Alkimia Restaurant, Barcelona, a guest blog post

This is a contribution from Christina.

Dinner in Barcelona

Once again, time to explore the world outside DK and challenge the taste buds. This time on a wonderful weekend trip to Barcelona. Thank you Zoce!

5 hours after side stepping snow drifts in Copenhagen, we stood on the train platform at Barcelona airport, looking down the tracks straight into the evening sun. What a great way to start the weekend, in that special, cool light of a Spring evening.

Alkimia
A table was waiting for us at Alkimia, and after picking up the keys for the flat (and that's a whole other story ...) we headed for the restaurant. One Michelin star equals high expectations from the two most dedicated foodies in Copenhagen, but unfortunately, we were not in for a memorable meal :-(

Something missing
We arrived as the first guests, and were seated at a nice table. My immediate impression was surprise; the ceiling was very low, and it felt like we were below ground. Slightly claustrophobic.

The waiter was kind, but not very focused, and his behavior was a little too much 'by the book'. Although two couples arrived immediately after us, I got a feeling that there was still a lot of preparation going on. There was a lot of walking back and forth, checking forks and wineopeners at sidetables, etc. The result was unrest and rush.

Deconstructed bruschetta
Anyway, being in a supposedly good restaurant, it's always exciting to choose the chef's menu, so that's what we both went for.

The first appetizer was basically bruschetta, but deconstructed: Served in glasses came tomatoe water (a really strong, fresh taste of tomatoe) with olive oil and breadcrumbs. On top of the glass, a slice of sausage. I'm sorry I didn't get the name of the sausage because it was really tasty - I asked, but didn't pick up the word. It was a very light appetizer but full of taste, and fun to have it served like this.


Chickpea disaster
Different with the second appetizer. This was like a temporary black-out. It was a helping of creamy chickpea soup/ sauce (?) with shavings of truffle and, in the middle, a cube of fat from the Iberian black foot pig (If I heard the waiter correctly). The presentation wasn't good, and the taste was non-distinct, leaning towards unpleasant. There was no sense of the chickpeas at all, which is a pity, because they can be delicious if done properly.

On the whole, I felt like I was slirping heated cream with left-over fat from a day-old cutlet. There was no taste of truffle whatsoever. And the dish was lacking pepper, big time! I usually love chickpeas, so this almost made me cry.

Saved by the wine
Thank goodness Zoran chose a wonderful white wine, local as far as I remember. See his blog post for details, as he is, without any doubt, the wine maestro :-) My thoughts on the wine: Very complex and fiesty. Like sparks dancing on your tongue, and with lots of fruit and nuttiness.


Highlight 1
Then the first dish came in. Anchovy and marinated amberjack with avocado. It was beautifully presented, reminding you of Miro's compositions (the blog picture does not really do it justice). The colours were great, and the taste extremely delicate. More of this Alkimia, please!

Iberian nightmares
The shock of the chickpea appetizer was still lurking at the back of my mind though. A premonition that the evening wasn't guaranteed to be a success. And rightly so, the following dishes were all, with a single (but bland) exception, completely wrong. So wrong that I caught myself continuously pushing the food around on the plate, and leaving 75% uneaten. This disturbed me even more than the food itself! Raised to always finish my food out of respect for the person who has cooked the meal (& the wonderful guy paying for it all), I almost never leave food on the plate. This time I did.


Why? Eg. the turnip marrow with Kalix caviar: Here, I was expecting a great combination of sweet, earthy turnip and the light saltiness of caviar. Instead it was a heavy, overcooked mound of something that tasted like it had been stewed 48 hours in fat (from Iberian pig???) - and the caviar... well it was completely suffocated. You couldn't taste it at all.


A pseudo-highlight
Egg bonbon. Apart from the slightly odd name, this dish was actually ok. An egg yolk surrounded by a potatoe puré of some sort to bring on the illusion of a fried egg. It was funny, but still nothing amazing, and the taste was bland to say the least. In hindsight I think that we both liked this dish mostly because it suddenly didn't taste of Iberian fat.

A freaky prawn
A big, fat prawn lying on a bed of salt. A freak show of naked flesh lying on a stone ready to be sacrificed. I wonder what the chef had in mind when he/she conjured up this one? Perhaps the intention was to add a smokey edge from the bayleaf (I think it was bay), but that hadn't reached the prawn at all. The result was instead chemical and sour. The prawn's natural taste had been exorcised, and all that was left was the irritation of having to rinse my fingers in too small a bowl.

Highlight 2
On a more positive note, both desserts were delicious and perfectly done. But nothing out of the ordinary, and honestly, by this time I was too disappointed with the rest of the meal to properly enjoy the dessert :-(

A fading star...
I am no expert, and do not know very much about the professional world of food, but I strongly believe that Alkimia is not a Michelin star worthy. The menu lacked balance and a main theme. Even if the theme was meant to be the damned Iberian pig, it still failed, because it was interrupted by crazy characters like the freaky prawn, an anonymous fish with leathery skin, and an undercooked pigeon with coconut and peanut sponge...?! (Yes, are you as confused as I am?).

The service was rushed and non-personal. I constantly had the impression that the waiters didn't know the menu very well (who can blame them). Whenever I asked them about something, they spoke hurriedly and with no passion. In comparison, a restaurant like Vau in Berlin is sooooo much better. The difference is huge. Sorry Alkimia, but 2 highlights out of 11 dishes.. that's just not good enough.

The rest of the menu...
Pickled oysters with glazed cheek and spinach sauté...


an anonymous fish with leathery skin...


an undercooked pigeon with coconut and peanut sponge...