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Barcelona is known around the world as a city that exudes culture, innovation and the most creative cuisine, with restaurants that lead this trend and are among the world’s elite. And within the wide gastronomic offer that we can find in the city, Disfrutar stands out. To speak of it is to speak of the temple of the most creative, avant-garde and elegant gastronomic essence of Barcelona. Located in the Esquerra de L’Eixample in Barcelona, just in front of the Ninot Market, the first sensation you get when you open the door is its hallmark. An elaborate transparent composition of experiences that perfectly combine the design, decoration and colors of the Mironian ceramics, which is the common thread that marks the interior space and gives it that surprisingly unique and Mediterranean air, in which everything flows with a rich and transverse harmony that arises from the deep research and rigor taken to the limit in each creation by the studio specializing in gastronomic spaces, El Equipo Creativo.
Currently, its tables -42 clients- are the most demanded in the Catalan capital and getting a seat is an adventure that must be planned at least six months in advance. As last-minute cancellations sometimes occur, it is best to keep an eye on their website or call +34 93 348 68 96.
Trio of aces
Tapas meets in Disfrutar with Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas and Eduard Xatruch. The trio of aces who are at the head of the restaurant with two Michelin stars. The third may fall at any time and, why not, on November 28, when the Michelin Gala will be held in Barcelona. “We work to be better every day and that the customer is satisfied, not for the awards. If they have to come, they will come, although it is also true that we would be very excited to get the third star one day, because it would be a very important recognition of our work,” says Oriol. Since opening in December 2014, they have not stopped receiving awards and recognition.
The latest, two months ago, when the Royal Academy of Gastronomy gave him the National Gastronomy Award for Best Chef 2023. Previously, the prestigious list The World’s 50 Best Restaurants crowned him as the second best restaurant in the world 2023. Oriol, stresses that “this award has meant enormous satisfaction for the entire staff, because the work is not only of three people, but of a whole team, which is made up of 48 workers. I would also like to mention that it has had a great worldwide repercussion with the clientele, and the return is that hundreds and hundreds of people have called to reserve a table, which has overwhelmed us a little”.
It all started at elBulli
But let’s go back to the beginning. The three of them met and trained professionally at elBulli. Oriol arrived in 1996, Mateu in 1997 and Eduard in 1999. Together they shared high levels of demand, work and rigor, and for years they were head chefs and Ferran Adrià’s right-hand men. Since then, they have forged a relationship beyond the professional, sharing good and not so good experiences, but always with coherence and sincerity. The three of them are a unique case in Spanish gastronomy: all three cook, all three are friends and all three get along very well. In Mateu’s opinion, “the key is to tell each other things clearly and be very sincere with each other, because, in the end, it is the only way for the relationship to be refined day after day.
Anything that involves plotting parallel strategies doesn’t work, and we are the first ones interested in telling each other things as they are, as we think they are, but this has to be cultivated, pampered and nurtured so that it continues to work”. After the closure in 2011 of the legendary Cala Montjoi establishment, they began to consider having something of their own. Each had their own concerns when it came to taking a step further and creating a personal project, and they decided to embark on a new adventure, opening in April 2012 their first restaurant, Compartir, in Cadaqués (Costa Brava), now also based in Barcelona.
On a work trip to Istanbul they had their first meeting at the hotel where they stayed. “There we asked ourselves what would happen if we took a step forward and set up our own business, since, professionally, we were rowing in the same direction, but personally we had to join forces”, explains Eduard, and Oriol completes “we had some savings, which were not enough, so we asked the bank for financing, and when they gave it to us we opened Compartir”.
Disfrutar: the restaurant they had dreamed of
When Compartir became a reality, the sails blew towards Barcelona and they set out on their conquest. “We wanted to continue expressing ourselves in our own way, and we thought the most suitable place for that was Barcelona because of its tourist potential and culinary tradition. We started looking at premises and we settled on this one because it had an affordable rent and is centrally located,” means Oriol.
And in December 2014 they opened Disfrutar, the project they had always dreamed of, where they not only applied some of the brushstrokes they learned at elBulli, but also what they created themselves, and the result was exceptional. Although it was hard to get started, as Oriol acknowledges: “when we opened, the first two weeks we were a bit scared and we spent the day looking at the reservation program because they didn’t come in. But, little by little, everything started to flow and the feedback from customers was more positive. And, in a short time, the restaurant became one of the reference points of Barcelona’s gastronomy.
Why the name Disfrutar?
“We are not marketing experts, but we are very natural, for better or worse, and we came up with the name because when we talked about the offer we wanted to make here, we repeated: we want people to come to enjoy, we want it to be an offer to enjoy. The word “enjoy” came up so much that in the end we decided to give it this name, and we are very happy with our decision,” says Eduard. In these magnificent sensations, the dining room plays an important role, an excellent team, close and friendly, without rigidity, but absolutely professional, directed by Toni Boada, who is always attentive so that the diners do not lack anything.
Creators of new concepts
Enjoy living their creativity and their creativity with a unique, original and, above all, coherent proposal. A concept in which the term “experience” finds a perfect justification, because what is proposed has a lot of experimentation. Very few chefs are able to bring novelty to their menus, to develop techniques that allow them to create new concepts, to surprise even the most skeptical diners, and this has been achieved by the three wizards of Disfrutar. It is something that goes in their naturalness, in their research, and that is palpable in every gesture, in every dish, in every detail. Everything is like a melody where the notes cannot fail. “Our cuisine is characterized by the fact that we are always looking for new concept techniques and with the best seasonal product or the one that helps us to express ourselves better and that the customer understands,” says Mateu.
So they maintain the two options of tasting menus with pairing option (there is no menu), and where the dishes stand out for their impeccable presentation, executed with great perfection, fleeing from elitism in price but not in quality: Disfrutar Classic (275 €), composed of creations that have become “classics” of the house; and Disfrutar Festival (275 €), with elaborations created during the current season. Both menus can be paired with a selection of wines for 145 €. For customers who want to live an experience with a different wine pairing, with a very low percentage of alcohol, it can be done for 165 €.
The dishes speak
Always with sense. There is no but to put to any of the elaborations. Each dish in their 28-step repertoire is meticulously thought out and so elegant for the senses that it is a real dilemma to opt for one of their two excellent tasting menus. The ideal would be to try the newest or the most classic because, perhaps, each one deserves your attention. At the same time, they maintain some of their iconic dishes, so the menu can be adapted to a new diner or the faithful repeater looking to try new things.
We experienced the Disfrutar Festival menu. After welcoming us with a glass of cava and a bottle of water, the first surprise arrives: meringues without fig leaf margarita with green figs. A real spectacle. A very intense touch comes with “a concentration of flavors”: sprouts and liquid salad. Magnificent panchino stuffed with caviar and sour cream.
We continue with some delicious solid bubbles of smoked butter with sea urchin, which gives you a pleasant sensation in the mouth when it contacts the tongue and palate. The play of textures extends to cockles with Bloody Mari. Microwaved white asparagus bao with anchovy butter, elderberry and mandarin. Yummy, yummy. The festival continues to treasure flavors with a mushroom leaf with boletus butter. Spectacular mushroom vinegar marinade, homemade preserves of roulberries and oyster. Tasty onion soup with aerated onion bread and comté.
We continue with a chickpea gnocchi with cut stick mollusc juice and tear pea. Succulent multi-spherical Catalan-style peas with sepietas. The trio of chefs’ peculiar version of a traditional dish of their land, calçotada 2023, is striking: freeze-dried calçot with consommé and romesco miso. Very tasty red shrimp Catalan style. Creativity reaches its peak with the golden goose dish: fried egg with crustaceans. Intensity and balance come with a delicious pigeon rested in amasake with kombu seaweed spaghetti, almonds and grapes, and an exquisite homemade cider smoked at the time, with an assortment of snacks.
And then we come to the desserts! They surprise both for the presentation and for the play of flavors and contrasts. The most popular proposals (also included in the tasting menus) are the almond coulant; Walldorf salad, black apple with flourless puff pastry and toasted butter ice cream; or a mini cookie, red fruits and raspberry Marshmallow chocolate ball. Delicious. For those who prefer something lighter, they can choose such delicious juices as a liquid chocolate and passion bonbon; albaca leaf, cocoa cotton and mint; or a black sesame and strawberry cone. Exceptional closings for a spectacular menu.
Disfrutar’s philosophy is that the wine goes hand in hand with the gastronomic offer and breathes the same DNA. It is a very nice way of making wine culture. For us,” says Eduard, “it is very important that the wines, like the dishes, have a clear concept, a story or an added value. We try to include very curious things in our wine list, that is to say, we look for small producers or wineries that have their own identity, just like the cuisine, so that the customer can find references that he would not find elsewhere”.
In this effort to find curious things, a few years ago they started a new project to make their own wine: a white wine with Garnacha Gris from Celler Espelt (El Penedés), which they make together with their team of sommeliers, led by Rubén Pol, and which is very popular with customers. For those who want to make a semi-alcoholic pairing, they have an excellent proposal of wines with a very low percentage of alcohol. Currently they have more than a thousand references, between national and international; 800 on the menu, and more than 200 off the menu.
Photos: Carles Allende