OSMOSIS ♥

OSMOSIS - Carrer Aribau, 100  08036 Barcelona, Spain

If I would recommend one restaurant in Barcelona it would be Restaurant Osmosis. We have been there three times. The first time we went there for dinner and returned for lunch the day after. They only serve tasting menus and this cost 25 euros at lunch and 42 euros at dinner time.

We came there quite early for being in Spain and got a table in the front room. Already reading the menu told us that this was something extra. My wife has a special diet and even if all the dishes are set it was no problem to go through every dish and customize it to her liking. They had a wine package there every glass of wine was selected from the whole world to fit perfectly to every single dish so we left to the restaurant to surprise us.

The first surprise was when the owner himself – Ignasi Montes – sat down at our table to discuss wine to drink with the foie gras that was the first starter. He decided that we should test the pride of Spain – sherry. You can imagine our surprise when he placed four glasses on a black piece of textile and beside that four different types of sherry on another black cloth. He told us the story of sherry and how the different qualities were produced and after that we had a sherry testing. It was really something else to test different kinds of sherry to the first to courses.

During the dinner a number of beautiful wines were served accompanied with descriptions of the wines and were they had grown. As he understood we were very interested in wine he spent quite a time with us during the meal to discuss the virtue with different wines and grapes.

With the dessert he asked if we would like to taste a very special sherry. A German wine grower moved to Jerez to grow wine. As he knew the Riesling best he planted this in Jerez. The Riesling however does not like the climate of Jerez so he decided to produce a Sherry from the grapes. This Sherry is thick, dark brown and very intense in taste.

Before dessert my wife went out for smoking. He came out and said that he had a private cigar-club upstairs there we could go after dinner and have our coffee. When he came with the coffee ha had hidden a big cognac-glass behind his back with a distillation of the special sherry on Riesling. This was only produced in 3000 bottles per year. To my disappointment I found that I had forgotten my cigars in the hotel and asked him if he sold any. He did not, but asked what size I preferred and sent out one of the waiters who came back with a lovely Montecristo. I can tell you it was something else to drink this sherry distillate together with coffee and a good Cuban cigar. The German person who started all this was Peter Simonis, but he soon changed is name to Pedro Ximenes.

Before we left for France the day after we had lunch at Osmosis. The quality of the food had the same fantastic standard even at busy lunchtime and the service as well. We had foie gras, quail, lobster, mushrooms and fish – all perfectly prepared. Even this time the dishes were customized to my wife’s diet.

We have been there once after this. It was together with our American friend and neighbours that we picked up in Barcelona where they arrived on a Norwegian cruise-ship. This time we got a separate room and our own personal waiter. As they only served the most fantastic wines from the whole world with our meal there were a few euros added to the basic prize this time, but it was much more than a meal. It was a total experience that can only be challenged by our local three-star restaurant L'Auberge Le Vieux Puits.

If you read Swedish you can learn more about our trips to Spain on my other blog. Se http://france-midi.blogspot.fr/2011/11/tva-pensionarer-i-barcelona.html and http://france-midi.blogspot.fr/2008/04/en-fantastisk-utflykt-till-spanien.html and perhaps even  http://france-midi.blogspot.fr/2012/05/forsta-dagen-pa-var-spanienresa.html

Revisited October 2013: We were invited to a wine- and food tasting and we decided that a trip to Barcelona would be nice. It is just a little more than two hours drive. It was an evening to remember. The food was as always fantastic and the wine of a quality that you seldom can afford. It was 16 invited couples sitting together and the atmosphere was really nice despite the language problems for us. They provided us with a translator from Catalan so we could follow the information about the wine.

Revisited March 2016: We had our specially designed 70+70 birthday-dinner in Barcelona for friends from Norway and Sweden. It was fantastic. We were sitting in a private room and had our own sommelier. It was something to remember for everyone.

Swedish report from the trip on http://france-midi.blogspot.fr/2013/10/snabbvisit-till-barcelona.html

WEB: http://www.restauranteosmosis.com/
LATEST VISIT: 2016
NUMBER OF VISITS: 5

Reasons for the ♥:
Our favorite restaurant in Barcelona. The tasting menus are always something very special and the service is really friendly. You can afford it too.