28-07-2017
Toasted chicken skin with anchovy bone, the first of a magnificent series of 27 tapas at Tickets, Barcelona, one Michelin star and 25th in the World's 50 Best (translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso)
Consommè de garbanzos. Before the tasting menu begins, they serve a glass bottle with a cold chickpea broth (top right corner). Twenty-three dishes later, at the end of the "savoury" itinerary, they’ll serve some hot broth made with Iberian jamon in a grappa glass from a teapot. On top, a cold foamy chickpea broth. A special warm-cold combination (photo @ticketsbar instagram)
Tosta de pollo y anchoa. First dish: Chicken skin toast with an anchovy bone on it. It’s serves with anchovy cream (butter and anchovy paste) on top.
Olive Gordal. One of the emblems of the Adrià saga: the olives are dipped in a liquid made with extra virgin olive oil, cinnamon, lemon zest and star anise. You lift them with a teaspoon with holes, place them on a wood shell on the side, and then in the mouth. Gordal is a variety from Andalusia
First dish finished at the table: Polo de almendras
Polo de almendras is an almond milk ice cream, painted with olive oil upon serving it, topped up with soft almond, elderflower and salt. It’s served on a plate with ice cubes. Sweet (savoury) and ice cream at the beginning of the meal and not at the end, a format typical of Adrià
Coliflor y caviar. Cauliflower ganache and Schrenkii caviar.
Gamba a la sal fría. Prawn marinated in Lapsang Souchong tea, bergamot zest on top. Presented on top of salt snow, which looks like ice at the fish market
Atún con cerezas. Raw tuna belly comfit in ham fat and accompanied with a smoked cherry
Ceviche de melón cantaloup. Cantaloupe melon ceviche with lime juice, coriander and kumquat leche de tigre. Served with kumquat, coriander oil and kumquat snow. Very citrusy
Pizza crujiente. Tickets’s "pizza": mille-fuille of regañà (a crispy bread cake originally from Andalusia), stracciatella, bottarga and figs
Porex de Calix. Dashi marshmallow filled with sour cream and topped with Kalix caviar, red roe from Swedish lake whitefish, with sweet and elegant notes
Nigiri de berenjena. Aubergine nigiri
Cubo de wagyu. A cube of crispy potato chips topped with a wagyu tartare seasoned with oil, salt, Dijon mustard, eggs and pepper. A magnificent tapa 2 cm wide which recalls Piedmontese traditional hand chopped raw meat
Milhojas de atún. Potato and nori mille-fuille, topped with a slightly spicy tuna tartare and avocado cream
Miniairbag de queso. Miniairbag of manchego cheese mousse, hazelnut caviar and powdered hazelnut peel
Airbaguette de rubia gallega: a hollow baguette wrapped in curated and marinated meat from the precious Rubia Gallega cattle breed from Galicia
Encerradito de buey: roll with avocado ravioli with crab inside served with chipotle mayonnaise in coriander gelatine. It’s topped with guttiau bread from Sardinia and chia seeds. A creamy, fat and vegetal tasting in two magnificent mouthfuls
Foie y anguila. Foie gras from Mitteault filled with eel wrapped in nori seaweed
Espardeña con panceta. Sea cucumber with its fried peel and wasabi. Topped with a strip of pancetta from Joselito ham
Pulpo crujiente. Tender octopus in crispy panko (spicy Japanese breadcrumbs), paired with baby pickled cucumbers
Cogollo con sorbete. The second dish finished by the table: heart of lettuce paired with its frozen sorbet with horseradish zest
Bogavante. Lobster. The only non-tapa in the entire journey
Time for the glass with the Cold chickpea consommé which is foamy on top while below there’s hot Iberian jamon broth (see the first slide)
You leave the table and go to Tickets’s Dolça, where the journey ends with desserts (photo elequipocreativo)
The welcome at Dolça? A rose holding a rose [pink] sphere: lychees and strawberries
Coco. Coconut gelatine, lime and coconut sorbet and curry water
The famous Cheesecake from Tickets. The skin of the "toma" on the left is made with white chocolate and hazelnut cream. In the filling, the famous brie cream. On the side, hazelnut biscuits. A cheese trolley in the shape of a dessert
Mini pancake. Third dish prepared at the table: crispy pancake with strawberries and a frozen whipped cream mousse
Chocolate y coco. Chocolate and passion fruit cream with hazelnut ice cream (photo from @ticketsbar instagram)
The final bill, including two bottles of Champagne. The premium prices in the wine list are very inviting
«In these past six years the style at Tickets has changed greatly. Initially, we wanted it to be a bar, but over time it became much more than a restaurant: it now expresses a concept of its own. I don’t know what limits it can have because my team improves everyday». Albert Adrià, coordinador gastronomico of one of the most intelligent and successful places in the world is happy. It’s a round-the-corner place, informal and noisy, serving fine dining. A vortex of 1000 tapas per night, prepared by 55 professionals who squeeze in between kitchen, counters and tables, remotely controlled in a way that didn’t even Guardiola’s Barça wasn’t capable of.
Some one hundred guests, sitting on iron benches, benefit from this. They’re dubious whether to pay attention to the magnificent nibbles appearing under their nose, to the circus islands directed by sommeliers dressed like lion tamers or to the ice cream trolleys puffing roving liquid nitrogen.
Albert Adrià, 48, gastronomic coordinator at Tickets and 5 more restaurants in Barcelona (photo @ticketsbar instagram)
Gabriele Zanatta’s opinion: on establishments, chefs and trends in Italy and the world
by
born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt