Restaurant ABaC — Restaurant in Barcelona

We thought long and hard about whether to leave a review of ABaC as we had such a disappointing and underwhelming experience, but decided that it was important to write a honest review after our dinner yesterday as a family of three. For context, we have visited a variety of restaurants from low to high-end and Michelin starred, so I think we are a fair judge of both service, food, and overall experience.

Upon arriving, we were taken to the terrace for a few small tapas, and then to the main restaurant area for the dining. The dishes themselves were interesting but nothing groundbreaking like a few reviewers have mentioned previously. A standout was the helium balloon dessert which cut through the nervousness in the service. A big disappointment was the mains: two of us received the same main course (lamb tajin) we found it too salty to eat - in fact, several courses prior had been overly seasoned, including an eel brioche bun that came with brioche noodles. This may all sound a bit extreme and biased, but all of us were already trying to pass off the saltiness of the dishes until the main. The main was so salty that neither of us could finish it. When I raised the issue to our server she questioned that it was perhaps because the sauce was Demi-glace and that we were experiencing richness. She suggested that we move onto dessert, or if the chef might try to whip up something for the three of us. Luckily, the kitchen created a eggplant cannelloni with mixed vegetables which tasted far heartier and more like a proper main. It was commendable that the kitchen was able to whip up a dish so quickly, but all of us felt that the server’s comment to pass straight onwards to dessert felt like a bit of a rip-off on our side without addressing the inherent problems we had already experienced.

The dinner was €295 including 10% tax, but we agreed it felt more like a €195 experience. There were too many dehydrated things which were neither crunchy nor juicy and which ultimately felt like no bite had a truly satisfying mouthfeel. The servers seemed nervous, whispering to each other while throwing furtive looks, threw our plates of food on the table with audible bangs, and we heard bottles of wine being sloshed into the ice buckets nearby as they hastily tried to continue service. We considered it may have been that they are relatively young and inexperienced, or perhaps the language barrier is another issue as our service was conducted in English for us. The tableware was awkwardly placed with their arms in front of our faces during a discussion, or placed right on top of our menus. Ice cream was served to us half-melted. For a non-Michelin starred fine-dining place these details might have been forgiven, but it was hard to feel at ease or truly welcomed with the service we experienced in this three-star establishment.

Lastly, a big factor to the lacklustre client experience was the way they treated diners with specific requirements. My mother does not eat lamb, chicken, or livers, which was mentioned in our booking. However, the staff mixed up this with being vegetarian, without considering that based on our description (which we submitted with the verification help of our hotel staff during the booking online) she could’ve had dishes with beef or pork which completely ruined the experience for her. When we told the staff that my mother was not vegetarian, the staff questioned the statement we made in our booking and made our whole party feel gaslit and that we were like a big inconvenience.

Overall, we felt a little cheated with what we hoped would be a divine sensual journey and superbly disappointed with the overall experience. We hope that the restaurant is able to reflect on our comments and wish them all the best...

4h15 at the table.. for such a disappointing dinner! We went to ABaC 10 years ago and had such an amazing experience that we couldn't wait to be back. It went from 1 to 3 stars, but it was overall an unpleasant experience. We spent FOUR HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES at our table, 4h30 total including the taxi waiting time. My husband and I have been to over a hundred Michelin star restaurants (1, 2, 3 stars), that has never happened. We arrived, they start straight away with the amuse bouches. After 45 min I ask (I should say I dared to ask by the way the waitress looked at me!!) why we are not offered to order wine?! They say it comes after these?? So if we wanted a glass of champagne we had to wait 1h this is ridiculous. So we order 2 wine pairings and 2 glasses of wines. We wait another 10 min. The wines from the pairing were all served 10 min before the plate would arrive so of course they were almost empty when the food arrived 😅 I’m not sure if it’s a problem of training but most restaurants know when clients want to dine quickly (well, as quick as it can be in a starred restaurant). Obviously they didn’t know, even though we showed sign of impatience after over 2h and we were not even to the middle.

Regarding the food, what a disappointment. They seem to not read or not care about the reviews as definitely some things were over salted, some lacking total flavor. The oyster was warm although raw, so it’s not very nice to eat an oyster like that. Most of the mains were just ok, nothing we were impressed with, and didn’t seem to have any logic. They brought some carton like Amazon and opened it, that had some 2 dry pieces with caviar and supposedly bouillabaisse (I guess they wanted to have us feel the taste of carton maybe?), they brought bread with a butter burning candle that took ages to provide a bit of butter and tasted like candle. We were a bit lost with the presentation that were not even explained and apart from just wanting to do something original, had not much sense. The bread was unfrozen and so dry and hard we couldn’t eat much. I said I’m not eating lamb so they started bringing vegetarian food like another review stated. They don’t really improve after the bad reviews. The lamb became a “tuna Wellington”, with a very thick and salty sauce that felt like I was eating some bottled bbq sauce… no refinery overall.

But the worst were the desserts. Way too sweet, too fat, greasy taste left. That petit prince dessert was with some cream that was not refined and some white chocolate cover that was cloying, we all left most of it. Then this Catalan cream same. The third one was a bit ridiculous, they come with plates of which the button looks either like a belly button or for some like the button to go to the toilets if you see what I mean 😅 and they attach pink ballons to it which I still wonder what was the point. The dessert was inedible, it was like eating these horrible chemical bubble gums. We didn’t even wait for the last sweets and left. We all felt bad with our stomach at the end of the dinner.

Regarding the ambiance, it was extremely cold like in a plane where they put way too much AC, no music, not a very cosy place. Anyway, we had high expectations after our first dinner there but what a disappointment. Nothing compared to 10 years ago. No wonder why we were able to book a table for 4 two days before..just go elsewhere, the price is over 400 per person...

I hate to put a review like this on a place that is supposed to be an incredible experience but I’ve been thinking about it for days and I would rather give my experience so others can know and decide if they feel this place is worth the visit. I would want to know. I am an self proclaimed foodie, but I am not professional by any means. I just enjoy great experiences and great food! My husband and I were in Barcelona for our anniversary and we wanted to spoil ourselves so we decided to go here for dinner. I must say that this dinner was extremely disappointing. I spent around €600 and felt like it wasn’t even worth €100. The start was a Bloody Mary which was delicious. We were super excited to see what else was to come but this was the only thing that we were happy with. The second course was a tuna tar tar dish and the tuna tasted fishy. Not fresh by any means. I almost spit it out but I refuse to do that at a place like this. I tried to convince myself it was in fact fresh even though it wasn’t because I was trying to be excited but as the courses went on it just continued to be disappointing. The next disappointing course was the oyster tapa. Again it tasted fishy and not fresh. And the way they cooked it was a strange temperature. It was a warm raw oyster. Not appetizing at all. There was a couple courses with a semi cooked egg, but it ended up being practically raw and was really hard to get down. The worst course was the wellingtun. It was a play on Wellington but with tuna. It tastes like caned tuna shaped into a round. The texture was horrible and the flavor was not good. This continued on throughout the night. My husband and I wanted some wine to help us clear our palletes after some of these courses and decided to get glasses instead of a bottle. Our wine was €59 for the bottle but the glass price was not provided. To my surprise, when we got the bill, they charged us €6 per glass. With about 4 glasses per bottle, I was shocked that the glasses were priced like this and thankful that I didn’t order the bottle. How deceiving. Other issues from this night included being asked by 3 separate people if we had allergies when we filled this out already when we made our reservation. Very unprofessional. They should be communicating. Second, some of the silverware we received had water marks on them, so they were not polished. I didn’t complain because I knew they were clean but, again spending that much on dinner, it is all about the little details. I will say, the dishes looked beautiful, despite tasting poorly, and the restaurant itself was nice. I just wish that we had enjoyed this dinner, but unfortunately it was just a huge disappointment and unfortunately took a huge chunk of our vacation budget that was not worth it. We have dined at 2 other Michelin restaurants before, one about the same price and it was well worth it. I am just so so disappointed with this meal. My advice would be to skip and try to find a nice...