Espaisucre
Calle Princesa 53
Barcelona, Spain
34.93.268.16.30
www.espaisucre.com
It would be easy to say Spain's top pastry chef Jordi Butron's all-dessert restaurant, Espaisucre, is a sweet treat, but that's not entirely true. It's also savory.
The restaurant, which features three- and five-course tasting menus, serves up such combinations as raspberries with red pepper and chocolate with tobacco. Every plate is an unusual mix of flavors and textures that neither left me feeling as though I'd overloaded on sweets or needed a more traditional dinner.
While the five-course menus tend to not be vegetarian-friendly, offering dishes such as cod rice with tomato ice cream, there are plenty of other menus for vegetarians, including the chocolate menu and the cheese menu. The chocolate with vinegar, strawberry, mint and pepper (above) shows up on a couple of the menus. This is one of the few dishes I tried where one flavor - the strawberry - overpowered everything else. That's not to say it was bad, but it tasted less creative than perhaps it was on a technical level.
Each flavor in the passion fruit, coffee, lemon cress and mint sorbet with lemon foam (above), on the other hand, stood out well on its own while at the same time complementing the others. The variety of textures, from the coffee-flavored cake to the light foam, was also appealing.
Despite a strange mix of ingredients that included chocolate, prunes, oak, rum and tobacco (above) this blend came out very well. The prunes were oddly moist and there was an occasional hint of tobacco and oak, but it was difficult to tell what part of the dish the flavors came from.
This goat cheesecake (above) with raspberries, red pepper and ginger was an interesting mix of savory and sweet. The cheese was surprisingly strong on its own, but softened with the other ingredients.
The truffle mushroom, butter, hazelnut and chocolate concoction (above) had a strong truffle flavor with a topping the texture of crumbled Oreo cookies.
Each menu concludes with an assortment of petits-fours in flavor combinations such as sesame with licorice and green apple with laurel.
All menus come with a choice of wine pairings or it's possible to order wine by the bottle or glass.
Tasting menus range in price from 30 to 50 euros and wine pairings are from 10 to 18 euros.
Calle Princesa 53
Barcelona, Spain
34.93.268.16.30
www.espaisucre.com
It would be easy to say Spain's top pastry chef Jordi Butron's all-dessert restaurant, Espaisucre, is a sweet treat, but that's not entirely true. It's also savory.
The restaurant, which features three- and five-course tasting menus, serves up such combinations as raspberries with red pepper and chocolate with tobacco. Every plate is an unusual mix of flavors and textures that neither left me feeling as though I'd overloaded on sweets or needed a more traditional dinner.
While the five-course menus tend to not be vegetarian-friendly, offering dishes such as cod rice with tomato ice cream, there are plenty of other menus for vegetarians, including the chocolate menu and the cheese menu. The chocolate with vinegar, strawberry, mint and pepper (above) shows up on a couple of the menus. This is one of the few dishes I tried where one flavor - the strawberry - overpowered everything else. That's not to say it was bad, but it tasted less creative than perhaps it was on a technical level.
Each flavor in the passion fruit, coffee, lemon cress and mint sorbet with lemon foam (above), on the other hand, stood out well on its own while at the same time complementing the others. The variety of textures, from the coffee-flavored cake to the light foam, was also appealing.
Despite a strange mix of ingredients that included chocolate, prunes, oak, rum and tobacco (above) this blend came out very well. The prunes were oddly moist and there was an occasional hint of tobacco and oak, but it was difficult to tell what part of the dish the flavors came from.
This goat cheesecake (above) with raspberries, red pepper and ginger was an interesting mix of savory and sweet. The cheese was surprisingly strong on its own, but softened with the other ingredients.
The truffle mushroom, butter, hazelnut and chocolate concoction (above) had a strong truffle flavor with a topping the texture of crumbled Oreo cookies.
Each menu concludes with an assortment of petits-fours in flavor combinations such as sesame with licorice and green apple with laurel.
All menus come with a choice of wine pairings or it's possible to order wine by the bottle or glass.
Tasting menus range in price from 30 to 50 euros and wine pairings are from 10 to 18 euros.
