Mugaritz
Trico 2012
Ferments – Sweet Rice with no sugar
Comb and Coral Biscuit – cockscomb, spider crab
Tiger Nuts with Caviar – frozen daikon, osetra
Red Cardoon – white garlic, herbs
Steaming Empandila – laurel, iberian pork fat
Stew of Crunchy Suckling Pig, Wild Sorrel – pigtail
Walnut Omelette – egg, grain
Squash and Coffee Treacle – pumpkin, columbia
Live Cannelone – sprouted chia, lobster ceviche
A Handful of Highland Grass – cream of hazelnut, garlic, ethiopia cereal grain
Chestnut, Truffle, and Garlic – creamy, fried, white truffles
Clams and Pigeon – royale, grilled fern
Baby Eels and Textures of Meat – tartare
Hake Textures – gelatin, clam veil
Bovis Maxima: Vive la France! – beef cracker, bone marrow butter, demiglace
Sea Anemone and Vegetable Touch – tempura
Grilled Fish and Beef Essence – grouper, beef fat, green peppers
Glazed Mille Feuille of Lamb – shiso leaf
Beef Candy – onion, red wine
Beef and Chicories – pepper, salt
The Cheese – 3, 6, 12
Whiskey Pie – apple, vanilla ice cream
Grape and Brioche – bread ice cream, grape juice, frozen
Jasmine and Hay – mochi
Peanut Shortbread – sugar glass, rosemary
Seven Deadly Sins – envy, pride, wrath, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth
Americano
Heralded by some as the most experimental kitchen in the world even before Ferran Adria converted El Bulli into a “foundation,” it was midday Black Friday that the GPS led me up a mountain spiraling to Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz’s Mugaritz and although much has been made of the restaurant’s astronomic ascent on “Best of” lists since its 1998 opening no number of photos or blog posts can do the experience of eating there justice largely because an “experience” is exactly what it is.
Featuring no set menu, each diner instead served approximately two-dozen of over one hundred items reinvented yearly for use throughout the upcoming seasons with changes made on-the-fly as new ideas evolve, Mugaritz resides in a small wooden building amidst the stunning Errenteria hillside and with the space rebuilt after a fire in 2010 it can only be said that the rustic exterior in no way conveys that which is found within.
Greeted warmly in the foyer where a few books detailing Aduriz’s career and recipes are presented alongside objects of Modern Art it was minutes before the 13h00 reservation that I was led to a table big enough for four and seated with a great vantage of the room a glass of wine was ordered before a brief tour of the kitchen, no less than thirty sous and stages working in silence on individual plates with a bite of fermented rice presented to whet my appetite, not one drop of sugar used but the flavor like that of candy amidst soft grains that separated and melted in the mouth.
Asked of preferences, allergies, and discretions before starting a marathon of sprints, never more than five minutes separating one course from the next, those looking for some sort of congruent “tasting” will likely find Mugaritz a bit disappointing as the experience is much more a stream of consciousness event, opening bites of a crispy cock’s comb lent levity by creamed spidercrab and its roe while three bites to follow explored concepts of vegetation and textures, the first melting slowly beneath a hefty dollop of caviar while the golden pocket used added pork fat as a mechanism to carry gentle floral notes aloft.
Filling a crispy pigtail with stewed pork before presenting a buttery-meets-bitter cloud of eggs and wedge of pumpkin brushed with coffee that oddly harkened the flavors of Tiramisu, it was with course nine that presentations reached next-level status, the sprouted chia stuffed with sweet ceviche given a sense of movement by nothing more than the air circulating the dining room with a silky mouthfeel that was nothing like the structure would suggest.
Chasing the furry looking lobster with ancient grains and green sprouts around rich nut butter made more poignant by garlic it was leading into the menu’s midpoint that three stunning courses were presented in rapid succession, the chestnut pudding offering an exploration of texture beneath a bouquet of white truffles while the creamed mousse of bird atop clam and slippery eels with raw beef were no less brilliant, each admittedly quite rich but present in just the right portion.
Continuing to contemplate individual ingredients and their flexibility of flavor depending on preparation with gelatinous Hake throat over a firm fillet and then in the Bovis Maxima that was “only wafer thin” but ate like a whole porterhouse, it was a first experience with Sea Anemone that highlighted plate sixteen and although texturally something akin to phlegm even after a trip to the fryer the flavor not unlike urchin was itself quite pleasant.
Returning to something more traditional with a generous slice of grouper in a beefy cream sauce followed by crisp lamb skin alternatively layered with thin cuts of loin it was a bovine gummy tasting like the richest of demi-glaces that set up the meal’s final savory and although perhaps not as intriguing as those items preceding there is no doubt the rectangle of Wagyu was melt-in-the-mouth tender and, once again, just enough to satisfy without being too much.
Telling a story of time and culture with local cheeses aged 3, 6, and 12 months – all from the same cow – desserts began with a boozy piece of semi-freddo ‘leather’ overlying apples and vanilla ice cream, the following quenelle of buttery brioche flavor subtle and elegant amidst grape pulp, granita, and juice.
Serving two mignardises as the meal marched past two hours, the mochi a bit too floral while the herbal brittle was as beautiful as it was complex, it was with an Americano of shade grown Colombian beans in hand that the tall wooden puzzle-box was delivered, each layer save for “greed” containing chocolate placed in the context of a sin, wrath represented with firey top notes while gluttony offered nearly fifty chocolate covered biscuits, the base of Sloth a dense pentagram that was more than enough to share or save for later.
Presented with a customized menu on exit, another invitation to the kitchen showing half the team to be scrubbing down while others began preparations for a seating only five hours away it was briefly that I debated inquiring about a second reservation to try another twenty-plus creations later that evening, my only hesitation being a reservation at Elkano plus the possibility of diminishing returns spoiling a truly magical afternoon.
http://www.mugaritz.com/