Xavier Pellicer

As the age old saying goes, when one door closes, another opens. Chef Xavier Pellicer’s vegetable-centric restaurant, Céleri, which earned a Michelin star in 2017, has closed as the chef and his partners went separate ways. Chef Pellicer has made a name for himself by combining fine dining technique with the principles of healthy, flexitarian living, and his new eponymous venture, Restaurante Xavier Pellicer, is no different. The menu abounds with surprises, like the grilled cabbage, served chilled with candied pine nuts and pickled radishes, or thick tender trunks of white asparagus dressed with citrus chunks and plump oysters.

In fact, at the beginning of May 2018, the We’re Smart Green Guide named Restaurante Xavier Pellicer the Best Vegetable Restaurant in the World 2018. I agree that the plating and cookery employed here are visually unique and, for the most part, delicious, although ‘Best in the World’ is a grand declaration. Chefs don’t just fold their knife rolls and take their Michelin stars with them, they must earn the stars again when moving to a new restaurant. The maître d’ seemed optimistic that the restaurant’s first star would be arriving soon, but I think that substantial improvements to service will be the biggest hurdle.

The interior design of the restaurant is chic, minimal Mediterranean, with wood, wicker and stone elements that welcome you but indicate that a casual experience is in-store. We waited for a long time before a waiter asked us if we were ready to order, though we hadn’t yet been given a menu. Our waiter was helpful, though he seemed a bit stressed with the full section he was handling. He explained that for two diners, the recommendation is to order between five and seven plates to share.

Each plate is made to share and consists of a carefully measured 100-gram portion. I imagined the dishes to be smaller than they turned out to be, and was thoroughly stuffed by the end of the meal. We ordered 14 dishes among four people, but we would have been fine with 10—though some are certainly more filling than others. The vegetable dishes are grouped by their main ingredient—from celery and aubergine to cauliflower and green beans—and most have a vegan, vegetarian, and meat or fish version of the same dish available, listed in that order.

We began with the lentil hummus, which was expertly seasoned and presented perfectly, piped onto a plate and topped with sesame seeds and fragrant micro herbs. Accompanied by paper-thin Sardinian flatbread, this was a great starter to the meal. The wine list is definitely geared towards bottles, with only a handful of wines available by the glass, so I opted for a bottle of Er Boquerón instead, a Valencian craft beer brewed with sea water, which turned out to be an excellent pairing for the mix of vegetables and seafood to come.

A surprise highlight of the meal was the cauliflower purée. A simple preparation of creamy cauliflower drizzled with smoked oil, I actually preferred this already rich, vegan dish to the vegetarian version, which included a slow-poached egg on top. The egg felt like an unnecessary addition that confused the naturally velvety texture of the purée. Perhaps a sprinkling of aged Parmesan shavings would have made a more pleasant contrast.

The dishes went on, with Thai fish soup, confit aubergine and watercress (with or without sausage), green beans with potato and chanterelle mushrooms, and crab-stuffed figs all making an appearance.

The meal culminated with two final dishes: a fork-tender fillet of crispy-skinned, seared snapper with a vibrant array of barley-cooked baby vegetables straight from the garden, and a royale of braised rabbit with confit shallots and Swiss chard. The whole-roasted tomato garnish on the fish dish, however, was cold inside when compared to the other fully-warmed vegetables, and the rabbit was a bit dry and underwhelming in flavor, despite the tableside pour of rabbit au jus, especially after such a fresh and well-seasoned meal.

We were completely stuffed at this point and couldn’t even think about attempting a dessert course, so enjoyed instead a strong espresso and went on our way. I think there is a lot of potential for Restaurante Xavier Pellicer, though some tweaking is surely necessary. All in all, things seem to bode well for the world of vegetarian fine dining in Barcelona.