Disfrutar, enjoying life to the fullest

Disfrutar today: the open-view kitchen, two very different dining rooms, a déhor where you cannot lunch or dine, but only relax, and a workshop in the cellar that is more than a space where the dishes are conceived, tested and defined down to the smallest detail. The workshop is hidden from view by a wooden wall made of disassembled wine crates. First, you admire the bottles and wonder where your table can be. Then they catch your eye and open a door, which you wouldn’t spot otherwise, and you find yourself in a unique place that by the end of the eventing you’ll know is magical.

The three owners, Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch, have been together since forever, first at Ferran Adrià's el Bulli, then since April 2012 at Compartir in Cadaqués, then in Barcelona at Disfrutar, which opened in December 2014 and in nine years has reached three Michelin stars and the second place in the World's 50 Best. Being three allows them to participate in more events and moments, including Identità Golose 2024 on Saturday 9^th of March.

They have a great gift, which they confirm time and time again: they are simple people. Oriol for example, while on holiday in Salento last summer, posted on Instagram a moment during a cooking class on orecchiette, all muscles and dough. Nothing stellar, nothing loaded for show. After all, you only need to arrive in front of the restaurant at 163 Carrer de Villarroel to realise that every effort is made to give certain and lasting substance to the various gastronomic proposals.

Without taking anything away from the different personalities scattered around the planet, stars and praise do not have the same weight and DNA at all. They must be measured and weighed to see how much credit is due to the food, how much to the service and to the setting. One thing is sure: although many people declare it, no one gives grades based just on the quality of a dish. The categorisations begin immediately, when you decide to proceed along different lines for restaurants; bistros, trattorias and osterias; pizzerias and garage food or street food.

And at their place, you immediately start asking questions, because wherever you are seated, you are handed a sheet of paper with a specific title: What is hidden behind our food? This is followed by 55 cues, printed in three different font sizes to give them greater or lesser importance. For example, tradition and nostalgia are placed at the bottom and not surprising given their history. Evolution and innovation are in the middle, while at the top we find experience, exclusivity, friendship, creativity, taste, technical memories and sensations.

You can agree on everything or only partly, but here you are at home, and they are the ones to hand the cards. And they are good and excellent ones. And then what a room the workshop is, basically two in one because in the first part, there is the table at which you are seated and in front of it, on shelves and a central block, there’s every possible equipment and tool for storing products and, of course, cooking. The result is four hours of pleasure, punctuated by dishes spanning eight years, because Panchino is from 2016, a suave siphoned doughnut, stuffed with beluga caviar and then fried.

Basically, an exception to a theory that winds its way through 2022 and 2023 to a grand finale that you don't expect and that captivates you, amidst a portentous soundtrack and a fast-paced narrative.

Basically, the tablecloth is taken off and a table that can seat up to six people reveals itself to be the sum of 35 small boxes that are gradually freed from their lids to uncover all they conceal, including leaves, flowers, seedlings, water, ice, tweezers and cutlery, goodies.

Merche Alcalà, an interior designer and a regular customer, designed this during Covid. She proposed this to the three chefs to fully animate the fireworks unleashed by their dishes. For some years now, it has been easy to talk about gastronomic experiences, going beyond the concept of a good meal that you can have just about anywhere. With the Table of Life you really enter a different dimension, in which the meaning of the word Disfrutar becomes total: Enjoy.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso