Cinc Sentits in Barcelona, Spain

My husband Bill and I just spent a weekend in the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. As is our habit, we consulted OpenTable.com for restaurant reservations. My husband found the listing for Cinc Sentits and said he really wanted to get a reservation there because the menu appeared to be very innovative. Being the dutiful wife that I am, I set about getting us a table.

Maybe I should have known how different Cinc Sentits was going to be just from the reservation process. Like many restaurants in Spain, Cinc Sentits doesn't open for dinner until 8:30pm. I tried to reserve a table for our first night in Barcelona, but the earliest reservation wasn't until 10:30. It was the same story for the next night. I was afraid we were going to have to pick another eatery since 10:30 is too late for us Americans to eat dinner. But someone must have cancelled their reservation, because when I tried again later, an 8:30 reservation magically appeared. We were in business!

Cinc Sentits is located on a major tree-lined street and surrounded by shops. Still, our cab driver almost missed the restaurant because it's tiny and tucked away until 8:30pm. When we arrived ten minutes before opening, the place was still shut up tighter than a drum. A small, relatively obscure sign was the one clue that we were in the right place. Like magic, the garage-like outer barrier came up at 8:30 and Bill and I were able to go inside.

We were seated at a nice table for two. I looked around and noticed that the place was tiny, consisting of just one long, narrow dining room with no more than twenty tables. The decor is modern and done in crimson and white. A very fresh orchid sat in a cube shaped vase on our table. The very professional wait staff was outfitted all in black and we were greeted kindly as we perused the menu and sipped glasses of cava.

An international parade of other patrons from America, Germany, Britain, Spain, and France began to show up after us and every single one of them had a reservation. Reservations for Cinc Sentits are an absolute must because there are so few tables and because of the way the menu is set up. Cinc Sentits offers a tasting menu. Diners can choose a three, six, or eight course meal with an optional wine pairing. The food is very fresh and presented artistically with flavors that seem unlikely yet still manage to work beautifully, but the whole experience takes at least a couple of hours. This is not a restaurant you just drop into or come by for a quick bite to eat. In fact, one pair of ladies tried to do just that and were politely turned away.

Bill and I decided to try the eight course tasting menu with a basic wine pairing. The basic wine pairing added another 60 euros to our bill (30 euros per person). Had we wanted to, we could have opted for finer wines, which would have cost another 50 euros per person. Our choices made, we sat back and enjoyed the three different tapas snacks brought to us while we waited for the experience to get underway.

One thing I really appreciated about Cinc Sentits was the extremely professional wait staff. Everyone was multi-lingual. Our main waiter spoke English and French as well as Spanish and Catalan. He took the time to thoroughly explain all of the dishes and wines as he set them before us. Before we even got started, our waiter asked us if there were any foods we were allergic to or didn't like. I told him about my hatred for mushrooms, while Bill opted to have black truffles added to one of his courses.

Cinc Sentits' chef is Jordi Artal, a completely self-taught culinary wizard who focuses on using very fresh, local ingredients and preparing food in the Catalunyan style. According to Cinc Sentits' Web site, the restaurant was named one of Spain's top six restaurants shortly after it opened. It was awarded a Michelin star in 2008. Artal's wife, Amelia Artal, is the very warm and charming maitre d' at Cinc Sentits. Bill and I were amazed by her very American sounding accent. We heard her comment to a table full of Germans that she got her American accent from Canada! Indeed, I later found out that Jordi and Amelia Artal both spent many years in Canada before coming home to their Spanish roots.

The food

Our culinary adventure began when Amelia Artal brought us the welcome shot. We were presented with shot glasses full of warm maple syrup, chilled cream, cava sabayon, and rock salt. We were instructed to down the shot in one gulp and make sure we got the salt at the end. The shot reminded me of very fresh buttermilk pancakes. It was a nice way to start the meal... and it didn't count as one of our eight courses!

The first course was a single stalk of fresh asparagus served with a mussel and a delicious cream sauce. I was totally enchanted by this first course, but was not as fond as the next one, foie gras coca. I had never tried foie gras before, but was already familiar with how it's made. The foie gras was served on a thin pastry base with carmelized leeks, burnt sugar, and chive "arrope". It was paired with a sweet riesling wine from Germany that I also didn't like as much. When I didn't finish, the waiter cared enough to ask me why. What can I say? Foie gras just isn't my thing. Others who have reviewed this restaurant disagree with me and say the foie gras coca is a menu highlight. If you like foie gras, it will probably enthrall you as much as it did my husband.

I was much happier with the third course, baby squid served with "arroz a banda", "sofregit", and saffron allioli. The rice was described as paella, but it looked like a hushpuppie, which really appealed to my southern girl sensibilities. This course was served with a dry Spanish white wine that complimented it perfectly.

The fourth course was sea bass served with peas and a mint scented sauce. The mint went beautifully with the sweetness of the peas and the sea bass and was washed down with another crisp white Spanish wine.

I think of the fifth course, Iberian suckling pig, as the star attraction of this meal. Bill opted to have his with black truffles, while I had my plain. This wonderfully flavorful, succulent pig was paired with red-wine honey glaze and two types of crisp apple. We enjoyed a lovely Spanish red wine with this course, that seemed like it would be especially good in the fall.

We were given a choice for the sixth course. We could either have a palate cleansing sorbet or a cheese course. Bill had the cheese and I had the sorbet, which was served in a shot glass.

Next came dessert. We started with a blood orange sorbet with naval orange segments, candied kumquat, powdered honey and Pop Rocks! As she set the dish in front of us, our server commented that we could hear the popping of the candy, which I last enjoyed about thirty years ago! I have to admit, the Pop Rocks were certainly an interesting addition to this dessert and the blood orange sorbet was wonderfully refreshing.

The second part of dessert was called chocolate 67% "Grand Cru". It was a small cup of olive oil ice cream (which is a lot better than it sounds) served with macadamias, "shattered bread", and a warm chocolate sauce. Once again, there was a salty finish with rock salt at the bottom, which went very well with the sweetness of the chocolate. This was served with a semi sweet dessert wine.

Bill and I thought we were finished, but there was one last course... mandarin. This was served in a small glass with cardamom crumble, orange-blossom "air", and passion fruit cream and paired with a sweet Spanish muscatel from Malaga. The mandarin definitely ended our meal on a sweet note.

Final thoughts

Besides the courses I described, there were a few other choices available with the other tasting menus. I noticed that most of the other patrons were having the same eight course menu that Bill and I enjoyed, which I sure made it easier for the servers. We left Cinc Sentits feeling very satisfied and full, even if our bank account was a bit lighter. Our meal, including two bottles of sparkling water, two glasses of cava, and twelve euro extra charge for the black truffles on Bill's suckling pig, came to about $331. Dinner at Cinc Sentits is definitely not cheap, but we thought the experience was worth it. I would recommend Cinc Sentits to anyone who loves good food prepared in innovative ways... but be sure to make reservations first and bring plenty of money.

Cinc Sentits: Aribau 5808011 Barcelona, Spain+34 933 239 490