The Living Table @ Disfrutar (*) – Barcelona, ES – August 2024

After it got its third star, Disfrutar was no easy booking by any means. I e-mailed them back in April, a good while before the World’s 50 best announcement, and they managed to sort me a booking for August. The catch was, it was for the Living Table – at nearly double the price of their normal tasting menu.

The outside of the restaurant is fairly unassuming. You cannot tell that you’re about to have one of your finest dining experiences. And that’s the beauty of it.

Before we are seated at the table itself, we are shown around the restaurant and introduced to the chefs. The staff takes our names and where we are coming from, an interaction that we thought nothing of, but came up way later in the meal. The attention to detail is honestly insane, and that will come up again and again in my review.

We are shown to the wine cellar, behind which the actual experience takes place. The R&D kitchen – feels like you are dining in someone’s home kitchen. Neat, tidy, with tons of cooking books, documentation of the restaurant’s menu , dishes, cooking techniques. Tons and tons of cooking books from restaurants like Central, El Bulli, etc. The service team for the evening was led by Raul, honestly an absolute gentleman. As he was there for us all evening, we felt like this added tons of personal touch to the service. We cracked jokes, he helped us understand the dishes. The actual cooking happens in the restaurant’s kitchen, but the finishing touches are done in the kitchen, in plain sight from the table. It’s kinda cool seeing them communicate, watch us react and the speed that we eat at, and adapting accordingly.

Again, the service. Raul overheard us talking about not having data signal in the underground R&D kitchen and promptly issues us a paper with the restaurant WiFi password. He also overheard us discussing one of the courses later on, and me trying to explain to my girlfriend the textures. Not even 30 seconds later, she is served that element from the dish to try out for herself. I quickly mentioned that my girlfriend is very picky but she’s been enjoying the food that we had been getting served. And he picked up on it, and subtly checked with me if she liked each and every following course that we were eating. I honestly could not believe how good the service team is. They really are at the top of their game. A pure 10/10 in my books.

Now, let’s get to the gist of it. The food. The menu consists of 28 courses. It is essentially a combination of their Classic and Festival menus from what I gathered, with a few new, experimental dishes thrown into the mix. I will not spoil or discuss all courses as they were all memorable and special in their own way. I will discuss only my favourite ones. And it’s a lot of them.

As pictured:

Flavour concentration – sprouts. One of the all-time classics of Disfrutar’s. It is essentially sprouts, with different flavour concentrations. They are laid on a tomato jelly, which is supposed to be had inbetween sprouts, as a palate cleanser. It was not the power of suggestion, as we tried guessing each flavour without reading them first. And tell you what, a simple untreated sprout CAN taste like cucumber, honey, raw potato, or lemon and mint. A mindblowing showcase of the produce the kitchen has access to.

Panchino with creme fraiche and caviar, served alongside truffle infused vodka – Another DIsfrutar classic. The panchino is just sublime. Rich, savoury, soft. And they show you exactly how to make one yourself at home. The umami flavours of the truffle vodka complement everything the panchino is. As my girlfriend does not like truffles, she was issued a coffee essence infused water, instead. For the following course, we were both served wasabi distillate. The technical knowledge of the kitchen is on another level. We were also shown de-alcoholized wine later on in the meal. Some people might find it tacky, but this is molecular gastronomy is all about. All throughout the meal, Raul jokes around with us, creating expectations in our heads of the courses. These expectations get completely shattered once you taste the food. As nothing is what you’d expect it to be.

Gilda sandwich with marinated mackarel – a modern take on a traditional Basque pintxo, a.k.a. tapas. We are warned that the olive is pitted and to be careful when biting into it. Just for the olive to absolutely explode in our mouths. It is filled with “liquid olive essence”, with other savoury flavours on the plate – capers, and other variations of olive.

Crunchy mushroom leaf – apparently cooked in the microwave. Very crunchy, on the flip side it is covered with mushroom paste, allowing for a rich, full mushroom flavour. Imagine a mushroom rice cracker. Amazing what they can cook up in the microwave.

Onion soup with aerated onion bread – I LOVE onion soup. The aerated onion bread had a very light, cold texture to it. The cheese balls were simply cheese balls – you cannot go wrong with them. The soup itself – simple onion soup. The cold texture of the bread contrasted so well with the warm, full flavour of the soup. I loved it!

Thai-style cuttlefish with coconut multispherical – coconut spheres, delicious cuttlefish, curry sauce. We had earlier tastes of the sea in the menu, but I particularly enjoyed this representation of a foreign dish. Like many others prior, it was an amazing masterclass in molecular gastronomy, and the flavours blew me away.

I would like to discuss the wine list, before I move onto the desserts. The somelier did not once try to upsell us or push us to get a bottle. We told him what we liked, and that we would like to try local Catalan wines. One sparkling, one red. Two glasses that were enough for us, given the amount of food served. And the tasting menu serves alcohol with a few courses as well. The wine list – affordable, either by the bottle or by the glass. We ended up paying 40 euro for the additional 4 glasses we had, so it’s definitely great value. The sparkling wine was in a Champagne-style, so it was ideal to open the meal with the cold starters. The red was a 2019 Corimbo by Bodegas La Horra. It opened up with black pepper notes on the tongue, but with time evolved into a beautiful bouquet of red cherries and strawberries. Paired amazingly with our mains, even though a lot of them were actually seafood-based on my end.

Before desserts are served, we are presented with an apple cider that will smoke on the table while we consume the following desserts.

The desserts are always my favourite courses. And Disfrutar delivered, again, some near magic tricks that I choose not to spoil. But if you have the walnut courses, you will know what I am talking about.

The famous engagement rings. They were all so beautiful, it was hard to choose one. And I honestly wanted to taste them all!

Flower explosion, with elderflower, vinegar, edible flowers, meringue, tangerine jam. Not only was it pretty, it was one of the best desserts I have ever tried in my life. Textures, acidity, freshness, crunch.

Pumpkin served in different ways – pumpkin seeds, pumpkin seed ice cream, pumpkin heart, etc. I love pumpkin, and the pumpkin heart alone got me emotional, as it reminded me of my mom’s baked pumpkin.

Dehydrated apple – it is stored in second-hand fridges that they bump up all the way to sixty degrees for sixty days to get the apple “dry-aged”. It is served with a noisette ice-cream and flourless puff-pastry. Light, kinda tangy because of the apple. And obviously a technical showcase.

The Living Table. It consisted of double portions of every dessert. We were too full to finish most of it so we packed it away and ate it for the next two days. Different types of chocolates, cocktail balls, fresh fruit, cotton candy, DELICIOUS raspberry french macarons. The storytelling while they were unveiling what’s underneath each “module” of the table was amazing. Engaging, emotional, it was the first time ever that food got me teary-eyed, as we watched the Living Table unfold in front of us. It is definitely hefty, but they are happy to pack it away for you, as they know that people are too full by the 30th course.

All in all, it took us 5 hours to finish this experience. I cannot stress enough how good the service team is. As someone who is bored of traditional French-style cooking, I really appreciated the modern and technologically advanced approach the kitchen has to food. For me, Disfrutar really is among one of the world’s best. And on that day, it felt like the world’s best. So I guess it lived up to the hype. It turned around a not-so-great first-time Barcelona trip into being one of the best trips of my life. I am happy to upload the full menu that we had and provide more details on the meal if you’re interested.