October 25 - Caelis for Lunch

Barcelona is a beautiful city,known for its fine food. I've really been looking forward to lunch at Caelis and it was all I hoped for. Romain Fornell is the head chef and he's earned Michelin stars in both France and Spain. I understand why. The food and service were excellent and friendly. No food snobs here, just great, creative food. As requested, I got a seat at the counter so I could watch the action in the open kitchen. Amazing to watch the teamwork and hard work. Here are some photos from my three hour lunch.

The restaurant is in Hotel Ohla Barcelona.  The restaurant opens for lunch at 1:30, which was the time of my reservation.  I arrived early and waited in the hotel lobby, chatting with a couple from New York.

The restaurant is small and diners have a choice of one of the 10 or tables, or at the counter, which overlooks the open kitchen.

My view of the kitchen.  It remained impeccably clean, organized, calm and quiet throughout lunch service.  I was there from 1:30 - 4:00.  I left feeling very full but not stuffed.  I will NOT be having dinner.  Although I did ask one of the chef's for directions to McDonalds.  At first he laughed then realized I might be serious and started to explain the directions.

The dining room is small and allows space for each diner, which is nice.  I'm not a fan of cramped dining rooms.

I would hate to be responsible for polishing the copper.

Architecture in Barcelona is interesting.  This is the window near my seat.  

The tasting menu I chose.  I thought perhaps I'd be asked to choose one or two items from each category.  Nope.  I ate each of the items on the menu.  Overall it was excellent and one of the best meals I've ever had.  I'll be thinking of some of these dishes for a long time.

This is a vermouth bombon.  Served on a bed of ice, and decorated with edible gold, this photo doesn't do it justice.  It is the size of a grape and is a crispy outer shell, which pops in your mouth since it is filled with a vermouth-based liquid.  It was unusual and delicious.  

Next was the crispy codium, tuna belly and plankton.  Codium is a type of seaweed.  I know that because I just looked it up.  This was a nice mix of textures and flavors- fishy in the best way.

This was another of my favorites and seems so simple.  A Comte cheese sandwich, which was another great combo of crispy phyllo dough and creamy cheese.

Another shot of the seaweed and tuna belly.

I don't know what this was but one of the chef's prepared it in front of me.

There are two kitchens.  This one does the savory food.  Another kitchen does desserts and breads.

And, the appetizers continue.  My very friendly server, a young woman, brought a tower of treats.  I can't believe I didn't take a photo of the whole tower.  But this was on top - squid and miso souffle bread.  Another favorite.  Crispy and colored with squid ink, it had a very light almost crispy texture and was another favorite.

Pate en croute.  OMG, I could just have a couple of these for dinner and call it a day.  So rich, and a great combination of textures and flavors.  

This!  Tartlet of cured yolk and pickled herring.  The "crust" was very thin and crispy.  The first bite tasted of lemon, then became rich and creamy from the egg and then tart from the herring.  This was the kind of bite that made me happy to pay the price.  Complicated but just a great bit of food.

OMG, here's another star - tomato meringue with anchovy. The meringue base tasted sweet and like a fresh tomato and went perfectly with the cream topping (no clue what it was) and the anchovy.  Light with powerful flavors.

The big brass egg stores all the silverware (fresh with each new plate).  The wooden thing to its right is what holds the appetizers I just described.  Note the distance between me and the diners next to me.  Close enough to chat if we wanted but plenty of privacy and elbow room.

Another shot of the tartlet of cured yolk and pickled herring.  That's the plate they have on the table when you are seated and then disappears mid-way through the meal.

Another shot of the tomato meringue with anchovy.

I have no idea how long they spend doing the mise en place.  Each of those small pots contained a different sauce.  The organization was impressive.  Yes, there were at least six chefs in just the savory kitchen but the speed and attention to detail was amazing.

The chef on the right is the "jefe" (boss) but not Romain Fornell who wasn't there today.  

Bread and butter anyone?  That's "white bread" in the bowl, a croissant bread and a brioche.  The compound butter, from the left are tomato, basil and black olive.  I ate a tiny bit of the white bread so I could try the butters.  I'm going to try making the black olive butter - it was delicious.

Frozen vichyssoise, anyone? Cold potato and leek soup, served in a cube of solid ice. Marfa (my server) told me the type of caviar but I can't remember.  This was another favorite, although I'd be happy with just the soup and leave off the cavier.  It was great but overpowered the subtle, smooth and tasty soup.  The soup was liquid, by the way.

Another favorite.  This is the brown crab, topinambur and caviar.  Topinambur is the Spanish word for Jerusalem artichoke, BTW.  Isn't lunch educational?   This was like a sandwich.  The brown wafer was crispy and there was another one on the bottom.  The green was a cucumber concoction.  The white stuff was the crab mixture which was heavenly.   When they brought out the plastic container of the crab mixture to make the dish for another patron, I hoped the chef would turn away so I could grab it.  Another explosion of flavors and textures and absolutely delicious.

That's "the pass", where the chef gives the food to the servers.  I know that because I've watched every episode of Top Chef.  Did you know there's a Top Chef Canada?  It has several seasons but we're not able to view it in the US.  No wonder Trump has broken off trade negotiations with our neighbor.  Seriously, if you know how I can see it, let me know.

While I oohed, aahed and chewed for 3 hours, the chefs never stopped moving.

Another favorite - ceps (mushrooms) from Montseny in chicken broth.  With Cambrian popcorn, which was not popcorn at all but a sort of corn puff.  Clearly the chef makes textures and deep flavors a priority.  Look at the color of that chicken broth.  So intense and not too salty, which is hard to do.  There were just two slices of mushroom, which could have passed for steak they were so meaty.  Oh, and the brown dots on top?  A bit of foie gras cream.

This "macaroon with lobster and fois gras" also had Parmesan foam.  It had to be one of my top three favorites.  So many wonderful dishes it was hard to choose.  These are pasta tubes, filled with lobster.  OMG.

Are you seeing why they have all those saucepans filled with deliciousness?  For dishes like this Palamós prawn with bouillabaisse.  Palamós is a fishing town on the Costa Brava.  The "jefe" prepared this for me and explained what is on top of the shrimp but I can't remember.  A great dish.

See that plastic container?  Filled with the brown crab mixture.  Seriously, it was in arm's reach and would have fit in my purse.  No wonder the chef kept his eyes on me, lol.

Another contender for the top three.  Sea bass with beurre blanc.  So simple.  Not.  There is a seaweed gel on top of the fish.  And a parmesan cream, I think?  And parsley sprinkles.  I make lemon beurre blanc fairly often and am going to have to up my game because mine doesn't look or taste like this.  The fish was tender and perfectly cooked and the sauce was amazing.

This is glazed veal sweetbread with a reduced jus.  I am not a fan of sweetbreads.  Wait, I wasn't a fan.  These were crispy, smooth and very rich.  And the jus?  So rich, so deep and delicious.  And the two little orange spots are a pumpkin mash.  The best, sweet pumpkin mash I've ever had.

Just in case the sweetbreads weren't rich enough, they came with mashed potatoes.  I have a Joel Rubochon cookbook so I've seen his recipe for mashed potatoes that is 2:1 potatoes to butter.  Not here!  These are 50% butter and 50% potato.  Calories and cost do not matter in a meal like this.

Look at that jus!  The depth of flavor indicates the time and care that went into it.

Notice the high flame.  It seemed to be like that for the whole time I was there.

Cheese!  I felt like I was back on Air France.  Kidding, but I do love some cheese.  And here's my first complaint.  The cheese was very tasty but seemed to have been cut and left in the cooler for a bit too long.  Still delicious but not Michelin level, IMHO.  The camembert was perfectly runny, though and the three different options to go with the cheese were delicious - a spiced pecan, a fruit gel and a fruit jelly.  I don't know what types of fruit but they were delicious.

I wonder if the chef's enjoy being watched the entire time they're at work?  

This was as messy as the kitchen got.  Note the ladies dining on the opposite side of the kitchen.  A great set up for foodies.  Usually, a chef's table, where you get to dine in the kitchen and watch the action is hard to get and extremely pricey.

I used more silverware for lunch than I own at home.

They offer a wine flight which would have been wonderful but I don't drink.  Instead, when the desserts began, they brought me a complimentary glass of no-alcohol sweet wine, which was actually very good.

I was so full but can always eat dessert.  Or 4.  The first dessert was Miso cream, lemon foam, kalamansi sorbet and cava veil.  Yup - another favorite.  Kalamansi is a type of citrus from SE Asia.  This was another delightful mix of textures and flavors.  Citrusy, sweet, creamy and complex.  The goal was to cleanse my palate for the richer desserts and it worked.

As I neared the end of my meal, they were ending lunch service and cleaning, which was interesting to watch.  They cleaned constantly during service, but then broke everything down and scrubbed.

She looks very formal but had a quick smile and was fluent in English and Spanish.  

The floating island of vanilla ice cream and caviar started with a crème anglaise.

Then came the tin of vanilla "caviar" and vanilla ice cream.  

Very tasty, but a small complaint.  The ice cream had some ice crystals.  Still delicious and didn't keep me from eating the whole bowl.

Did I mention the attention to details?

The last course, petit fours.  On another tower.  Unfortunately, I can't remember all the treats.  They were good but not great.  Then again, I'd just finished eating my weight in food.  A variety of textures and flavors were a good ending but I won't dream of them like I will some of the other dishes.

Even the decaf was fancy.  They brought the cup with a tiny bit of coffee in it (I ordered Americano) and I thought they'd mistakenly brought espresso by mistake.  Silly me, it was espresso and they added hot water to it.  And yes, two people served my coffee.  I had one primary server but a gentleman helped at times.  They seemed very adept at signaling subtly when they needed help.  For example, when they placed plates in front of two diners, it required two servers, since each plate was placed simultaneously.  

When I made the reservation I told them I was celebrating my 75th birthday.  I hoped it would get me a seat at the counter.  I got this "cake" which was plastic but had fresh raspberries and caramel cookies.  And, a candle!  No singing, thank goodness.  The man next to me said "felicidades" when it was delivered.  Five minutes later, I was saying "felicidades" to him when his cake was delivered.