A restaurant named the best in the world is keeping foodies on the edge of their seats – with a waiting list of nearly a year for a table. The Disfrutar, in the cosmopolitan city of Barcelona, recently topped the list of the world’s 50 best restaurants.
It describes Disfrutar as “the dining experience of a lifetime” and praises the “brilliantly imaginative dishes, unsurpassed technical mastery and playful presentation.”
The news of its elevation comes as no surprise to food enthusiasts, as it has received top ratings from various prestigious guides, including Michelin. But EuroNews now claims tourists desperate to try its cuisine are having to make plans very far in advance.
For the chefs who founded the restaurant, being crowned the world’s best is a significant honour that has been many years in the making.
Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas, and Eduard Xatruch met at the legendary restaurant El Bulli, where they worked under the guidance of Ferran Adrià and Juli Soler.
It was at El Bulli that these three Catalans honed their skills and acquired the knowledge that has now led them to the pinnacle of culinary achievement.
In 2012, they decided to become partners and opened their first restaurant, Compartir, in the town of Cadaqués, Girona.
Since then, the three chefs have opened two more restaurants: Disfrutar in Barcelona, now 10 years old, and Compartir, also in Barcelona, just two years ago in 2022. They say this award demonstrates the strength of Spanish cuisine.
In 2015, they earned their first Michelin star, followed by a second star in 2017 and a third star in 2023. In 2022, they ranked third on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and the following year they moved up to second place.
Despite this consistent upward trajectory, the recent award still came as a surprise. Castro said: “In the past, there was the great French cuisine, then there was the movement, here in Spain, of Basque cuisine.
“Then came the El Bulli revolution and without a doubt we continue to have this revolution in Catalonia, in Spain, with the Celler de Can Roca and then with us getting this first prize.”
Casañas added: “Until that very moment, they did not make it public that we are number one, we did not know and that makes it a magical moment. So it is incredible, it is indescribable and it is incomparable.”
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants website describes ‘Disfrutar’ as “the dining experience of a lifetime” and praises the “brilliantly imaginative dishes, unsurpassed technical mastery and playful presentation.”
Diners can try dishes including multi-spherical pesto with tender pistachios and eel or the restaurant’s take on the typical Spanish tapas dish the ‘gilda’.
Manager Vicente Lara told Euronews: “Since we got the award, the truth is that the issue of reservations has been growing. Before we had a waiting list of maybe seven or eight months, now we have almost a year on the waiting list.”
