Spanish

Before our trip to Majorca, we did quite a bit of research about the best restaurants on the island we should visit and Lua kept coming up in our research. As it was located in the town Soller where we were staying, it was extra convenient for us to visit it, which we did on a Friday lunch time. Lua is located in quite an interesting yellow corner building which stands out. Also most of the restaurants in Sollers are located closer to the water overlooking the boats, but Lua is one row behind them on a small hill, so you are slightly further away from the water, but the view from the 1st floor restaurant is probably better and you can see the port and the expensive boats. The interior of the restaurant seemed a bit more upscale than the other restaurants in the neighbourhood.

Barrafina Soho (MMMMM) is one of my favourite restaurants in London, which got this year its first Michelin star (which I think is too little too late… they should have got this years ago). One of the problems with Barrafina is that it is such a small restaurant and queues can be super long (they don’t take any bookings) and so you could wait a long time before getting a table. That is why I was quite excited to hear that Barrafina opened another restaurant a few months ago in Covent Garden, about 10 minutes’ walk from the original Soho branch.

When my friends and I were in Barcelona, the one thing that we were desperately craving was paella. I googled best paella restaurants in Barcelona and the one that came up was Cheriff, so I asked my hotel concierge to book it for the 6 of us for a Saturday dinner. I was pleasantly surprised we got a table as when I googled the restaurant it did say it was very popular and you had to book well in advance, not on the day like we did, and when we got there it was full and there were very few, if any, free tables. Cheriff is named after the founder of this fish shop that was opened some 45 years ago, who later expanded the fish shop into a restaurant and is now run by the Cheriff‘s daughter and son-in-law .It is located in the touristy area by the beach, Barceloneta, Barcelona´s fishing village.

This year Noma was knocked off the top spot as the world’s best restaurant in the St Pellegrino restaurant awards by a restaurant in Girona owned by three brothers – El Celler de Can Roca.  According to themselves: “El Celler is a free-style restaurant, committed to the avant-garde, but still faithful to the memory of different generations of the family's ancestors dedicated to feeding people”. Naturally, as I have been to Noma and had a great meal there, I was very keen to visit El Celler de Can Roca. I booked the table in June a month after it was announced El Celler was the new world’s best restaurant and then could only get a table on a weekday lunch (Friday) 6 months from then, in January. Having said that, it is still easier than getting a table at Noma, where they just never have any free spaces as you can only book up to three months in advance.

Arzak is one of the best restaurants in the world (it has 3 Michelin stars) and is located in San Sebastian, where the best female chef (as voted in 2012 by the St Pellegrino awards) Elena Arzak works with her father Juan Mari Arzak. Ametsa is a collaboration restaurant located in London, by Hyde Park, that has been influenced by the cooking of the Arzak family and the restaurant. Although many times Elena and Juan have said they don’t want Ametsa to be exactly like Arzak and a sister restaurant, Ametsa is influenced by Arzak, but there is only one Arzak. Ametsa opened in the spring 2013 and has been one of the most anticipated openings of this year. It is located in the Halkin hotel, by Hyde Park Corner and has recently won 1 Michelin star. Ametsa, just like Arzak, present ‘New Basque Cuisine’, pairing the earthy flavours and techniques of Spain’s Basque region with modern, surprising twists featuring locally-sourced and organic produce.