Restaurant Saó BCN — Restaurant in Barcelona

Where to start…..

For a restaurant attempting to do fine dining it misses the mark.

We did the top tier degustation with matched wines. The food was great for the price but the wines really let the experience down.

Although the service was very attentive and professional the knowledge of the wine was nothing more than memory of a script. Asking for anything other than the pairing option from the uninspired list was a stab in the dark leading to disappointment. The staff don’t understand wine at all, with the waiter admitting he only drinks beer. That’s fine at a pub but not at a fine dining restaurant charging hundreds of euros.

The list was far too low tier/quality for a restaurant aiming for high end dining. The wines were totally unrefined, simple, boring and didn’t elevate the food in any way. They left us constantly wanting more. Most wines were tasted and then left on the table. One desert wine was faulty in the sense that it had serious overtones of volatile acid smelling of nail polish.

The experience could be vastly improved by hiring a knowledge sommelier and significantly improving the offering on the list. Doing a pairing with cheap wines (mostly sub 15€ retail) is fine but for people looking for a Michelin aspiring level experience the wines left us wholly dissatisfied and we ended up leaving before the final course. The most expensive (highest quality) offerings on the list did not exceed 50€. Furthermore there were only Catalan wines on the list. That seriously limits the offerings and I don’t understand why you would choose to do that. Your guests should have the choice to spend whatever they want and choose their own level of quality, not be dictated to by the chef. We were told the chef was the one putting the list and pairings together. This was confusing because the chefs food palate is good considering what he can do for the price, but his wine palate is very unrefined. All the wines were also super young which leads to lack of depth, one dimensional flavour and unintegrated structure.

Sadly I would not return for these reasons and left disappointed and unfulfilled for the 270€ for two people. We purchased an extra bottle to try getting something half decent but again were disappointed as what we requested didn’t get matched stylistically and the wine was poor quality, boring and one dimensional (retail price online 13€).

Get a good sommelier and totally revamp the wine list and this place becomes worthwhile.

The decor and interior need some work too before it gets close to a star. As it stands currently I would not return. There are far better offerings in Barcelona (Vivanda comes to mind), unless you don’t care about wine and go for the...

Disappointed and even mad. Firstly, upon our arrival, the staff asked my booking name, and said it was impossible because the table was full. And then I found my name on the table; the name was written wrongly.

During having the meals, you can observe the serving staff is not smiling and not proving Michelin star service. Finally, we were charged a bottle of water fee while we were just offered two glasses from the beginning. No one came to us to ask once. I asked this issue in the end while paying the bill, and the staff said: you should ask more water by yourself. Excuse me, how did you get a Michelin star? He even said: what do you want me to do? Wow.

One more small issue, since we divided the bill, the individual amount was 32.13 euro and he just topped to 32.15 euro without asking me purposely. The food is on average only. It’s such a disappointing experience to try this “Michelin...

For once, Michelin guide did not disappoint. One can see (taste) that there is passion and commitment behind each dish. Good sequencing of different flavors, divided into many small courses, taking one through a tasting journey of discovery. Pleasant to the eye presentations with mostly well-balanced tastes and textures; very few off-key notes. Excellent service with pleasant staff and notably, a good list of properly priced local wines. Nice atmosphere and location close to Metro station. In a nutshell, Superlative with capital S value for money. Just one little note: there could be a tad more attention into bathrooms' cleanliness which was just about acceptable and not in line with the rest. Next time I'm in Barcelona I'll be there again....