Spain’s menús del día are one of the great acts of culinary democracy. Three courses and a glass of wine for as little as €13. Unsurprisingly, Barcelona is a city replete with many standout lunchtime menus at bafflingly brilliant prices (see six of our favourites here). At many of these, the food is hale and hearty, the wine endearingly rustic, the restaurant interior charming in its lack of affect.
Spend a fraction more, however, and you’ll discover that the city has plenty of restaurants that take the menú del día and elevate it to whole new level while still representing value for money to an almost comical degree. First among equals in this regard is Oníric, a small but perfectly formed restaurant on Carrer de Rabassa in Gracia.
Run by partners Jonatan Izquierdo and Laura Humanes (he’s in the kitchen, she’s out front), it has all the hallmarks of a passion project: generosity and warmth, incredible attention to detail, and expressive food, lovingly made.
They do full a la carte and three tasting menus. The longest involves twelve courses for €72, the middle one eight for €40, and the shortest, the Herrén, which is only available at lunch Tuesday-Friday, is five courses, plus bread and a glass of wine, for €24, which is as good a piece of business as you’re ever likely to do.
You start with a seed-encrusted chicken cannoli, which arrives on a stone pedestal. After that, a conger eel fritter in coconut green curry emulsion and tamarind sauce. You can mop up the sauce with some of the sourdough bread, which comes with paprika-infused butter and a test tube of Isbilya olive oil.
By this point you might already be halfway through your glass of honey-coloured white wine, (made in Catalunya by producer Sabaté i Coca), which exists on a different plane to the usual lunchtime fare. Then sit back as Laura gets out her pipette out to drip drops of chilli oil onto your green pepper flower with orange reduction and nori crisp. After this, comes the first choice of the menu: meat or fish. I had hake with pak choi. And then for pudding, a perfect little concoction of melindro sponge cake and apple sorbet.
At this point, I am obliged to repeat myself. All this is €24. The kind of money you can drop in an airport Pret without breaking stride. Twenty-four euros. The next time you’re in the city, beat a path to its door.
Carrer de Rabassa, 37, Gràcia, 08024; oniricrestaurant.com
David Annand is editorial director of Secret Trips
