Albert Adrià reopened Enigma with the name, Enigma Concept, three months ago, and a month and half ago he changed the concept. “So, the restaurant that I’m presenting to you that I’ve got my entire team devoted to, is only a month and a half old”. Albert Adrià was back at Gastronomika and was really having fun being here and “in better form than ever. I cook eleven hours a day. I’m experiencing a second youth. He had also returned in a direct, rapid sense, “just like the cooking I want to do now is direct. Direct in search of flavour, produce and seasonality. “We’re basing things on produce and seasonality. It seems to be a hackneyed concept, but very few people really do this. It’s difficult and expensive”.

Together with his head chef, Albert Manso, “one of the few people who can cut up squid”, the Catalan focused on presenting his latest cuisine, “although I’ve only spent 45 days on it. Next year I’ll be able to explain better what it’s like”, he joked. You could sense what it was like. Direct, tasty, with very few selected ingredients, with a precise technique. “You know what my curriculum is, so I apply the technique that I think is right but I always prioritise the produce and flavour. Furthermore, he said ironically, “the other day a customer told me that the technique that I use to make waffles rang a bell; it was very old. Yes, it is, but it’s mine. Can’t I use it?”.

Spontaneous, unscripted, Adrià really wanted to assert himself: “I’ve dispensed with the experience based on spaces –You don’t know how complicated it is to move groups of different people around!- and I go straight to the dish, with a large dining room team (45 professionals for 50 diners) and with no tasting menu. I want customers to have second helpings and set them free so that they come and spend money because they discover dishes that they have no references for, and justify making the journey here”

A new Enigma Concept, “the only restaurant that is 100% mine”, a mix between Tickets and the first Enigma with a lot of finger food or dishes with just a few mouthfuls. There are also more and more soups and stews, “which will increase as these are where all the flavour is”. He didn’t get tired at all: “I want to try and find my new cooking line in which the dishes burst with flavour in your mouth”. 

Some examples of this new cooking style were the melon sashimi which the menu starts with, coated in dashi and served cold with a touch of wasabi and soya, or the calamar with caviar, finely-cut strips of squid accompanied by drops of Iberian ham” and three grams of caviar. Not four. It’s a lot of money”. There is also the dish with basil spaghetti served cold and moistened in a tomato and ponzu broth, or another where he uses spheres. “It’s been quite a while since I used them, but in this new phase, I will.” A new Enigma. A new Albert Adrià.