The Best of Barcelona Cuisine

A Night of New Catalan

A 10-course meal at the restaurant Cinc Sentits reveals the best of Nova Cuina Catala.

By Clifford A. Wright | Wednesday, 24 February 2010 | 00:00

BARCELONA NEXT

^{Second in a four-part series on the food of Barcelona.
Read Part 1}

New Catalan cuisine is compelling and must be sampled. After much research, last spring I decided to dine at Cinc Sentits on Carrer d'Aribau near the university to experience what's happening in the envelope-pushing creative revolution of nova cuina catalana. No magazine or newspaper was underwriting my dinner, so it was essential that the experience be perfect, enjoyable, enlightening and, if not cheap, at least worth it.

My son, Seri, who was living in Barcelona at the time, and I decided on the 65 euro ($85 U.S.) tasting menu. That’s expensive for me but more affordable than the 120 euro dinners elsewhere. Cinc Sentits, which means "five senses," also sounded calm, friendly and relaxing, according to reviews and recommendations from Barcelonan friends. I was also drawn to this restaurant by Chef Jordi Artal, a Canadian of partially Catalan extraction who had never worked in a professional kitchen until five years ago. He was a home cook whose friends said: “You should open a restaurant.” Here’s a guy who was working in high-tech in San Francisco and today is chef of his own restaurant in one of the six best restaurants in Spain, as described by an influential critic in the newspaper El País. I was intrigued by the Artal’s sense of tradition; he looked at traditional dishes and did his creative deconstructive take on them as opposed to overthrowing them. His cooking is not as “molecular” as that of Ferran Adria, a celebrated Catalan chef.

Three Food Scenes in Barcelona

Nova cuina catalana is represented most famously by the culinary surrealism of innovative chefs such a Ferran Adria of El Bulli, Jordi Vila of Alkimia and Jordi Artal of Cinc Sentits.

Market food is the food you buy for your own home cooking at Mercat de Sant Josep (better known as La Boqueria) or the Mercat de Santa Caterina in Sant Pere, as well as a host of other neighborhood markets.

Sandwich shops -- Surprise! Not tapas bars -- are the region's third food scene. Most famous tapas bars of Barcelona are misnamed anyway. They're really just lunch counters and can't compare to the true tapas bars of Andalusia or the Basque country.

Our 10-course menu began simply enough with olives and almonds. Next came what I later realized was the chef’s ode to his Canadian upbringing: a Cinc Sentits shot, made from rock salt, maple syrup, cream and cava sabayon layered in a shot glass. The mussels marinated in escabetx, a vinegar bath of sorts, were served surrounded by green asparagus cream with a thin split asparagus spear on top.

Then we had something called foie gras coca, which might have been the best item of the evening. A traditional Catalan coca, found at all the sandwich shops in town, is a kind of Catalan pizza slice, usually rectangular and crisper than a pizza. Here the rectangle was a thin hard slice of puff pastry with brûléed mi-cuit foie gras on a bed of glazed leeks topped with caramelized sugar, olive oil and Chardonnay vinegar garnished with finely chopped chives and a few grains of rock salt. A green stripe of chive and Pedro Ximénez grape syrup decorated the plate. Seri and I ate this one slowly, wondrous at how delicious it was. Although Seri did point out, correctly, that it was foie gras after all, so of course it tasted great.

Adish called arròs a banda was a reinterpretation of a classic dish of saffron rice with fish served second or on the side (the name means “a rice apart”). It was fine, though a stretch to relate it to the classic dish. The rice was a fried rice ball the size of a large marble, like a Sicilian arancine, with grilled baby squid (xipirones), a slow-roasted onion sofregit and an impossibly yellow saffron allioli. The dish reminded me of the painter Joan Miró more than anything. Next, we had a sublime dentex with fresh spring peas from Llavaneras with garlic shoot cream. To make this dish work, you need to make sure each bite has every element in it, partly because the peas, even though cooked through, “pop” when you bite into them.

The Iberian suckling pig that followed was terrific, and I wished for seconds. It is first marinated, then cooked 24 hours sous vide. The next day the meat is de-boned and layered in a square terrine with different parts of the pig. On the bottom is the belly meat, then the shoulder meat, then leg meat and finally the skin on top. It’s pressed down and fried skin-side down until crispy and served with apples in two textures, smooth and a chunk.

We ended the evening with Blau de l’Avi Ton, a type of blue cheese with white truffle honey and then a blood orange, kumquat sorbet with powdered honey. The plate arrived sizzling so I thought something was hot. But upon taking a spoonful, I realized something was popping in my mouth. I looked wide-eyed at Seri who said, “Those are popping rocks.” I said what’s that? (How can I be a food writer and not know?) To which Seri replied, “It’s candy for 6-year-olds. That’s how I knew. You would only know if you were 6.”

The restaurant is minimally decorated, but the welcome is warm and service is friendly and familiar, almost as if you were being served in the chef’s home. There are so many good eating experiences in Barcelona, but Cinc Sentits was a winner without the showiness that often leaves a diner wondering what happened outside of having a lighter wallet.

Cinc Sentits, Carrer d'Aribau, 58, Barcelona 08011. Tel: 00 34 93 323 9490.

An evening at Cinc Sentits in Barcelona reveals the best of New Catalan cuisine.

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Cinc Sentits’ arros a banda. Credit: Clifford A. Wright

Next week: Explore Barcelona's market food.

Clifford A. Wright won the James Beard / KitchenAid Cookbook of the Year award and the James Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for "A Mediterranean Feast."

Photo at top: Cinc Sentits’ foie gras coca. Credit: Clifford A. Wright

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