Enigma — Restaurant in Barcelona

And the longest tasting menu award goes to...Enigma Concept for their 40+ courses, but after 20 or so who's counting anymore? From the creative mind of Albert Adrià (of the elBarri restaurant empire and elBulli fame), Enigma Concept was a culinary journey into a futuristic dream world.

On first impression, the muted grey tones of the walls, decor, and custom furniture jumped out. This, along with the purposefully wrinkled garments of the service staff and the odd, ice-looking ceiling made a loud statement - this wasn't going to be a typical dinner experience. Over 4.5 hours, we ate at six uniquely themed rooms, including two chef's tables.

RYOKAN We were served a fermented yuca and pumpkin "unclarified" consume in the first room. When we asked the server how a consume could be unclarified, she wasn't sure. This response was about the average level of service we got from the wait staff.

LA CAVA Here we had a series of small bites paired with a couple cocktails. The demistrawberry was an epitome of the perfect strawberry. An elderflower "ravioli" with strawberry and blackcurrant notes had a delightful cotton candy texture.

BARRA The third room was all seafood and my favorite room of the night thanks to the engaging personality of Executive Chef Oliver Peña.

My favorite course here was the mullet and ikura roe trio. It was a treat to watch Chef cut open a whole egg sac.

DINNER The "dinner" room was where the bulk of the tasting menu was served. Here we had a reverse progression with the heavier dishes served first. The servers purposefully didn't tell us the ingredients beforehand, letting us guess what we ate along the way.

A highlight was an air croissant with pigeon sauce. The pigeon sauce was a good savory pairing to the light, shattering crisp and buttery croissant.

The white asparagus course had an intriguing progression of texture - from the completely cooked, almost mushy base to the raw, crunchy tip. While the technique was impressive, the actual dish wasn't as satisfying as an evenly cooked, crisp asparagus.

LA PLANXA This was another chef's table. Though the food wasn't as strong, I enjoyed the interactive experience here with the chef from Peru. We sat around a large plancha grill with Japanese charcoal grills on the side.

DINNER, CONTINUED After the Planxa interlude, it was back to the Dinner room with perhaps the most memorable dish of the night. We weren't told about the rabbit brain beforehand, and though it was palatable, it had an unfamiliar texture, especially compared to the walnut.

The desserts were strong. The best was black sesame ice cream hidden under a fluffy yuzu yogurt cream with seaweed for texture contrast.

41° The surprise final room was a replica of the shuttered 41° bar. Here we enjoyed craft cocktails paired with small treats.

SERVICE While I appreciated the process behind the courses and interacting with the chefs, the service from the wait staff left some to be desired.

Small details were missed like water preferences. We were given a choice of sparkling or still, but they poured me the wrong water at first.

Server knowledge of the courses was worse than expected for a restaurant of this caliber. The wine recommendation also made for a terrible pairing.

The wonderful chefs did make my experience a positive one though. Chef Peña was one of the kindest and down-to-earth chefs we had the pleasure...

We were on vacation in Barcelona and decided to check out the famous restaurants in this city. We are everything but fine dining experts, so we didn't really know what to expect, but in the end all we can say is that it was outstanding in every aspect.

If you hear about fine dining, you might think it's intimidating and some kind of modern art which you have to understand to enjoy it. That's definitely not the case here. We always felt comfortable. The service was simply perfect, nice and accommodating with the timing being on point. Every time I thought about ordering another drink or needing something, they were already coming. It's like they can read your mind.

The food itself was truly mind-blowing. It's not just tasty, it's a new experience. Surprising mix of textures and flavors. Don't want to spoil, but you will see food in a different way afterward. It's a mix of science and art. They really pushed the cooking science to get every bit of flavor out of their ingredients and assembled them in a very creative way.

Now comes the part which surprised us the most: we expected another level of service and food, but we never expected another level in cocktails. They are out of this world and look like they are created specifically for that restaurant and the meals. If the barkeeper ever opens her own bar, I need to know about it.

And last but not least, the coffee. We had dinner so I wasn't really looking for coffee that late, but they excelled in everything before, so I was curious what they would do with the coffee. AND OH BOY. I consider myself a coffee nerd, tasting all kinds of beans and trying out all kinds of ways to make coffee, BUT THAT COFFEE is more than perfect! They use a special technique to make filter coffee; I've seen them pouring water first to get the gases out and then using different water (probably with different temperatures) to create the REAL COFFEE. All that effort leads to an incredibly flavorful coffee. I promise you haven't tasted coffee like that. You really get all the flavor out, including the fruit notes, in such an intense way that you can't believe they use only coffee beans. That coffee defined my definition of perfect new. Whoever figured out that process is a genius and you simply know they put a lot of heart into it.

Long story short, we are definitely no fine dining experts, but we can't think of anything that could have been better. It was more than perfect.

Thanks a lot to the crew for that experience. Keep it going; other people deserve that...

I heard and read great things about this restaurant. As someone who goes to Michelin star restaurants regularly, I could not have been more disappointed. To put it simply, the food was very bland. Overall lacking flavor to a significant extent.

We have been to Cocina Hermanos Torres, Lasarte, and Disfrutar. All of them blew this out of the water and it wasn’t close. Go to any of those and save your money by not going here.

We got about 1/3rd through our meal and it was progressively getting more and more disappointing. After being asked how the most recent dish was by our waiter, I replied “Honestly? It was a bit bland.” To which he replied, “Perfect. Thank you.”

Maybe he was nervous, but still. A bit concerning.

I have never done this at a restaurant, but I called for the manager.

He was understanding and said we should try a few more dishes and then if it wasn’t for us, we can leave and made a gesture implying we wash our hands of the situation and leave.

So we did and after two more tries really trying to keep our minds open, we were continually disappointed by the lack of flavor.

So we said we wanted to leave, not even halfway done, and we still got charged $250 for the awful experience.

The same waiter, once again asked how the last dish was and we said “bad” and he still replied “Perfect. Thank you.”

Maybe he didn’t speak English? But he spoke very competently outside of those interactions.

Then another waiter, again who also spoke quite competent English, asked us our plans and we said we were leaving Wednesday. Twice. So she proceeded to tell us all about what we can do on Friday and Saturday in the city.

It just gave us the impression that they didn’t care or listen to us. This was a consistent theme.

It’s a bit telling they chose to charge me despite our clear communication. I’m open to the idea I misinterpreted his implication, but I feel like they should prioritize customer satisfaction...