Tyler and I spent a fantastic weekend in Barcelona. Well, for Tyler it was almost a week as he’d been there since Wednesday on a team building off-site for work and I joined him on Friday. We knew this trip was coming up back in June when I came across a list of the 50 best restaurants in the world. I scanned the list out of curiosity to see if there were any in Barcelona that weren’t too outrageously expensive. I saw that #42 on the list, Tickets, was a casual (well, casual for fine dining) tapas place cheffed by an elBulli alum. elBulli was one of the most famous restaurants in the world before it closed a few years ago and is often credited with the popularity of molecular gastronomy/deconstructionist cooking. I looked online about how to make a reservation. You have to book online, exactly 3 months in advance and they only open up a few slots per day. It’s supposedly one of the hardest reservations to secure. I figured it wouldn’t happen but I added a calendar reminder for July 4. Turns out we were camping so I really thought it wouldn’t happen. When we came back from our trip I decided to just look and see and as luck would have it, the time difference made it so I opened up their website just as Saturday, September 5th was opening up and nabbed a reservation!
I had been looking forward to this meal for a long time! We headed to the restaurant and arrived slightly ahead of our 7:00 reservation. It was the first seating of the night so they were still having their staff meeting inside. Out on the street we had fun looking at all the other food nerds who were also waiting taking pictures of themselves in front of the door. I mean, sure, I took a picture too but not with a selfie-stick!
When they opened the doors we all filed in. Tyler and I were seated at the bar which resembled the bench designed by Gaudi at the famous Park Gruell which we had visited that afternoon.
Our waiter offered us a menu and told us that everything is available as a la carte or we could go with a surprise menu where he would ask us 4 questions and then pick everything for us. We naturally went for the surprise. How could we resist!
The menu
So now, I will walk you through our nearly 3 hour meal, course by course. It was so special I wanted to share the whole thing and to take pictures so I’d remember later.
After the sommelier selected and poured an incredible bottle of wine for us, our waiter brought out the first item. These were the world famous el Bulli olives.
This was no ordinary olive. In fact I’m not sure you could call it an olive at all. In a nod to Rene Magritte the napkins at this tapas bar read “this is not a tapas bar”. I would add this is not an olive. It is pureed, concentrated olive that has been placed in a substance that gels the outside yet leaves the inside liquid. This is then floated in olive oil spiced as you would an ordinary olive. When you put the olive in your mouth it bursts giving you a mouthful of intense olive flavor. It was an exciting start to the meal.
Next were what the waiter called Tickets Snacks.
On the tree were strawberries covered in a sour foam. Under the tree were bites that were like a pistachio truffle with puffed rice. In the back were black currant meringues with a super sour creme fresh for dipping. And yes, those are wee scissors to cut down your strawberries with.
This was beets that had been soaked in a sweet citrus liquid topped with lemon zest. They had “Tickets” stamped into them.
Next we had a play on sushi.
Inside was (if I’m remembering correctly) salt cod; the nigiri on the outside was not nigiri but some powder and it was topped with roe. Super soft and tasty. Spanish sushi!
The following was a real standout, “Pizza”!
Thin crispy cracker with powdered tomato and beads of olive oil and basil. This was stopped with toe curlingly good cheese similar to a burrata.
Basil waffle filled with gooey cheese and pine nuts.
On to green waffles.
Two of our very favorites of the night; sardines and airbags.
This was two layers of super crispy chicken skin with some kind of spread inside, topped with a sardine.
Thin puffed cracker filled with manchego mousse topped with some other kind of cheese and some other stuff.
It just kept coming and coming!
Imberico ham wrapped over crispy hollow cracker thing.
They called this “Nordic Landscape”. Rye cracker topped with smoked salmon, dill and pickled veg. The white stuff on the plate is powdered vinegar.
Unagi on steamed bread (more like a European wheat roll than a typical asian sweet bread).
We had two kind of oysters. One had kimchi and this one had a little rye cracker.
Served on a little tiny BBQ with little tiny live coals. Grilled prawns with a saffron emulsion of some kind and a really rich broth. Yes we sucked the heads as instructed and it was divine.
Typical Catalan dish. A rich stew made with blood sausage, beans and squid.
Mini pork belly sandwiches on buttery brioche. They were like little bahn mi.
Grilled chicken on a cinnamon stick topped with citrus foam. This also had giant croutons soaked with chicken fat, like a piece of savory bread pudding.
Here a table next to us was getting something exciting that we didn’t get.
Eventually the savory dishes stopped and it was time for dessert. We’d finished our bottle of wine (we, haha) so I asked the waiter for a cocktail that would go with dessert. He brought me the best cocktail I have ever had. It was called a “City of God”. I don’t really know what was in it (rum? fruit juice, something sweetish but not too sweet?) but it was topped with super dark cocoa powder and ground coffee.
City of God. OH MY GOD SO GOOD.
“pancake” had a warm pudding/cheesy center and a crispy caramel like crust. Served with butter and jam.
Very excellent chocolate candy/cake hybrid with cream and berries.
Pineapple sorbet made table side using science.
The end.
What an extraordinary meal! If you are planning a trip to Barcelona I highly recommend Tickets. It was so much fun and we had some very exciting food. But honestly, it seemed like you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit a great meal in Barcelona. Spain really puts Switzerland’s food culture to shame. While Zurich is a lovely, lovely city, the food scene here is a disappointment. Restaurants are ridiculously expensive and Swiss cuisine leaves me cold. I mean I like a good schnitzel as well as the next person but going to the market here doesn’t inspire or excite me like it did in Barcelona. Good thing I can hop a train, plane or automobile and be surrounded by the amazing food cultures of Europe within hours.
We definitely need to go to the one in Sweden or Norway or whatever, the one that’s in the middle of nowhere. Thanks for sharing!!! I love long many-coursed meals….so much fun.
Oh my God, what extraordinary delictables. Another excellent foodie memory!!