Gastromium is sadly no more, but I want to leave this review here as a homage to one of the best meals I have ever had.
I finally had a chance to sample one of the much-acclaimed Gastromium tasting menus and I have to say that it was quite an amazing experience. Chefs Miguel Díaz, Ernest Masalaña and José Luís Carabias run a very impressive kitchen, which I got to have a good look at as that’s where we had our starters, along with a couple of glasses of cava. After the kitchen tour we settled down in the beautifully minimalist dining room (by award-winning interior designer Francesc Rifé) to start on the tasting dishes in ernest, with impeccable maître Duncan explaining each dish to us (and often more than once as my friend Annie Bennett & I both hastened to scribble everything down in our notebooks) and attending to our every need. You can see all the dishes we had below. We tried five different wines altogether: the aforementioned cava, two whites (albariño and rueda), one red (ribera del duero) and a sweet sherry (Pedro Ximénez). This was the Sibaris tasting menu, at 71 euros per person including wines. It was exquisite.
Dinner from the a la carte menu (starter, main and dessert) is about 45 euros per person, with wines ranging from 14 – 600 (yikes!) euros.
Avenida Ramon Carande 12
954 625 555
Open 13.30-16.30 / 21.00-midnight
Closed Sunday evenings and Mondays
Gastromium website
€ € € € €
starters in the kitchen with cava
bread and wine with amor
vichyssoise with sea bream, tapioca, licorice and nardo
mussels in brine with a foamy cream of cauliflower
sautéed onions with pork cheek tocina, prawn tartare in carbonara sauce
poached egg with yucca, potatoes and lamb sweetbreads
red snapper with garden veg and bilbaina sauce
ingot of bulltail wrapped in rice pastry with sour apple and spiced rum sauce
cheese! tetilla, gamoneu, zamorano and serena
moroccan coffee dessert
tiny spongecakes with raspberries and chocolate dusted hazelnuts
the fabulous Duncan
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Hi, would love to hear a bit more about the individual dishes – photos are great for presentation and visual effect – but what did you feel about those strange flavour combos, or textures, cooking methods – did they use novelty stuff like foams, gases etc. Bit more detail would be v interesting.