Eat Mexican cuisine in Barcelona with the spirit of elBulli

He Barcelona restaurant Come, by Mexican chef Paco Méndez and his wife Erinna Marciano, constitutes a crossroads of products, techniques and ancient traditions. An advanced version of Mexican cuisine where multicultural and mestizo influences intersect with the past spirit of elBulli. Since its opening, in the same space that was once occupied by the now defunct restaurants, Hoja Santa and Niño Viejo, for which Méndez was responsible and belonging to the extinct El Barri group, its history has followed a gradual consolidation.

In the absence of a menu, its only two lunch and evening menus become unexpected tours where the roots of its author serve as a pretext for great creative cuisine. A mere detail: the incisive solid welcome cocktail, a cloud of tequila passed through maltodextrin and liquid nitrogen, is a true declaration of intentions. “Few know that the Caesar salad was improvised in Tijuana in 1924 by the Italian Caesar Cardini,” says the head waiter. “At Come we reinterpret it in another way: cold lettuce cream, parmesan ice cream, and Cantabrian anchovies, in the company of a chicken skin taco with its wing confit in black mole.” A magnificent composition. As suggestive as the finest totopo in the world, according to Méndez, a small plate of nixtamalized corn covered with guacamole and caviar, an extract of flavors and textures between soft and crunchy. Disparate proposals throughout a tasting in which details of classic haute cuisine are superimposed with modern techniques and popular Mexican recipes. From his quail wellington bathed in a mole in which 39 ingredients are involved, including chocolate, a recipe with impeccable resolution, to the tartare of wagyu seasoned with his grandmother's marinade made from guajillo chili and jalapenos with smoked yogurt and black truffle.

There is no shortage of some Mediterranean combinations as predictable as Maresme peas with red prawns from Vilanova i la Geltrú with the counterpoint of a nixtamalized and fermented wheat sauce, a kind of miso that provides binding to the dish. Nor other contemporary ones such as the tuna belly toast, sautéed red mullet and sea urchins, with the so-called garum of nixtamalized wheat. Suggestions that Méndez rotates regularly throughout the seasons. Two especially striking bites are among the appetizers, the empty mandarin orange filled with its own juice infused with eucalyptus oil and honey, and the mimetic peanut powders with chile de arbol powder. The dry meringue sandwich filled with foie gras and corn is particularly fragile; crispy infladita de cochinita pibil, made with Iberian pork neck, and street-range Brioche triple porkprepared with pork jowl, neck and belly.

The menu concludes with a dessert festival that runs through Mexican landmarks, including bread of the dead, crunchy cocoa with coconut cream, eggnog pigs, classic palanqueta and cocoa cookies. Revised popular sweets to which is added the maritozzo Italian filled with cream, or a sweet margarita that alludes to the famous Mexican cocktail. Aside from its well-equipped winery, its pairings with fresh waters, cocktails and fermented wines should not be overlooked.

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