Geloch Restaurante is an example of fine dining done brilliantly.  It delivered a spectacular 10-course degustation menu.  Zorba and I scored each dish out of 10 – playing our favourite Master Chef judges game that we sometimes do when we go out.  Overall, Zorba and I scored Glenoch 85 out of 100 with five dishes scoring the perfect 10 out of 10 – in our scoring system that means we could eat the dish again and again and again and love it every single time.

The sophisticated dishes were served in tiny degustation serves, all beautifully presented, explained accurately in detail, and tasted gorgeous.  The dishes that didn’t get perfect scores failed to do so merely because of our palate and our own particular tastes. To other diners however, they may have been the best dishes of the menu.

Our menu consisted of the dishes below, together with our comments and score:

Rose petals with lychee cream Delicate subtle flavour, teeny tiny miniscule portion [pictured below on gold plate on the right of the black onion cake]	Score: 6.5
Black onion cake, sweet onion foam, fried onion Light, moist, savoury and sweet balanced, a lovely surprise	Score: 8.5
Carrot and orange nitro popcorn Nitro smoking, Blumenthal-esque, interesting, fun	Score: 6.5
Shitake broth with spider crab ravioli and Iberian ham DO Extremadura Gorgeous, salty, every mouthful was Moorish, sensational, delicious, faultless	Score: 10
Grilled red prawn with pisco, cabbage and hibiscus Beautifully presented, three types of cabbage, balanced when all elements eaten together	Score: 7
Black turnip with veal marrow, egg yolk and black truffle Amazing aromas, rich yet delicate, every mouthful was a taste explosion.  Beautiful to eat	Score: 10 +
Beetroot gnocchi, veal sweetbreads, codfish tripe, pardon pepper cream and carrot and passionfruit drops Delicious flavour, thick balanced sauce, unusual (I don’t usually enjoy offal), but I wanted to lick the plate!	Score: 10
‘Secreto Iberico’ 36 cooked sous-vide with selected roots and seasoned mushrooms Unbelievable. Sensational tender rich beautiful pork shoulder slivers with shitake mushrooms, porcini powder, with yucca foam [yucca is a kind of root vegetable that tastes a little like a turnip]	Score: 10 +
Assorted cheese course with banana-honey, coffee crumble, caramalised endive leaves and baked aubergine sorbet All flavours worked really well together.  Unusual to have a sorbet that tastes of eggplant, but I really enjoyed it	Score: 9.5
Toasted wheat ice cream, milk foam, orange textures Smooth creamy ice cream, shards of orange looked like rice, not overly sweet.	Score: 9
Bread was toasted crunchy and quite dry, almost like a crostini. Lovely to eat, hopeless to use to mop up sauces.	Score: 8
Wine:  Lalama Ribeira SacraA small particular winery in rural Spain was smooth, luscious and gorgeous without being too strong or too gusty. At less then 30 euro a bottle, it was an excellent recommendation from our waitress	Score: 9

Our total bill was 168 Euro. Quite expensive, but then again, when you think about the quality of what we were served, I thought it was cheaper than what you would pay for a similar experience in Australia.

The restaurant was intimate, classy, and overall, it was a fantastic fine dining experience.

FACT FILE

Glenoch Restaurant
C. Bailén, 56, Barcelona
Tel: +34 93 265 82 98
e-mail: restaurant@gelonch.es