What the best chef in the world serves you for €450

This article is part of FT Globetrotter. madrid guide

The Mohican by Dabiz Muñoz is a declaration of intentions. The man hailed as the best chef in the world – not just once but three years in a row – he sports a pointed crest whose punk character symbolizes the subversions and inversions of his cuisine.

Raised in a working-class neighborhood of Madrid, he has risen to the top by turning his DiverXO restaurant, located in a drab hotel tower in the Spanish capital, into a playful laboratory of avant-garde taste sensations. Whether it’s sour kimchi ice cream, beef broth soup slurped from a bull’s horn, or nigiri of tender hare meat on a piece of charred paella rice, the creations of their 18-course banquet defy classification. And that’s the point.

Muñoz, whose restaurant has three Michelin stars, demolishes the staid rural categories we use to describe food. This is post-national cuisine. When you serve smoked caviar baked in a tandoor oven in Iberian ham fat, alongside a crescent of wok-sautéed peas enclosing twin pools of creamy coconut, horseradish, and pistachio-jalapeño sauces, it’s not Russian, Indian, Spanish, Thai and Mexican. kitchen. It is food of citizens of nowhere.

“DiverXO is a place that knows no borders,” says Muñoz. “There are influences from many parts of the world, from all parts of the world, but it cannot be said that it is a cuisine from any part of the world.”

And it has a price: the tasting menu, which is the only option, costs €450 per person. Two thirds of its clients are foreign visitors. Some Spaniards save up to spend a fun night at DiverXO instead of spending a long weekend at the beach. The country’s rigid culinary traditionalists look askance at Muñoz. But that’s fine with him. “You can be relaxed. “There is no need to be serious,” says Muñoz. “I think that’s why we have clients from different walks of life.”

The biggest insult is misinterpreting Muñoz’s creations as fusion food. If you go to Thailand, learn to make pad Thai, come home and make it with some Spanish flavors, that’s fusion food, he says. “We don’t want to do that. When we come up with a dish we start from scratch,” he says. “What I want is for everyone who sits at a table at DiverXO to say, ‘Wow, this is unique.’”

Its list of ingredients seems extensive, but the results are extraordinary combinations of sweetness and acidity, crunch and meltability, presented with Dali-esque surrealism. Muñoz compares each dish to an orchestra’s symphony. “There are times when 30, 35 or 40 instruments sound at the same time, but you can’t distinguish the flute or the violin. What can be seen is that the melody as a whole is in balance.”

There’s a gothic darkness to DiverXO’s marketing, which revolves around Muñoz (who was born David but adopted Dabiz to reflect how he sounds with a Madrid accent). The restaurant’s decoration has touches of Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton, with metallic ants climbing the stairs and the ubiquitous pigs with ornamental wings (or Mohawks), a reference to Muñoz’s father’s prediction that pigs would fly before his son made it big as a restaurateur.

But the restaurant is bright, almost clinical, with peaches and cream lighting. Each table is large and pod-shaped, half-covered by net curtains that reach to the ceiling, which creates a modicum of privacy but means you can still see your neighbors and hear their laughs and coos.

At a recent dinner in September, we started with a flat piece of Pyrenean trout sashimi whose natural segments separate effortlessly in my mouth, complemented by a crayfish bathed in a spicy broth. Then there’s the scallop and cockle ceviche in a sauce of coconut milk, tomatoes and kalamata olives, which is cold and refreshing like a blast of cold air.

Then comes inspiration from a trip Muñoz took to Singapore with her one-year-old daughter: a whole rutabaga arrives, the top cut off so it can hold a bubbling white asparagus and vanilla laksa soup. There’s more: strips of simulated shark fin made with collagen and gelatin from the fish, and an egg yolk that explodes with the unexpected flavor of chistorra sausage.

The food flows at such a fast pace that we have to let the waiters know two plates in advance if we need to go to the bathroom so the chef can pause the machine. At the seventh course, a man at the next table jokingly pleads with the staff: “They’re putting too much pressure on us.” But even after 18 I didn’t feel bloated, and that was with the added contribution of a premium drink pairing menu. It included a Dassai sake that seemed to vaporize in my mouth; a 1969 Château D’Yquem; and a sour sherry that the sommelier called “liquid pain,” which ran down my throat. The most striking was a Viña Tondonia Rioja from the 1950s, so precious that it was extracted through a hole in the cork with a Coravin to prevent oxygenation.

The wines accompany Asturian stingray wing with parmesan whey, Spanish sea cucumbers and a dish inspired by the snack that Muñoz’s father used to prepare for him. A micro version of the Madrid classic minutejo sandwich, is made with crispy pork skin instead of bread, encasing pecorino cheese, goose egg yolk and sriracha sauce spread over the centerpiece: suckling pig head sausages.

Muñoz says he wants to avoid the ‘ceremony’ and ‘tense silence’ of other high-end restaurants

Nature, at DiverXO, is present without adornment. We are introduced to a pinky gray baby shark, curled up on a tray, strips of fake fins sticking out of it. As I drain the spicy soup from the bull’s horn, I am hit with the stench of a farm barn. Then a waiter takes out the body of a free-range rooster we are about to eat, opens its legs and says, “It’s so cute.” A few days later, I ask Muñoz what the reasoning is behind this ultra-realism.

“As a society we have denatured the animals we consume, and I think it is important to know that the rooster is a living being, that it has a crest, head and legs,” he says. “If you think chicken comes in a plastic tray, it’s bad for sustainability. . . If you are aware that it comes from a living being, you will think twice before throwing it away.”

The tasty dishes culminate with Goan-inspired lobster topped with tandoori yogurt, plus a panipuri stuffed dough ball salmorejo tomato soup, which was brought to us in an elephant statue. The dessert comes in stages: bergamot orange seeds, sweet miso and camel milk ice cream, followed by dissolvable shards of blackcurrant gum and a meringue with a hint of black garlic.

The chatty waiters, who enter and exit our pod with balletic smoothness, present each dish with enthusiasm for what we are about to experience, rather than worrying that we will adhere to anyone’s prescribed taste standards. Muñoz says the “ceremony” and “tense silence” of other upscale restaurants is something he wants to avoid. DiverXO manages to avoid the trap of fine dining pretension in part because the staff keeps it casual.

But the dreamiest part is done by the boss. Muñoz’s ending is mochis served on a pair of upturned top hats, a reference to the Mad Hatter, Willy Wonka and the surprises conjured by magicians. DiverXO is “like a fantasy world,” he said. “But a little dark. “It’s an amusement park for adults.”

Dabiz Muñoz has been named the best chef in the world for three consecutive years at The Best Chef Awards, according to the vote of a group of about 570 chefs, gastronomy experts and journalists.

Barney Jopson was a guest of DiverXO. Tasting menus cost €450 per person (wine pairing starts at €300). NH Eurobuilding, Calle del Padre Damián 23, 28036 Madrid. Website; Instructions

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