Strolling around Barcelona
means being amazed
by its architecture
its people, The diversity around the place,
And its neighborhoods full of charms.
Precisely, one of its neighborhoods  is what brought us here.
Those who walk around Plaza España, don´t suspect that a
revolution is being carried out in a few blocks.
This revolution begins in 2011,
when Albert and Ferran Adriá joined
together with Iglesias brothers
Creating a new concept
in gastronomy,
Six different concepts in the same place,
El Barri.
One by one, we have visited the restaurants that comprise the gastronomic group,
El Barri.
Different proposals
that live together
under the same philosophy of work.
And the signature of Albert Adriá as the creative mind.
I lead you up to here,
Enigma
is here
10 metres away, I let you discover it by yourself.
We say goodbye to Paco Mendez and we continue our way
to our last stop.
Enigma,
where the head chef, Oliver Peña
is waiting for us.
What´s Enigma?
We immediately discover this entrance.
Well, Enigma is a little that, something different.
This is the last of Albert´s restaurant in El Barri,
We have opened for a year and a half.
Since we closed 41
we have had a vision of
something different.
In an ethereal and extravagant space,
Enigma proposes a new way
of letting guests
live their experience
at the restaurant.
You start a tour based on discovering
and  being surprised
by the flavours
and the six
different sectors
Let us live the Enigma experience,
Above all, it is based on the space.
Not just on the food and drink.
It is an experience.
It is a global experience within the different sectors.
within the 700 square feet.
And how many people can eat here?
Now we are actually serving 28 people each shift.
They never come altoghther, they start arriving at different times.
If you like, I can show you the tour so you will understand it better.
And this sector? What´s this?This is the first space. It is called Ryokan.
Here you are welcomed by Cris,
the manager and sommelier.
This is the sector where you forget where you come from,you forget about burocratic topics,
allergies,
food intolerance, or food  ingredients you don`t like.
We offer you for example a seasonal fruit, now we are offering plums.
To prepare papillaes for the next step.
This is precisely to forget about the taxi, the plane,
the rush and
to be able to
enjoy
the experience.
Great. 
And this one? Another sector?
This is the second space. It´s called La Cava.
This is the moment to choose the drinks for the rest of the experience.
Here you will be offered a cocktail
that includes
five snacks.
We have changed a lot since we opened.
At the beginning you were stood up for this service, and now it is enjoyed sitting .
And for example , the Royakan was a service you had it sitting and now you get it stood up.
Enigma is a little bit of that, a constant evolution to improvement.
Because there is always
something to modify.
Of course. , and how many elaborations do you offer?
Well..this is a frequently asked question.
We offer between 40 and 46 elaborations.
Good. We are always dealing with that number.
For example here we have 5 snack plus a cocktail
we would have  7 small bocados or sorbitos.
Here you spend 20 minutes, you choose the drinks.
In general people ask for recommendations.
People usually like suggestions.
And then they continue to the next space.
That would be the last sector, we have modified it
it used to be a cocktail bar before and now it is a sea bar.
Here you can have 8 people eating approximately, like in La Cava.
It isn´t that you will have  the 8 people eating at the same time.they may be 2 and 4 or 6 and 2.
But you always have people coming and leaving.
It is a dynamic proposal that leads the place to be in constant movement.
And they are sea products, all cold without cooking?
And they are sea products, all cold without cooking?
It isn´t raw food,
but is inspired in Japanese cuisine
regarding the flavors.
And above all,
a lot of seasonal product ,
real seasonal product to take advantage of.
This is the guidance let´s say.
The guidance of the carte is the product
Yesterday we had salmon and
now we have something different.
We are lucky  we are in the Mediterranean.
So we don’t run out of sea products,, we have the Cantabric ocean. Here you stay between 20, 22 minutes.
and you start drinking what you have chosen.
If it's a part of a selection or drink.
And then once you finish you wait for the waiter.
We wait for the waiter.
We try that the waiter speaks the same language of the client, we don’t have all the nationalities
but at least we can handle with Italian, English or French.
Well Diego, tell me about this.
Well this is the Enigma´s kitchen.
Here we are preparing the service. La mise en place.
We have already finished the middle table.
What we call the team work.
Where we go over the tasks that take longer.So we do them altogether to gain time.
And we are basically preparing for the service.
Let´s say you gather altogether round the table to prepare the service.
Exactly.
We have schedules,
tasks to complete, and so on.
And what about the counters?  How do you organize the spaces?
We have two counters.
One is the Josper sector,
where we have the charcoal oven.
On the other side,we have the hot dishes  sectors
, and here in this part we present all the cold dishes.
From this part all the dishes are served.
They are always previously prepared
so we call the head chef to check the dishes.
They come here and the dishes are checked
to verify that they are ready.
And after that the dishes are taken to the tables with a waiter .
How long does
it take this Enigma Experience?
Approximately?
It takes approximately 3hours , 3 hours and a half.
is what it takes.
In this case,
this part takes 1 hour and 40 minutes,
Well, what happens here?
Here they are rapid cooking, they cook directly.
They are rapid  dishes that
we could take to the tables taking advantage of the short distances.
And also this question of dialogue like service,
where you can receive explanations later on.
To have the possibility to encourage clients to express their enquiries  such as : where did you get the meat? ,
how do you cook
the chawanmushi..? and so on.
All the questions you may have, here the team will provide you with the answers.
This allows
a certain relation
between the chef and client.
Getting to this point, the guest is already aware of
the distant and cold atmosphere of the place,
but that ends up being actually nothing but a costume.
The different people you will be crossing during the evening
, will invite you to spend a good time.
Breaking the scheme of a distant service, and  without even noticing
the guest will create a bond with all the people working here.Here you have an Eastern esthetic
although the food is not Japanese.,
like it is in the sea sector.
Here it is a little bit more because we always use the grill pan.
We have always tried different techniques ,
even though not everything is cooked by the pan, but
we also include some charcoal, we use steam with the glass cooking bell.
We come up with the idea of cooking in front of the clients.,
so it wasn´t a  teppanyoki, but a real grill pan.
This is what we call El diner,
the structure of the menu is quite different than the usual ones.
We don’t
start with a cold dish,
or hot starters, such as fish, meat. Actually we do it, they other way around,
the strong dishes are first
the strrong dishes  , the protein, first.
and then we continue
with the light dishes by the end.
It gets less intense
in terms of flavours.
To enjoy the last serving  until the end.Exactly, because what actually happens is that when
you go to this restaurants that offer many elaborations,
you get to a certain point that you feel so full that you can´t eat more.
Yes, you get  a piece of meat at the end,
that you can´t actually enjoy because you are already too full to eat it.
And Oli, what about the design of the place? I mean…
The design and architecture
of Enigma, plays an important role
within the experience.
The gest
gets into a captivating space
that  melts and fades away
Almost a metal
, resin, ceramic and crystal laberynth.
Now we are returning.
Actually, if you were sitting there before
you would be crossing over here again
and you could greet the chef,
Look these are the juralitas we where talking about.
This is what replaces the salmon.
Exactly.
So you would get back here again,
where we have already passed.
Here we serve the desserts.
Now they are preparing dishes, except from the last table.
They would come here,
except from the josper
So all the guests would have crossed over here
by the end of the experience.
So they would go through the food storage
which is  actually where we store the food items.
So you place all food items here.
yes, We don`t have other rooms for storage.
Yes, it´s great. Because it must be like in a food store.
no excuse. Excactly.So well, here Cris or Alicia
accompany you and ask the clients  if the knew 41 grados, which was where we.started.
How intriguing ,
what´s is going on there?
And suddenly the door is opened. And surprise!
wow. wow. Come in please.
This was initially the 41 grados restaurant.
Actually, The items, I mean,
the chairs, the tables,
the bar that is 7 tones ,
the lights, that are switched on only for the service.
41 grados was the first of the restaurants created by
Albert  Adriá in Paralelo neighborhood
Considered one of the
best restaurants
in the world in 2014.
It closed its doors due to the small space of the place.
It was a concept that was small on
Albert Adriá ´s vision and creativity
for  his  more ambitious projects in mind.41 grados planted the seed
to what now would be Enigma.
Well here the people can stay the time they want
If they want to stay for either for a long or short time.
here they can enjoy a drink and stay as much as they please.
And when they want to leave the place, instead of doing all the tour
, they can leave the place by this exit I will show you now.
We have finished our tour through El Barri,
where we witnessed the evolution of Albert Adriá´s cuisine.
Of his line of thoughts
based on the respect for the product
the versatility,the surprising element and the care for each detail
The six concepts that comprise El Barri,
are a signature of boldness
in the creativity and evolution that characterize them .
We say goodbye from El Barri in Barcelona,
we will be together again in another special for chef tv,
where we will continue discovering culinary universes that shine with their own bright.
Traducción y Subt. Inglés por " Laura Amodio "
