Three ex-elBulli chefs cooking the most inventive tasting menu in Barcelona, named the world's best restaurant in 2024. Illusion, texture and Mediterranean produce in equal measure.
By Dimitris Stathopoulos
The cooking
Playful and technically astonishing: dishes that hide, dissolve and surprise, built on Catalan and Mediterranean flavours rather than novelty alone. Long, and worth the length.
Why it is in VANE
The clearest living heir to elBulli, and proof that the avant-garde can still be joyful rather than cold.
Where
Carrer de Villarroel, Barcelona
Kitchen
Casañas, Castro & Xatruch (ex-elBulli)
Style
Avant-garde Mediterranean
Honour
World's Best Restaurant, 2024
Best for
A once-a-year blowout
VANE selection. Chosen with a critic's eye and judged independently. It's here because we judged it, not because it paid.
On this profile: a researched profile, drawn from the restaurant's own record and reporting, not a claim of a first-hand visit. Where we have eaten there, the review says so.
Image: Photo: Pere prlpz, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
