Tender leaves and Duck's Tongues

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San Sebastian Playa de la Concha

Spain.. and we have taken a slightly less than direct route home from Madrid in order to eat at Mugaritz near San Sebastian.  Not that the diversion is any hardship, San Sebastian is a beautiful coastal town with its own take on tapas and more shoe shops than you could shake a stick at!  Sadly the latter are wasted on me with my predilection for wearing comfy trail sandals but the former, mainly located in the lovely old town, are a treat if not wholly authentic.  More on this another time, we are not there for the tapas we are making a pilgrimage to Mugaritz in order to tick it off our list of 'One hundred places to eat before our taste buds diminish and die'.  Mugaritz is the last in our Spanish Triumvirate along with El Bulli (blogged about here) and Arzak where we dined a few years back.

Mugaritz is 'experimental cuisine' along the lines of El Bulli so we were expecting exciting tastes and textures and an experience tending towards theatrical.  Mugaritz had only recently reopened after a fire earlier in the year and although it had ranked 5th in the World's 50 Best Restaurants 2010 we had read some rather mixed reviews.  This had left us in some trepidation that we might be making another expensive mistake to rival our 'worst fine dining experience ever' at Arpège in Paris.  Nevertheless, we agreed to keep a completely open mind about the food and view it as a culinary adventure that might occasionally be challenging but at least would give us something to digest both mentally and physically.

A twenty minute taxi ride took us out of San Sebastian to Mugaritz' rural hillside setting.  Although the light was pretty much fading we were greeted and seated on the somewhat minimalist, stone terrace with our recommended aperitifs of 'txakoli' - an interesting, minerally white wine from the Basque region.  A small dish was bought to us with what looked very much like lithops (living stones) in it.  As it was set  down something hit me on the head!  I thought the waitress had chucked one of the 'stones' at me and was about to suggest that attacking the customer was taking restaurant theatre a bit too far when she explained that it was a nut fallen from the tree above.  The 'stones' were in fact waxy potatoes cooked in clay served with an alioli and were pretty good as potatoes go. I think one of the beauties of this dish (as with many of the courses) would have been in the artistic presentation, in this case the resemblance to small ceramic stones.  Unfortunately that was largely lost on us as the terrace was so barely lit.

In the uncompromisingly stark interior of the restaurant - Japanese style screens divide the large room into smaller areas.  This is not a place to go for a romantic, intimate, candlelit meal - it is mind unclutteringly sparse, the sole decorations on the tables sculptures of broken plates, perhaps signifying  Mugaritz's break from culinary traditions. In the middle of each place setting were two small envelopes, one bearing the words

150 min. ... rebel!

and the other 

150 min. ...submit!

It was all going a bit Alice in Wonderland - would the food arrive with 'Eat me!' and 'Drink me!' on it?  We opened the rebel envelope first, a card bearing the words

"150 minutes to feel embarassed, flustered, fed up.  150 minutes of suffering."

I immediately rebelled at the pretentiousness of it!  However, the card in the submit envelope bore the words

"150 minutes to feel, imagine, reminisce, discover, 150 minutes to contemplate."

and in truth this was exactly what we had agreed to do before we arrived - submit our tastebuds to new and interesting experiences even if they were not all wholly enjoyable.  The menu we choose was a set of ten small courses and we were asked whether we liked meat, fish or any preferences. "Just bring it on" we replied - as with El Buli we were prepared to put ourselves entirely in the hands of the chef.   Before we dined we were taken to view the kitchen.  It was astonishing -  clinically cleaner and shinier than any operating theatre and seemingly suspiciously devoid of any food! In terms of operations this was a slick one with an army of serving staff each knowing exactly where they should be and when, like a team of synchronised swimmers.
 

At last we begin and our starter for ten was (as described on the menu)

1. Mix of tender leaves, fresh herbs and fried duck tongues. Gravy and leek whites.

"Quack Quack" to this tiny course. We will now happily be able to boast that we have eaten duck tongues but given they were almost entirely without taste we might be hard pushed to explain exactly why! The leaves and herbs were the stars of this dish.

2. Razor Clams flavoured with a rich black bean broth, perfumed with cinnamon oil.

Oh bliss!  A magnificence of mollusc. When I was a kid we used to collect these for my Dad to use as fishing bait not realising they could be tastier than the caught fish.

3. Sweet potatoes roasted in their second skin with pork lardon

Anyone who doesn't like sweet potatoes roasting in their second skin with porky scratchings wants their tastebuds examined.

4. Sauteed Arraitxiki (sea bream) fillets with chantrelle mushroom threads


5. Skate filaments bounded in toasted butter glace, Iberian mild sheen

I love skate, I love that old classic 'skate with black butter' and I loved this more than anything else on the menu.  It was the best skate ever - with this dish you could almost forgive the Spanish for stealing all the fish.  I had to kick off my shoes (I had worn my only pair of decent strappy heels) and curl my toes up in ecstasy.  It was simply sublime.  My best 'skate' experience (and there have been some good ones) magnified ten times!  Not sure what the Iberian mild sheen bit was.. but who cares!

6. A piece of veal roasted and perfumed with vine cutting embers, fragments of thyme and natural anthocyans. Cinders, salts and crisp radishes.

The presentation of this was definitely couture cuisine.  A fab bit of veal - we didn't feel any guilt eating it because you could taste that it had had a good life prior to appearing on the plate.What the hell are natural anthocyans?

7. Iberian pork tails and pan fried langoustines braising juices infused with Iberian jamón.

A sumptuous surf and turf! Who could knock that? Certainly not R. who would have kicked off his shoes if they hadn't been lace ups.

After this we were asked if we wanted more meat or fish courses or whether we would like to move onto puddings - except I doubt if they actually said "puddings".  We were in the mood for a few sweet nothings so...

8. Warm Artisan tablet with whipped honey and oats.

This was er... well it wasn't my absolute favourite.  Fun idea but actually tasted it a bit like a soapy superior version of caramac (and it doesn't take much to get superior to a caramac!). 

9. Broken Walnuts, Toasted and Salted, cool milk cream and Armagnac Jelly.

10. They asked if we wanted more puddings - how could we possibly refuse? Particularly since we had ordered some really rather nice pudding wine to accompany them. So we got "Camomila con nectar de cacao".  I have no memory of this and am wondering if the dessert wine was actually quite strong.

Although not every course was to our taste, overall each was unusual in its own way and presented in a beautifully artistic style.  Some flavours flowed into each other, some fought over each other.

Our main criticism would be the lack of a wine flight as it would have been good to have a wine paired with each course, if there was one it wasn't advertised on the menu.

The only bum note was hit by the rest of the clientele in the surprisingly unfilled restaurant.  Mugaritz is expensive (although actually it isn't THAT expensive compared with the Fat Duck for instance and was cheaper than we expected) and  is also a destination restaurant.  We have noticed that instead of genuine food lovers these places now often attract the kind of wealthy, well-dressed Japanese who are stiff with formality and seem to treat the food with a kind of 'correct' disdain instead of getting stuck in and practically licking the plates like we do.  It isn't just the Japanese, there will be business types who feel this is somewhere to be seen, or perhaps entertain clients, who could have a MacDonald's stuck under their noses and called cuisine and they wouldn't know the difference.  Or men and their stick thin trophy girlfriends - quite often these males will be attacking the food with gusto whilst their female companion delicately picks a bit here and there leaving most of it.   And then the more traditional sight of a Spanish family with young teenagers eating, chatting and enjoying together, until you realise that the younger boy is wearing a baseball hat, shorts and trainers and has been given a computer game to play moronically throughout the meal to keep him quiet.  No doubt he would have been able to identify a MacDonald's and been happier with it too.

Out of the Spanish triumvirate Arzak provided us with the most enjoyable food and El Bulli with the most exciting experience.  For us Mugaritz lies somewhere in the middle.

El Bulli Discovered

We are back in 1997 and this is where we establish our food credentials - we discovered El Bulli  just before news of Ferran Adrià's culinary genius was unleashed on the gastronomic world.

The Gault Millau guide has always been our favoured restaurant reference for France being much more in tune with our way of food thinking than the Michelin.  We had been subscribing to the Gault Millau's monthly magazine, the interesting food articles and recommendations providing a great way to improve our French.  An article about El Bulli had caught my eye, the Gault Millau guide had awarded it 19/20 - an outstanding achievement and one of only a handful of restaurants outside of France to gain a mention (although the fact that it is only just over the border made us feel the French were somehow taking credit for it!) Details of the intriguing and creative cuisine were enough for us to factor a visit to the restaurant into our holiday plans.

For those of you who are wondering what I am rambling on about here comes 'the science bit'.  El Bulli has been voted 'World's Best Restaurant' by the prestigious Restaurant magazine a record five times.  Ferran Adrià has brought a whole new concept in creative cuisine to the world inspiring chefs like Heston Blumenthal in this so-called 'molecular gastronomy'.  El Bulli is only open for part of the year and now, if you want a reservation, you need to join millions of others in a lottery for 8000 places.  The most recent news is that El Bulli will be closing for two years so no-one will get a table before 2014.

But here we are in 1997, slightly bad-tempered and hungover having motored down from Collioure (see previous post) on a hot and sunny morning. We are rather pleased that R is driving a company car as the road out to El Bulli  from Rosas, winding around a scrubby headland, is not much more than a disintegrating track and the jolt to my hangover every time we hit a pothole isn't improving my mood.  All irritation evaporates, however, when we catch our first sight of Cala Montjoi where El Bulli is situated, a small, quiet, beautiful, blue-sea'd bay with just a glimpse of the white walled restaurant through the mediterranean trees and shrubs to the side of the bay.  We pull into the car-park, unstick ourselves from the sweaty car seats and change into our cool clean finery in the back of the car.

When I made our reservation, a month or so previously, I had asked for a table in the courtyard overlooking the bay if the weather permitted.  We were escorted to the best table we could possibly have hoped for - a cool corner where we could observe the rest of the courtyard and views out to the hills and bay beyond. We always love restaurants where they have thought to arrange the seating so that both of us can see what is going on and this is perfection.

Aperitifs are ordered and the menus bought - a tasting menu of more than twenty tapas style dishes for our delectation. (Clic on the menu picture below to enlarge.)

The charming waiter asks us if we would prefer to have any of the dishes substituted for something else. We look at him quizzically and he explains that not all the British like the large clams that form one dish, nor the sheep's brains that are quintessential to another.  We assure him that if the chef believes this to be the best combination of dishes then we would entirely trust his judgement (although I mentally reassure myself that these will be the best sheep's brains ever and not like those my mother served in a mucilaginous sauce!).  In any event with a meal comprising so many courses we can afford to take some chances.

Dish after tiny dish arrives each one a work of art in presentation and taste - some more Daliesque than others but each one exquisite, or exciting, or encapsulating the very essence of each ingredient for us to experience.  Even the presentation is an act of theatre with the waiter advising us how to eat each dish in order to get the most out of the unexpected contrasts of  flavour and texture.   Yet another treat is in store for us when we realise that Ferran Adrià himself is sat in the courtyard at a long table with a group of his students, explaining various dishes to them, how they are composed and what the expectations of each dish should be.  R and I are torn between totally devoting all our senses to the food or diverting some of our attention to listening in on his talk.  As we come to the end of our first set of courses we are presented with La espuma de homo, a small cup containing a white froth.  We are wondering what this can be,  perhaps some sort of delicate foam with a taste of smoked eel... when we hear Ferran Adrià quizzing his students on it.   Finally he solves the conundrum by explaining "It is a joke, a gift, it is just smoked water... it is nothing..".  The idea is to provoke, surprise and delight the diner and in this it has succeeded.

We spend some happy hours grazing leisurely over the succession of dishes.  I remember the kikos con guacamole served on spoons, the paquetitos de sepia al coco et jengibre, the sesos al aceite de carbon, sheep's brains which we didn't really care for although unlike R, I did eat all of mine.  Most of all I remember the selection of desserts pictured below a triumph of tastes and techniques and best of all loads of them!

At the end of our meal we asked our waiter if Ferran Adrià would sign a copy of the menu for us as a souvenir. As we had shown such interest in the food the waiter asked if we would like to view the kitchen. The work area was completely immaculate, not a speck of food or grease or dirt anywhere just the stainless metal surfaces, lots of prep boxes and the sculpture of a ferocious looking bulls head at the front of it. The waiter laughed at our astonishment and explained that every dish was designed to be constructed and heated in only a few minutes. Total efficiency in the kitchen meant that everything was already spotless and ready for the next service.

We had had an extraordinary and unique experience.  It is easy to forget that this was in the days before Heston Blumenthal's kitchen chemistry, dramatic theatricals, and snail porridge, before every would be chef from Brighton to Lands End was producing soapy scummy spumes like the bubbles whipped off the top of the washing up bowl, before the possibility of food being amusing and witty had been introduced into our gastronomic psyche.  Ferran Adrià was the forefather of all these culinary concepts.   Was it the best meal we have ever eaten? Overall perhaps not, we have since eaten fantastic food at some other extraordinary places.  Certainly it was the first meal we had eaten of its kind and one we will never forget.

A year or so later news reached Britain of this 'new' culinary genius and the world was beginning to wend its way to the culinary mecca at Cala Montjoi.  A reporter in one of the better Sunday papers had been given an assignment to write about El Bulli.  Our hearts sank when we read the first paragraph, the woman was complaining that amongst the 'overly adventurous' dishes was a cherry dipped in lard! Another was rabbit and the reporter couldn't possibly eat "fluffy little bunnies".  Why this ridiculous woman was sent to El Bulli rather than MacDonald's has always puzzled us, her review being cliched, facile and unhilarious.  Had Ferran Adrià presented us with a cherry dipped in lard I would have been prepared to believe, that unappetizing though it might sound, he had found some fantastic unexpected taste relationship between the two ingredients.  If it proved not to be to my taste then I would have been glad that I had had the opportunity to try something I was unlikely to be presented with ever again.

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