May 11, 2017

To know me is to know that Spain is the one true love of my life. Sorry men, dogs, and future possible DNA replicas—you will never top Spain.

Although a Spanish man may have a chance, he will have to be better than the food and that is a tall order. I actually ended up there on a coin toss following a couple rough years and impulsively flew to Barcelona. An unfortunate string of events had led me on the best trip of my life.

Barcelona was vibrant and offered all of the things I loved to eat and all the partying I could ever want. More on that later. I used this trip as a sort of love letter to myself; a chance to do all the things for myself that I had been waiting for a partner or lover to do. I had recently proven to myself how strong and capable I was, and now I wanted to show myself how much love I could show myself. Part of that included taking myself to the dinners of my wildest dreams.

Michelin stars—I had heard of Ferran Adria’s elBulli and always dreamed of going, even though it had closed its doors forever at that point in 2017. Not one to be discouraged, I tracked down his chefs to a restaurant in Barcelona called Disfrutar. When I called for a reservation, they told me they were booked solid for the next two months. I begged, told them my time frame, and they finally gave me a seat at the bar that faces the station where the desserts are prepped! And that was way better than a regular table in my opinion because I could watch the action.

Unilateral langoustine

It was magic. So far in my life, I have not had a better meal. Every detail was perfectly executed. You are made to feel as a welcome guest in someone’s ultra modern home the moment you walk in. I ordered the Festival with wine pairings, which was a 21-course culinary magic show. I will not ruin the surprise for you and will only describe a few dishes, especially since on their website Disfrutar expresses the importance of surprise in their cuisine. They want you to choose a menu without knowing what is coming, to let go of control.

Nothing is what it seems; the chefs use molecular gastronomy to make you believe you are eating the most intense olive you have ever had, until it explodes in your mouth and turns out to be not an olive at all, but cocoa butter; gin and tonic dew drops on rose petals; beet meringues rising out of soil-esque sesame seeds make you feel like you are watching a beet levitate from the earth; pasta carbonara made of translucent gelatin and sauced with Parmesan truffle foam; razor clams, langoustines, salads, all in the most unexpected ways, packing flavor into the smallest details.

More often than not, restaurants excel in either entrées or desserts but rarely both. Not the case at Disfrutar. The desserts here bind you further under their spell. All of them are incredible but the dish of my trip was Tarta al Whiskey. You are asked to wash your hands in a bottle of 16-year Lagavulin scotch over a bowl of cream. It forces you to be ridiculously opulent, behaving like Scrooge McDuck showering himself in expensive whiskey. (I mean that is clearly what he was doing when Huey, Dewey, and Louie weren’t around and he was bored of swimming in money.) Sniff your hands says the server, then eat the tart, then the cream. My mind, which I thought had already been blown, was surrendered wholly to them at this point. They could have told me to surrender all my worldly possessions for a strawberry and I would have. They had me. There was no going back.

The server led me to the kitchen to meet the chefs. Mateu Casanas and Oriol Castro smiled and said hello as I glowingly thanked them for the meal of my life. I didn’t even think to ask for a picture—I was in the midst of culinary gods. As I lounged on the patio sipping a digestif, contemplating the last three hours of my life and plotting my last night in Barcelona, I was content and proud of myself for taking myself on the best date night ever.

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