Informal

After dining at Informal, the elegant restaurant of The Serras Barcelona, a boutique hotel at the bottom fringe of the Barri Gòtic along Passeig de Colom, I was surprised to read that CNN had named this intimate eatery one of the ‘10 Best New Restaurants in the World to Eat at in 2016’. To be clear, I wasn’t shocked that journalist Chris Dwyer was so enamoured by Michelin-starred chef Marc Gascons’s stylish and refined Mediterranean cuisine that he included it on this list (Informal was the only restaurant in Spain to make the cut), because the food was excellent; rather, I was surprised that up until this winter, Informal hadn’t come up on my radar as a place to try. 

Following the recommendation of an acquaintance, I approached Informal to arrange a tasting of the menu for myself and a friend, and overall we were very impressed by the food and the service (though completely overwhelmed by the quantity of wild mushrooms on the menu, which seemed to work their way into nearly every plate we were served). The à la carte menu at Informal changes every few months and relies heavily on seasonal ingredients. November and December were all about wild mushrooms, while further into winter Chef Gascons’s indulgent tastes will be kicked up a notch, as copious amounts of winter truffles were promised to us in the event of a second visit. 

Dinner began with a light salad of shredded King Crab meat, paired with an avocado purée, diced celeriac and green apple, a seaweed tapenade, and bouncy, sweet cubes of muscatel wine gelée. King Crab isn’t my favourite ingredient, but I found the dish well balanced and very enjoyable.

Next came one of the best, yet most simple dishes of the meal: a skillet of mixed sautéed mushrooms, botifarra de perol (a classic Catalan sausage made often from pig bits such as head, jowl and belly, which is typically crumbled after cooking) and artichokes. Atop the finished mushroom mixture, two eggs were cracked and cooked perfectly by the gentle residual heat of the skillet. Not a hint of burnt egg white was present here and the combination of mushroom, sausage and artichokes—though well-worn territory when it comes to local gastronomy—was sublime. 

One dish that really surprised and delighted both my dinner companion and myself was the single, huge, pumpkin ravioli that arrived at the table, topped with artichokes and mushrooms, dotted with tomato purée, spinach pesto and pumpkin purée, and lightly swaddled in an airy bechamel foam. The pasta itself was cooked just past al dente, and sharing one monster ravioli (cut into quarters, pizza style) was fun. I really loved this dish, though adding some cheese would have made it even better. The bechamel foam was meant to serve as the ‘creamy’ note (I suspect) but offered little flavour when compared to the other components on the plate. 

When eating scallops in Barcelona, a diner most commonly encounters the small zamburiñas, cooked in their open shells, which grace tables and tapas bars throughout the city. So, when plump and meaty sea scallops like the ones I grew up eating along the New England coast show up on a menu, I’m easily tempted. At Informal, the scallops are seared to a caramel brown on one side until just fork-tender, then served over firm polenta, confit mushrooms, snap peas, sun-dried tomatoes, panceta Ibérica and sunflower seeds in a mushroom broth. The concept and execution of the dish was spot-on. At this point, I was reaching the funghi saturation point, though there was still more to come. Too much of a good thing really does exist. 

For the final savoury course of the night, we had the pleasure of eating the most succulent piece of grilled venison I have ever tasted. Presented by our waiter under a smoke-filled glass cloche, the venison loin was dressed with a spiced venison jus and stewed red berries, with crispy cubes of fried yucca scattered atop a purée of root vegetables and a ‘soil’ of dehydrated, powdered mushrooms. I’m not sure exactly how this meat was prepared, but I would guess it was first cooked sous vide then grilled in order to achieve such an incredible level of tenderness while still achieving that coveted grilled char on the outside of the meat. 

To my delight, dinner ended on a gin-infused high with a dessert that had me scraping the bowl and licking my spoon. To be honest, the ‘Gin Tónic’ dessert doesn’t look like much—imagine a bowl of thick white meringue sprinkled with lime zest—however, hiding under this light and velvety foam of tonka bean-spiked gin was a custard of lemon and raspberry that was both rich and acidic; the perfect palate-cleansing plate to end an exceptional culinary experience.