out of curiosity –and also by mistake- i ended up on josé andrés’s (a spanish chef) instagram, i was fascinated. this guy grew up in barcelona very close to gastronomy, and finally he ended up working with el bulli’s,ferran adrià. then, when he was only 21, he decided to cross the atlantic ocean to conquer new york city, later moved to washington dc, and ended up building a very impressive career that has seduced americans with his 15 restaurants.
in my last holidays i visitedmiamiand had the pleasure to visit the bazaar, the glamorous restaurant of the luxurious sls hotel. this is not one of those places where you eat and leave, it’s a whole experience, a story that has conquered the entire first floor of this building, which is beautifully and eclectically decorated by industrial designer philippe starck.
well now to the interesting part, the menu…
i arrived very confident and asked them to please show me the tasting menu, but i almost fell from my chair when i saw the price. i decided to create my own menu and order almost everything on it without noticing how much i was spending, but honestly, who cares?
so it all started like this…
first a glass of a delicious riesling, 2014 harvest piesporter goldtröpfchen, i don’t drink a lot, but this one was clearly and excellent choice.
the first dish was a “tortilla de papas”. in this restaurant deconstruction of traditional recipes is a rule, that’s why this tremendous dish looked far from a tortilla but it’s taste was perfection, just like a traditional one.
next came in the bao (a steam bun) filled with deliciously marinated pork belly. it melted in my mouth and i didn’t want if to be over, but then came the next one.
third round was the reinvention of the famous cuban sandwich. it was like a fine empanada, crunchy and fragile. the cheese inside of it filled our mouths quickly, and the ham on top was the perfect combination to spice it up a little bit.
i this point of the evening i just had to see what the three kitchens of this place looked like. i walked through them, introduced myself and drooled all over the place with the delicious things they were preparing. so much specialty, precision, perfection, order and discipline!
when i arrived to the table i was stunned with some amazingly traditional looking patatas bravas (the picture looked awful, way too dark), but the taste was far from ordinary, these golden sticks accompanied with a tasty alioli were simply perfect.
i’m not a meat person, but oh my god this dish… a very generous piece of churrasco with a crunchy crust of a cuban coffee rub, damn, i was speechless. on top of it there was a passion fruit sauce, which was acid, fresh and charming like the devil.
then came the pollo al ajillo, a slow cooked chicken thigh accompanied with a black garlic sauce. tasty but way too simple compared to the rest of the preparations.
i couldn’t resist ordering something crazy… so it was baby japanese peaches. i confess that when the dish got to the table i instantly knew that it wasn’t the right choice. peanut butter in the bottom, on top of them four pieces of burrata, the peaches, croutons, hazelnuts and a little bit of arugula. the contrast of the sweet and savory was not the pleasant one; it was more of a wreckage. i would have eaten the burrata alone with a crunchy french bread. and the peaches with hazelnut would have made the perfect dessert.
the last dish before dessert was the yucca churros and what a surprise! a marvelous taste with the perfect crunchy crust, and they were so big, peeeeeerrrrrrfectttt. as a side they had a peanut butter and honey mixture in a paint tube, i would have preferred manjar (dulce de leche), but still they were delicious.
sweets are my favorite… it was hard to make a choice but we picked the perfectly structured s’more-chocolate cake. it’s an absolute reinvention of this traditional boy scout snack transformed in a sensational spectacle. a piece of chocolate cake covered with a toasted marshmallow, on top of it a little bit of peanut butter, a small gold leaf and a chocolate cup that later turned on fire. on the bottom graham crackers crumbles, caramelized banana and peanut butter ice cream. a childish closure to my first fancy as hell dinner.
overall it was a hallucinating experience in a place where the waiter knew the same or even more than me about chefs, rankings, restaurants and menus. this guy javier not only served tables, he walked us all the way to the hotel door, told us the entire story of the place, since the beginning to who painted the walls. stunning, bravo!