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Barcelona's Best Restaurants that are most frequently booked by customers of Àbac Barcelona
🤮 1/5 - Evident loss of every star previously granted
By 👻 @FoodTravelerDC, 07/30/2022 3:00 am
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Our friends are well known culinary critics. They would be easily recognized at ABaC restaurant. So they decided to ask us to visit ABaC and learn if this restaurant deserves 3 Michelin stars or perhaps there are cracks in ABaC’s culinary fame. The short version: the cracks are wide enough for all 3 stars to rapidly dissipate, leaving only fragmented memories - as unfortunate as it may sound. Jordi Cruz wasn’t in the kitchen on the date of our visit – that’s how the entire dining experience could be described. This review is focused on one goal: whether ABaC deserves 3 Michelin stars. Depending on your preferences and senses for culinary excellence and precision, you may be entirely satisfied while dining at ABaC. But it will not be a 3 Michelin star dinner: only a dinner with at least a few questions and answers unlikely to be provided. We arrived promptly at 1pm. The host asked us to sit outside on the patio while waiting for the table. The temperature approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The patio table hasn’t been cleaned, featuring a full ashtray with several partially smoked cigarettes. Multiple individuals sitting at the nearby tables were also smoking. Being subjected to secondhand smoke while enduring 100 degree heat can be termed a memorable experience but for the wrong reasons. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come? The host finally guided us to the table inside 30 minutes later without explaining the reason for the delay. There were already multiple couples dining inside speaking Spanish. It’s entirely possible that the staff decided my wife and I are garden variety tourists from the US (with the culinary palette at the earliest stage of evolution) and will be satisfied with anything ABaC may offer. Our server explained the menu in a rehearsed, synthetic manner without maintaining eye contact which could be only interpreted as questions would not be welcome. I nevertheless did ask a few questions. The answers arrived in a robotic, strained manner while lacking interest in our dining experience. Later, the server finally warmed up. The tasting menu has been attached. When my wife and I are asked to review a Michelin star restaurant, we use a very simple approach. There are 2 things a chef can do with selected ingredients: cook and construct. That’s where the magic happens, combining precise execution (cooking) with visual delight (construction). Perfectly cooked ingredients will be lost if not presented correctly. Perfectly presented ingredients – but not executed well – will be easily discovered. The first two stars: the magic of cooking and construction. The third star: experience, from start to finish. So let’s get started. The main focus of the first dish was predictable: heighten the senses by offering a ceviche with cocoa, scallop, and lucuma together with a plethora of other textures. Predictably good, yet hardly exceptional. Other dishes followed with construction clearly emphasized over cooking. The Chinese box with grilled eel fried brioche could not find the rightful place in the menu – felt entirely disconnected from the menu theme. The brioche lacked any distinctive flavor and could be in fact a lot thinner to bring grilled eel forward. Calcined roots, seeds, and bark (plus other ingredients) became the only truly memorable dish in the middle of the tasting process and faded away as other dishes arrived. Figueres Onion soup needs to be explored in detail. It was so rich and salty that after a few bites both my wife and I concluded that it wasn’t edible. So many thoughts crossed our minds: what if the chef could … But the chef did not combine the delicate flavor of caramelized onions with the broth. Instead, onions floated aimlessly as tasteless visitors in a molasses-like broth, entirely obstructed by salt. Neither one of us finished this dish. The red prawn with picada textures, braised hazelnut juice and grilled Romesco bread: a collision of poorly guided construction and equally poor execution of a delicate ingredient. We have been informed by the server that the red prawn has been kept in salt for several hours before dinner. Irrespective of this particular step, the red prawn – as the final product on the dish - was so dry and salty that sadly this dish also became inedible. Braised hazelnut juice featured so much salt that only small portion could be consumed. Marinated and grilled pigeon partially rescued the tasting menu on its own merits. But was it exceptional? It was simply predictably good. The desert with a scoop of ice cream (a lovely flavor) did not seem right. Upon examination, there was a strand of human hair on the white surface of ice cream. If I could casually notice it, so could the pastry chef or the server. I politely mentioned to the server that the desert needs to be changed. The apology seemed rather hollow because what could have happened did not. First – my desert had to be prepared again while my wife’s desert would melt if she waited for my desert to arrive. The right decision would be to remake both deserts and allow us to continue the tasting menu at the same pace. You guessed it. The proposal to remake both deserts wasn’t extended. My desert arrived (minus any unwanted additions). I did not eat it lacking confidence in the kitchen team. The server requested us to have the second part of the desert on the patio again. It was a rather surprising request because the outside temperature still hovered around 100 degrees. The dinner ABaC ended the way it started: on the patio, at a table where the ashtray hasn’t been cleaned 3 hours later, with several diners at nearby tables smoking next to us. I spoke the general manager who was very gracious and understanding. The patio was a very convenient forum to express our opinion in private. When my wife stood up, a piece of gum with cigarette butt was attached to her shoe. There you have it. Zero stars for ABaC. Partially memorable yet unremarkable dinner with only 2 dishes worthy repeating. Puzzling and disappointing pre- and post- dinner experience. Construction emphasized over cooking. Jordi Cruz nowhere to be found.
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