PUMPKIN SOUP!

Degustation in two Michelin starred restaurant Moments had been a well-designed experience. I would highly recommend degustators to visit Moments for having a gastronomic journey from all around the world. Nevertheless, if your expectation is to have Spanish cuisine, you will not find what you are looking for in this degustation menu. However, the tasting menu changes periodically, so you may follow it from their website.

Moments is located at the heart of Barcelona, inside Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The restaurant opened its doors in 2010, receiving its first Michelin star in 2011 and the second one in 2013.

Chef Carme Ruscalleda owns and manages Moments, together with her two other restaurants; Sant Pau in Tokyo and Sant Pau within an hour north of Barcelona. Her restaurants are rewarded with seven Michelin stars in total. She is considered to be one of the finest Catalan Chefs in Spain. Her son, Chef Raül Balam is responsible for day to day operations of Moments.

Ambiance

The overall ambiance looks classy, however, there are some disturbing facts when you are dining. If you are not sitting at the tables near the window, it is very dark and you can barely see what you are eating. I highly recommend you to ask for a table near the window when you are making your reservation. You don’t really see anything in particular from the window except the plants and the light but the green view makes you feel like you are out in nature. Another problematic matter is the low ceiling. It makes you feel depressed and makes the restaurant quite noisy. On the bright side, there is an open kitchen and you are able to see the journey of your food.

The restroom is very clean, and located on the outside close to the entrance of the restaurant.

Taste

“Our cooking has to be a fiesta in the mouth” Raül Balam

There was no overall harmony in the courses since all the courses were from another country. However, they were really delicious and can easily appeal to everyone’s gusto.

My favorite dishes were; bread with strawberries, anchioves & wine form Barcelona, Duroc pork dim sum & spicy sauce from Hong Kong, beef burger & french fry from New York and bittersweet pork & apple from Jakarta. Las Vegas was also amazing. It was a drink made with a mixture of vodka, elderflower, vanilla and cherry with popping candies.

Creativity

The highlight of the restaurant was the creativity and effort they have shown to make a unique degustation experience. Once you sit on your table, you receive a passport for yourself because you will be having an incredible gastronomic journey all around the cuisines of the world. There are fourteen different courses, which was a bit too much to eat. You need to spend at least three hours to fully enjoy this experience. Be sure that you are hungry and have enough time to enjoy it all. The courses are from different parts of the world so there has been a lot of research regarding the dishes they have chosen for representing the countries. I have realized that the courses were from the countries where Mandarin Oriental already exists in. They must have received consultancy from Mandarin Oriental kitchens all over the world without taking a lot of risks. All of the courses were served distinctively, with different dinnerware being used. You can easily understand that every single course was carefully and elaborately designed for an exclusive experience.

For your Las Vegas trip, the staff prepares your drink beside your table and welcome you to the gourmet club. The drink includes popping candy inside, so you keep feeling the little explosions in your mouth while you are drinking your vodka mixture. Beef burger and fry from New York was looking like a colorful art piece which you don’t want to ruin by eating. The souvenirs at the end were very unique and overlap with the theme. It was great to take pictures with them. It is also possible to take your petit fours home with you. Since they spent a lot of time for the petit fours they insisted us to take them with us and packed them for our trip back to the hotel.

There was nothing unusual about the decoration. However, the degustation experience itself was very professionally designed. There was absolutely no need to draw attention to any element of the decoration.

Service

The staff were very polite, friendly and fully suited up. You are being welcomed at the entrance of the restaurant where the staff is located by the desk. There has been a miscoordination among the staff a few times through our courses. We wanted to have a break on the halfway of the degustation because we were really close to being full. Unfortunately, they forgot about it and kept on bringing the new course. Even so, we still had a good serving experience. Our waiter even asked whether we would like to have the side or the middle part of the bread. That was unforgettable.

You can easily make the reservation by sending the restaurant an email. They will kindly warn you in their email that the dress code is smart casual and bermuda shorts or sandals are not allowed. You need to fill out the credit card authorization form in advance and send it to them to complete your booking. The reservations for dinner were already fully booked, therefore we went for the lunch. We booked a month in advance, therefore it would be a better idea to make your reservations earlier if you prefer to have dinner.

You may find the menu and the pricing on the website. The restaurant doesn’t have its own website, but you can have all the information about it from Mandarin Oriental’s website. Likewise, the restaurant doesn’t have a separate Instagram account.

Value

I would have given a full grade for value if the wine pairings of the sommelier were better. We asked the sommelier to help us with the wines but I did not enjoy the wines much. I was expecting the pairings to be mind-blowing as well in an experience like this.

The overall experience was designed perfectly and there was a huge variety of courses. The price is totally worth it for a unique experience like this. The degustation menu was EUR 166 and price per dish was approximately EUR 11.