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Abac is a Michelin 1* restaurant situated in The Park Hotel on Carrer Rec. This is the first restaurant Tony Flynn (Anthony’s) worked at when he came to Barcelona before he moved on to El Bulli.
Our reservation was for 10, so having walked the area earlier we knew the tapas bar El Xampanyet was nearby. Perhaps unwisely we hit there first and may have suffered for that a little later on!
The room at Abac is long and narrow with rows of well-spaced tables down both sides, lots of blonde wood and bare walls. We were positioned opposite the kitchen door, a good start.
We ordered the degustation and after the maitre’d ran through the dishes to see our likes and dislikes we slipped him a restaurant card for Anthony’s and asked him to pass it to the chef, explaining the connection. Two minutes later the chef Xavier Pellicer bounded excitedly out of the kitchen to talk about Tony, offering to serve us a menu of his choice. Bingo!
Whilst sipping on a Manzanilla the meal began with canapés that included 2 trays of olives, potato chips and pig. Pig meant tiny slithers of deep fried belly ala scratchings in England and the potato chips were excellent being rectangular sheets of paper-thin something that tasted of potato
.Mousse potato, seafood – Light mash whipped with egg whites and cream atop a rich fish broth with cockles and mussels. Excellent.
Smoked anchovy with bread and tomato – two fillets presented as the whole anchovy with a stuffing of minced bread and tomato. Posh tapas.
Bamboo steamed foie gras, beer and caramel soup – The foie, wrapped in a Savoy leaf, was melt in the mouth. A beautiful semi-sweet sauce was the perfect foil. Another excellent dish.
Avocado, crab & lemon, basil sorbet – An updated take on a classic combination. A disc shaped layer of tiny diced avocado with flecks of red chilli offering a subtle back drop of heat topped with a crab mixture of predominantly white meat, lemon zest and chives held together with lemon oil. The sorbet including mint, parsley and chives glowed green.
Stuffed squids, combination of salads – Two cylinders of melting squid stuffed with various wilted leaves and diced tomatoes surrounded by samphire in a cumin-scented sauce.
Roasted scallop, citrus froth – This was a single scallop loosely wrapped in pak choi encircled by wild mushrooms and a rich meat reduction. The froth was sharp and gave balance to the dish.
Tuna, Marrakech cumin mushroom chips, baby leeks, caramelized artichoke – The highlight of this dish were the mushroom chips baked in cumin. I could eat bags of them but Sam didn’t like them much!
Suckling pig – Wowee. Two tiny racks of suckling pig no more than a couple of inches in length with great crackling and moist sweet meat. Finger bowls were provided which was all the invitation one needed to eat with fingers. Accompanying slice of cepe, tiny roasted potatoes and pig jus were nothing more than a distraction.
At this point due to our earlier over indulgence of tapas we had to decline the cheese course and move on to desserts
.Strawberries, sauce vierge, peach reduction, red fruit sorbet – In the middle of a mound of diced strawberries was a single strawberry covered in salt, which was just as good as the usual combination of pepper. For a strawberry lover a dream dessert.
Vanilla brioche, passion fruit – This was so light, a small single loaf of brioche soaked and baked in a vanilla cream, then presented covered in vanilla foam with a drizzle of passion fruit seeds at one end. Simple perfection, possibly the best dessert I’ve eaten.
The maitre’d overheard us waxing lyrical about the brioche pudding and offered us another. We accepted one to share but when he returned from the kitchen he said chef would like to present us with something different.
Peanut butter, cocoa crispie, yoghurt cream – Sam likened this to a deconstructed Reece’s Pieces bar. The peanut butter was in ice cream form encased in a thin layer of chocolate atop a chocolate brownie and a layer of the crispie. Even though we were stuffed we ate the lot.
We completed the meal with a large selection of good quality petit fours and a sigh of relief!
This was the best meal I’ve had this year (90% sure), from the quality and freshness of ingredients through to the final deliciousness on the plate and better than any meal I’ve ever had in London by some distance.
A big recommendation.
