About that amazing dinner in Barcelona

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had eaten a wonderful, world-class dinner in Barcelona, and I promised to tell you more about it.  I'm writing now to fulfill that promise.

The meal was at Enigma, a new restaurant from Alber Adria (with some input from his brother, the famed Ferran Adria, ex of El Bulli).  Though Adria's name is on the restaurant, its lead chef, Oliver Pena, and his team do the cooking, and they do it extraordinarily well.

As the name suggests, Adria's concept is to lead you from one mystery to another.  For example, they call each of the multiple separate dining rooms an enigma, and you move among them in the course of your meal.  To help with the illusion, they ask that guests not reveal the menu or show any photos of the food, so I cannot do either.

I can show you the imposing door

Click a photo to see a larger version.

and its keypad,

on which you have to enter a special code, which varies from person to person and which they supply only when you've paid your reservation's deposit.

The many, many courses are all remarkable, each one a blend of largely local ingredients and the sort of modernist cuisine cooking techniques for which El Bulli was justly famous.

I can't say more without violating my agreement with the folks there, so let me just suggest that if you are ever in Barcelona and can get into Enigma--it's perpetually sold out, and I ate there only by being on the waiting list--you should.  It is a wonderful, delicious experience.