Eat your way through Catalonia without having to leave Singapore at the Michelin-starred restaurant’s first international outpost!
Maybe it is due to the fact that the Mediterranean Sea washes up against the country, but the thing about Spanish food is that it is incredibly rich, sometimes spicy, but always full of flavour – no thanks to its abundance of the freshest seafood. And we are all very well acquainted with the all-familiar taste – at once succulent and fabulously robust. But here at the first international outpost of award-winning chef Carles Gaig’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Barcelona: Restaurant Gaig, comforting Catalan flavours take on new life through a prism of modernity under executive chef Martí Carlos Martinez.
Divided into two vastly different areas of dining, diners can choose between sitting in the original wing of the restaurant – flooded with natural light and punctuated with airy rattan furniture or the newly remodelled enclave (read: our favourite), bathed in neutral shades of white and dove grey walls with plush velvet seating. And while we recommend the aesthetics and mood of the latter, the former is closer to the bar – oh, the crosses we bear. But the food you will get to enjoy is all the same – no matter where your table is located.
And we insist you order the restaurant’s Salmorejo Soup with Burrata Cheese and Jamón Ice Cream – a tomato soup unlike any other. Martinez’s approach to Catalan cuisine is genius to say the least; you will thank us later. “There are many dishes that we’ve created to challenge ourselves to make them exceptional. One of my favourites is the salmorejo soup with jamón ice cream. It is a common dish in Spain that is enjoyed during summer – a plain tomato soup made with tomato, garlic and bread, with some shavings of jamón or hard-boiled egg. We tried to make it more ‘fun’ and different from the conventional ones. So, we created a jamón ice cream to replace the usual jamón shavings. We serve it with tomato bread sponge to bring texture to the palate. We always keep in mind to maintain the flavour of the dish when we recreate it, as it must be the same as we’d eat it in Spain,” the executive chef explains.
