This past summer, my wife Jun and I traveled to Barcelona for a friend’s wedding. Our trip was relatively short at less than a week and the wedding was held in a beach town an hour away from Barcelona, so we ended up spending only a couple of days in the city. This trip also reinforced our perception that Europe, especially in southern countries like Spain and Italy, is now way too hot to visit in the peak summer (we would walk around the city or tour famous spots like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia for like an hour before quickly retreating to our air-conditioned hotel room). That said, we still had a great time in Barcelona and ate quite well. Our first dinner stop in the city was Mont Bar, a gastro bar that had been quietly making a buzz among food-crazed diners before earning its first Michelin star. We had a great time with playful small plates and (more below) an exceptional wine pairing.

When I was looking at potential restaurants to visit in Barcelona, I just couldn’t find a fine dining institution that really jumped out at me as a place that would offer us a memorable dining experience. I therefore opted to look for perhaps more casual restaurants that would nevertheless offer great food. To that end, Mont Bar fit the profile of what I was looking for, with a casual bar environment that showcases a multi-course experience at a fairly reasonable €155 per person (there is also an a la carte option). A first few bites from the restaurant in the beginning of the course featured some intriguing combinations of ingredients, such as zucchini tempura, beetroot flower with caviar, crispy brioche with pickled foie gras and onion and (most interestingly) mochi with emulsion of Spanish sausage called sobrasada and Mahón cheese. My two favorites from the snack course were the chicken canape with squid in between and a delightful millefeuille of wagyu and foie gras, showing the innovative side of the kitchen’s preparations that did not feel overdone. The rest of the savory courses were also whimsical and well-executed, particularly on the seafood side such as the refreshing razor clams with ponzu that one of the chefs prepared right in front of us and stingray (a fish we hadn’t tried much before) that came with beurre blanc sauce. A series of desserts that came after our final savory course of pigeon were no less impressive, starting with rice ice cream in nori seaweed that we struggled to hold on to but still enjoyed, followed by dishes like an artsy combination of cherries, roses and caramelized hibiscus leaf.

The restaurant’s cozy dining space is not particularly large inside so if you are looking to score a prime-time reservation, I would recommend booking in advance on the restaurant’s website. What really stood out from our experience at Mont Bar was the wine pairing (at €95 per person). You could certainly choose from a Spain-centric wine list offering a variety of attractive bottles, but if you enjoy wine, I strongly urge you to try the pairing where our sommelier brought an array of really interesting wines, not just from Spain but also from places such as Wachau of Austria, Alsace of France and Emilia-Romagna of Italy. I certainly didn’t expect to see a still version of Hungary’s famed dessert wine Tokaji! By the time we were finished with our meal, we were both happily tipsy from all the generous pours in the pairing. Despite the casual atmosphere, the professionally dressed service staffs were all very attentive and friendly in a way that would make you feel like you are dining at a top-tier restaurant. This year, Jun and I talked about how perhaps we were getting somewhat tired from all the spectacular fine dining experiences during our culinary journey. In that respect, a dinner at Mont Bar was a very stimulating experience showing us a way to explore the restaurant’s high-precision and sophisticated cooking without feeling burdened by what we sometimes see as an overly pretentious (and at times exhausting) formula of caviar and wagyu. And, again, if you are even remotely a casual oenophile, a trip to Mont Bar will make you realize how wonderful the world of wine is.

Address: Carrer de la Diputació, 220, 08011, Barcelona, Spain

KenScale: 8.25/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.0/10)

Website: https://www.montbar.com/en/

Reservation via Website