dish was not superfluous. The smoky fermented taste of the soy with the metallic gold made this taste similar to how a recently struck match smells. This was genius.

Nori ravioli with lemon – Crunchy nori ravioli on a bed of sesame seeds filled with lemon. This dish was sour, but somehow the salty seaweed countered the lemon’s acidity making it taste rather balanced. The seaweed’s umami enhanced the citrus flavor making it taste less sour and more sweet without additional sugar. This was really clever.

Two cooking prawn – Our expedition into the flavors of Japanese cuisine ended in a similar way to how it began: a shrimp. This shrimp had its head removed and the contents of it reduced onto a teaspoon. The legs were deep fried and the tail very lightly cooked in saltwater. When eaten the sweet and smooth shrimp contrasted against the salty and crunchy legs. The teaspoon chaser of enriched shrimp brains was pure and delicious.

Roses and artichokes – Boiled rose petals shaped to look like an artichoke. The “heart” of the artichoke was dressed with an artichoke reduction. The silver in this dish, while mostly cosmetic, did add a subtle minerality.  There was a very strong floral taste.  Ferran’s grandmother, from what I was explained last year, used to serve artichokes on silver plates and once in awhile a piece of silver would flake onto the food. This dish was a nostalgic tribute to Chef Adrià’s grandmother. It also really tasted like artichoke.

Ham and ginger canapé – A wedge of fat from Joselito ham atop a dried ginger chip. The fat had a texture indistinguishable from bone marrow. The spice of the ginger helped reduce the fatty mouthfeel of the ham a tiny bit, but more importantly it complimented the sweet and cured flavor of the ham. This was too rich for me.  I felt like I was eating a chunk of melting butter.

Oysters and bone marrow tartar – This was an unforgettable course, both delicious and brilliant. Two raw oyster leaves served alongside cubed bone marrow in an oyster shell. In this dish, the green leaves bring the salty brine of the ocean while the fatty lobes of bone marrow the oyster meat. When eaten together, the flavor profile is almost indistinguishable from a perfectly cooked oyster. This was awesome.

At this point in the meal we finished our Jacques Selosse Initial and ordered a second bottle of wine, a Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2005, rife with apple and notes of butter popcorn.

Parmesan frozen air with museli – Chilled parmesan froth in a styrofoam box topped with dried raspberry, rosemary, and apple. The Styrofoam box was wrapped with a long strip of paper showing an abstract photo of dried parmesan cheese. The box was reminiscent of an airplane snack pack. Our waitress instructed us to try a bit first, then to evenly distribute the dried fruits to prevent them from weighing down the foam, and to try again. The foam had an intense salty flavor of parmesan. The flavor was even meaty, as the aged cheese’s umami qualities came through. The tart dried fruits contrasted against the salt adding a balanced flavor and textural contrast. At the bottom of the box was a layer of parmesan ices. The box housed a gradient of chilled parmesan from light and fluffy foam to dense and frozen ices. This dish was delicious.

While we ate this course our waitress carefully rolled up the box’s paper wrapper which also served as a take-home souvenir.

Carbonara tagliatelle – Consommé solidified and shaped like pasta with egg yolk, ham, black pepper, and parmesan. The alginated stock had a jello-like texture, and the thick egg yolk coated its surface alongside the smokey ham and crushed pepper. This tasted just like taglitelle carbonara — perhaps even better than the real thing — the only difference being the softer texture of the artifificial pasta. This was a great course.

Caviar cream with hazelnut sauce – Serguva caviar in a hazelnut cream opposed by spherified hazelnut beads in a caviar cream sauce. The hazelnut beads at first glance looked more real than the caviar, but when examined closely nothing mimics the genuine pearly glow around the real caviar. Each side of this dish, when its components were eaten together, was supposed to taste like the other. Even the temperatures contrasted: the caviar sauce was chilled and the hazelnut sauce warm; the caviar was chilled and the hazelnut beads were warm. This was a really nice concept, potentially one of the highlight courses of the afternoon.

Liquid hazelnut “porra” – A stick of hazelnut filled with liquid “nutella.” This was sweet, crispy, and nutty.

Pinenuts shabu-shabu – Three variations of pine nut dipped into a dashi broth to soften the edible packet and eaten. One packet was oily, another creamy, and the third pasty. Each presented the flavor of pine nut from a different angle. This was a course that I didn’t understand conceptually, but appreciated because it tasted so good!

Curry chicken – Curry ice cream, frozen curry granita, unsweetened coconut milk, spring onions, and a drizzle of chicken demiglace. This was the first time I had tasted Chef Adrià’s use of curry, and my god does he know how to use it. I generally shy away from curry because of its dominating assertive flavor. Tumeric is such a strong tasting ingredient that it often overshadows all the other elements on the plate. Here the curry was the dominant element on the plate. Making curry the primary ingredient and using the chicken only as a flavor enhancer was particularly interesting as the curry itself developed a meaty flavor. This course was outstanding.

Mimetic almond – A mixture of real and spherified almonds, almond ice cream, almond confiture, and a generous wedge of peach in a tomato broth. In this dish Chef Adrià deconstructs each component of a toasted almond: saltiness, crunchiness, toastiness and inherent sweetness and re-creates the single component in an almond shape so that when the whole dish is eaten together it tastes like the real thing. This was an intellectual snack that was also delicious.

Cold sea anemone with barnacles – Local gooseneck barnacles (percebes) with anemones. This dish tasted like licking a wooden dock submerged in saltwater. This was a dish where I didn’t particularly like the flavor, but I fell in love with where it took me. For a second I was swimming in the Mediterranean without getting my feet wet.

Lulo “ceviche” and mollosk – Lulo is a Colombian tropical fruit somewhere between a passion fruit and tomato, with a distinct tartness. In this course a hollowed-out lulo is filled with coriander, lime, and onion forming a green puree as well as foamed clam juice. A small pellet of ice was added to the white wedges to chill the temperature of the clam juice. The white wedges also had small medallions of local clam. This was a fantastic course, both beautiful and refreshing. It was a welcome bright contrast to the murky briny broth from the previous course.

Clam “ceviche” – An open-faced shucked clam with a subtle scent of corn and cilantro. This little snack served as a segue-way into the next course.

Oaxaca “taco” – A tortilla made from dehydrated corn wrapped avocado, grapefruit, and greens. This vegetarian taco was sweet with a subtle kick of acidity from the citrus. The creaminess of the avocado held everything together. This was my favorite bite of the meal.

“Gazpacho” and ajo blanco – A powdered snow of gazpacho atop a white garlic cream, drizzled with olive oil. This dish shows us a bit of Chef Adrià’s sense of humor. This desaturated dish lacks the characteristic red of traditional gazpacho.  In fact, it looks nothing like it. This plate is a celebration of Chef’s Adrià’s creativity while demonstrating his ability to stay true to flavor. This was delicious!

Shanghai lobster – Lobster claws topped with small mushrooms, ginger, sesame seeds, star anise, and pork belly. The combination of the dish’s ingredients — particularly the ginger and sesame — took me right to China where whole lobster claws are sauteed in this sweet/spicy combination waiting to be cracked and eaten. This was easier to eat, of course.

At this point in the meal we decided to take a break. We paused our service for fourty five minutes and headed out on the terrace to reflect on our experience thus far. Since the restaurant only does one service per day, we were in no rush to leave.

We were the only diners outside. The silence on the terrace was filled only by the Mediterranean wind.

After our break we returned to the table to resume service, just in time for the meat and dessert courses.

To set the stage for the next courses, we were given a cheesecloth bag of toasted cardamom. The spiced woodsy fragrance transported me to the winter, full of game meats, cranberries, and cinnamon.

Hare fritter – A liquid-filled deep-fried breaded hare dumpling topped with lemon zest. When eaten in one bite the gamey hare jus poured out and mixed with the starchy shell. This was delicious and very satisfying.

Hare cappuccino – A drinkable hare soup topped with hare foam.

Blackberry risotto with game meat sauce – A teaspoon filled with individually picked blackberry kernels and a game meat gravy. The tart blackberry against the fatty hare gravy was really balanced, similar to how Americans mix gravy and cranberry sauce during Thanksgiving. The astringency of the blackberry kernels tempered the fatty mouthfeel of the gravy. This was a tasty bite.

Hare ravioli with bolognese – This dish was paired with a wine glass of beet juice made to look like blood. When the glass was placed on the table it looked like red wine, but a quick swirl revealed this was more viscous. The “blood” coagulated along the sides of the glass revealing a deep magenta color. This was a very intense dish. The ravioli were creamy and gamey, highlighting a more classical side of Chef Adrià’s cooking.

Wintery snow with yuzu and sweet beans – A nutty yet refreshing intermezzo with toasted sesame seeds.

Yuzu nigiri – Candied yuzu gelée atop a cloud of rice.

Yoghurt blini – A thin circular blini made from thickened yoghurt drizzled with honey. This tasted a lot like Greek yoghurt with a slightly crunchy shell.

Coca de vidre – crystal cake – Crispy sheets of sugar topped with pine nuts. The translucent sugar, though at room temperature, looked like ice crystals.

Mini-doughnuts – Unsweetened coconut donuts with unsweetened cocoa. The sugar from the crystal cake from the previous course somehow made these donuts taste sweet. They were phenominal — just the pure taste of chocolate and liquid coconut filling.

Frozen sake – Sheets of sake ice topped with blackberry and raspberry flavored crispy candies. This dessert was cool, tart, and refreshing, without being too sweet.

Marking the end of our meal our friendly waiters posed for a quick photo. I had the same waitress during my meal last year; I wonder if this was an intentional match up as the waitress seemed to remember me, or if the wait staff is so small and the turnover so low, that it was a result of favorable probability.

After we finished our meal, our waitress invited us to have petits fours and coffee out on the terrace. We returned to a different table this time, one in the sun with a gentle sea breeze.

Petits Fours – A tremendous assortment of colorful chocolates, including yogurt covered dehydrated strawberries, chocolate-covered gooseberries, chocolate-covered mandarin wedges, strawberry dusted chocolate “corals,” and other bite-sized pieces. My favorite piece was the white chocolate covered strawberry. I liked how the tartness of the dehydrated strawberry tasted with the buttery flavor of the white chocolate.

Three hours later and the chocolates were still not finished. Since our table was in the sun, shortly after presenting the box to us our waiter brought it inside and continuously couriered small plates of chocolates — small plate by plate — to prevent them from melting. We were in no rush, and neither were they.

Amazingly there was not a single “gimmicky” course. There were no ingredients hanging from strings, no erupting volcanoes or smoke shows, everything was pure, focused, and apparently simple. Chef Adrià has a unique ability to make incredibly complex dishes seem simple.

But was it delicious? It sure was. Out of forty three courses there were only two that I didn’t care for all that much (the ham and ginger canapé and soy crystal). And even with those two courses, my dining companions would disagree with me about the former and I’m quite confident pleasant flavor wasn’t the intent of the later.

My biggest complaint last year (and believe me there weren’t many) was the lack of cohesion between the courses: the meal seemed disconnected without a central theme linking them together. This year there was a story. Chef Adrià took us on a tour around the world with each course coming back to Catalonia as the crux. In many ways this final meal is an autobiography highlighting Chef Adrià’s inspirations, from Japan to Latin America and back home to the Costa Brava.

I’m pretty sad that El Bullí will be permanently closing. It will always be remembered as a magical place where creativity and ingenuity meet flavor. It will always be a place where I had two of the best meals of my life.

Related Posts:

• El Bulli
• Quique Dacosta Revisited
• Alinea Revisited
• Alinea
• Sant Pau