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HOSPITALITY

16 — THEATRICALITY takes the leadForty-four courses served over three hours: RCR gives Albert Adrià’s Enigma a worthy setting for a dramatic experience.

Pepo Segura

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BARCELONA – Enigma, Albert Adrià’s latest haute cuisine restaurant, occupies the ground floor of a formulaic apartment block in Barcelona. An exterior lacking signage gives passers-by not even the slightest hint of the fantastical, futuristic interior within. Enigma is the work of Catalan architecture firm RCR, this year’s surprise winners of the Pritzker Prize. The studio is respected for its ethereal, avant-garde cultural and learning centres, as well as for landscape designs that artfully respond to their largely rural environments.

Enigma represents the second restaurant in RCR’s portfolio. ‘Experiential’ is the buzzword used to describe today’s gastronomic temples, and the Enigma show starts when clients are asked to punch in their entry code at the front door before entering a curved tunnel lined with rippled Perspex panels. Seem-ingly chiselled from a glacier, similar panels serve as partitions throughout the restaurant. First stop is the aperitif room, where the staff takes note of any food allergies and special »

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‘Experiential’ is the buzzword used to describe today’s gastronomic temples

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requests. From here, guests move to a cocktail bar, followed by a pause at the open kitchen, where they receive a personal welcome from Adrià. After gathering around a teppan-yaki grill, they’re directed to the main dining room. Groups are asked to arrive at 15-minute intervals, which ensures their privacy during each stage of the 44-course, three-hour gas-tronomic ‘journey’. Puffs of pliable metal mesh span the ceiling, and the grey ceramic floor is printed with bursts of watermarks. Together with modular Perspex chairs and tables, the aesthetic is akin to that of a frozen under-water cave. Wine cellar and service areas are masked by sliding doors – also made from Perspex panelling – that waitstaff, fitted out in stark uniforms designed by the architects, exit and enter with hushed sobriety. Warmth and familiarity come at the end of the voyage, when guests can choose to continue the evening in a speakeasy lounge, a re-creation of the now-closed 41° cock-tail bar that until recently formed part of the Adrià empire. (Ferran and Albert Adrià have another five restaurants in the vicinity, a neighbourhood they advertise as El Barri Adrià.) Accessed via Enigma’s storeroom, the lounge – lined with red bricks – features leather sofas and a velvety decor. – SWrcrarquitectes.es

Rippled Perspex panels serve as partitions throughout Albert Adrià’s Enigma restaurant.

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