Step up to the plate: Disfrutar – Barcelona, Spain

You could very well miss it for just another trendy European restaurant. But one of Barcelona‘s finest, Disfrutar – ‘Enjoy‘ in Spanish – is much more. Enter through its narrow door and pass in front of the kitchen space and you enter a cavernous dining space where the creations of chefs-trio, Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casanas, enrapture diners.

Even as the menu keeps changing around the year, especially lip-smacking and word-of-mouth is the panchino, essentially exquisite caviar buns mixed with cream cheese. Pesto with pistachios and eel is another Disfrutar legend. Then there’s the classic Catalonian sense of culinary adventure in what’s on the menu as ‘Fear: The Prawn’ – a pool of dry ice is presented to the diner, who will have to blindly fish into the mystical and mistful vapour with bare hands to hunt and retrieve gorgeously cooked crustacea.

If you’re in Barcelona, both for food and ambience – the restaurant’s double-height vaulted ceilings with full-length glass running along one side of the restaurant’s walls is stunning – Disfrutar is a must. Even if you’re not in Barcelona, here’s a sumptuous reason to go there.