The Barcelona restaurant Diseño has reopened this week after the Christmas break. It has been just a few days during which his partners, Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch, and his team, have been able to regain strength and calm the emotions accumulated since they learned, at the end of November, that they had been awarded the third star the Michelin guide of 2024. The news caused an explosion of joy at the annual gala of the red guide, this time held in the Catalan capital, which for a few days brought together the most renowned chefs in the country. It was the perfect opportunity to follow their gastronomic routes, as they usually do in the host cities of this meeting.
Unlike the two Barcelona restaurants that this year have achieved their first star, the Quirat of the Intercontinental Barcelona hotel and Suto, with very few places, in which there has been an avalanche of reservation requests, Fácilr has not been able to correctly calculate that demand because its international recognition (it is number two on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list) generates such interest that they have to manage their reservations for one year. But they have felt the emotional impact and the explosion of affection. “There is a part of personal satisfaction that is unmatched and unclassifiable,” confesses Casañas, who assures that the fact that the party was in Barcelona made everything more special. “It was the most exciting moment that the three of us have shared, and seeing the audience in that auditorium turn out to be something that will always accompany us, because it made us feel special and loved.” They explain that with the background of so many years of joint experience in El Bulli and a decade of life of the restaurant, “the third star represents the consolidation of a project with a personality faithful to a line and the recognition of a very large team that the three of us make visible. ”. Enjoying, they are very clear, owes a lot to the support of a local clientele, which in times of pandemic was their livelihood, and which usually represents half of diners and up to 60% at certain times of the year.
Barcelona is a city with a very high gastronomic level and the only one in Spain with four three-star restaurants; The last two additions to that exclusive group have occurred in the last two editions, since last year Cocina Hermanos Torres joined it; It was together with Extremadura’s Atrio, just as this year the third of Diseño has coincided with that of Cordoba’s Noor.
The Barcelona City Council and Turisme want to maintain and enhance that host city optimism that the November meeting brought. To this end, in December there was a meeting with restaurateurs to listen to their concerns and look for ideas to give visibility to restaurants of all types, bars and also markets or small producers in the area. As the president of Turisme de Barcelona, ??Jordi Clos, explained to La Vanguardia, the aim is to promote initiatives that allow synergies with restaurants to enrich the experience of those who visit the city and show the richness of the pantry, whether visiting wineries or vineyards of the area or taking advantage to meet small producers in the agricultural area of ??the province of Barcelona.
The organization of the agape during the Michelin gala brought together many restaurants in the city led by Paolo Casagrande, chef at Lasarte (which became Barcelona’s first three-star restaurant in 2017) was marked, according to him, by great camaraderie. “It was very easy to agree on what each of us would cook and we had the feeling that we were all going together,” says this Italian chef who has been living in the Catalan capital for twelve years, a city that he adores. “The third star of Diseño was something that had to come, because they open new paths and are excellent people who all of our colleagues in the sector love very much,” says Casagrande. For him, it was only a matter of time before the city got the recognition it deserves. “Time puts things in their place and in few cities there is so much talent and such a rich proposal.”
The Lasarte chef was one of those attending the meeting that was held after the guide’s gala with Mayor Collboni and his team, convened by Turisme de Barcelona. “Although things had been done, I had never seen that attitude of wanting to look for synergies with people in the restaurant industry to advance and maintain Barcelona’s prominence in the gastronomic field.” Mateu Casañas also values ??very positively a meeting attended by chefs from restaurants with and without stars in which, he explains, they felt listened to and were able to share concerns and ideas to implement. Enjoy proposed promoting the city as a preserver of the gastronomic knowledge accumulated in recent decades. “We travel thousands of kilometers with backpacks loaded with knowledge that we could gather in Barcelona,” explains this chef, who points out the role of organizations “such as the Alícia Foundation and all its contributions in food and health, schools or conferences and meetings.” linked to the sector.”
There were those who proposed other practical ideas, such as Hisop’s chef, Oriol Ivern, who continues to have a good reputation for being the most affordable starred restaurant in the city. His idea is to enhance the city’s markets and bring them closer to star restaurants. “It could be done by giving vouchers with the purchase of local products that could be accumulated and would give the option of a lunch or dinner at a starred restaurant.” For him it would also be “the way for many people to change their perception of this type of restaurants that they imagine to be corseted and stuffy.” Yoshikazu Suto and Carolina Alrcón, from Suto, also consider this approach to the markets that, they explain, they already promote, to be interesting. “We do it by talking to diners about where the wines we serve are made, where they can buy the Calaf eggs we prepare or the fish we work with.”
The twins from Cocina Hermanos Torres are very optimistic about the desire to seek synergies. “There is a real attempt to join forces to enhance the city culinaryally. We want to defend sustainability, which we consider crucial and that is why we have developed a plan, and we believe that initiatives such as visiting local producers can be very enriching,” says Javier Torres. The chef adds that they work in an orchard in complicity with their neighbors, next to the restaurant and collaborate with small producers in Viladecans, with whom they have established an excellent relationship.”
Both in Suto, where they can offer few cutlery, and in Quirat, the phone does not stop ringing. “At Christmas everyone wanted to give vouchers for a meal and we didn’t know how to manage it because we don’t like to say no” explains Carolina Alarcón, from Suto. Víctor Torres, chef at Quirat, who also runs Les Magnòlies (Arbúcies) explains that since November they have doubled their clientele. “We already have 200 reservations for January and a hundred for February.” For this chef who laments the problem of staff shortages, he believes that initiatives to expand the experience by visiting producers or markets are interesting. “Now the client needs to show interest in traveling. Because we have become a comfortable and simple society.”
