Gastromium

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.