Insider Week 2021 – Small Review

Due to the insider week 2021 in Barcelona, I went to 3 places and would like to share my views and findings here.

Insider Week is the biggest gastronomic festival in Spain. Basically, it offers luxury menus for a fixed price in all types of restaurants throughout the city. Due to the pandemic, the insider week ran on the first week when the restaurants back open for dinner in Barcelona. So, I visited 3 places and had the opportunity to know the restaurant and tasted 3 tapas menus, but with different proposals. The idea here is not to evaluate the restaurant in itself, but the menu selected to the Insider Week. For this reason, I combined all 3 places in one single place, using a kind of “top 3” and selecting my “winner” at the bottom of this post.

Ironically, the top 3 starts on the last day. On Friday, the choice was the “Tapas Bar Xerta by Fran López” located in a (very) fancy restaurant in a five-star hotel (Hotel Ohla Eixample) – so you can imagine that the place is well-prepared to offer a good moment… Sadly, due to some other events in the hotel and the high number of visitors, the service was terrible. I would say “no service” was offered, but to be fair 1 girl was trying to handle all the mess around. The place is really good but the bad experience changed everything. You can see the menu below and you can feel the good technique and the “posh” presentation. BUT no name, no explanation, no “instruction” or whatever was given. Was like leave the plate on the table. The best plate was the creamy rice with shrimp, the rest was OK.

I’m not posh enough and a 5* restaurant is not my type, but at least a minimum service is important on this point. The taste was OK, but the experience was really bad. Sadly, I don’t know if I would repeat this restaurant.

On Wednesday, I went to Orvay. A small restaurant on Passeig del Born. The place is really modern and good for a happy hour with friends. The menu was really nice and well-done. The service was OK – not good or bad, giving you the space to enjoy the moment and your experience. The tapa menu taste was good and covering pasta, meat, rice, and dessert. The better tapa was the bull’s ribs slowly cooked (that type of meat you don’t need a knife, only the fork is more than enough). Orvay is really nice and highly recommended to you to have a drink and enjoy one of the plates, for the neighbor (plenty of bars and restaurants), it is a good choice if you’re looking for a good place with a nice atmosphere good food.

So, my champion was the first restaurant. Gran Vianna opened my Insider Week on Monday and it was a real surprise. With a nice atmosphere, a very funny/friendly service, and a nice/modern place.  At first sight, it was love and a super nice choice. Starting with the food and all the mix of the menu (from burrata to croquetas, from vegetables to ribs, and a dessert) until the service and place. It is really hard to define the best plate because everything was really good, but the ribs were above the others. The taste and texture were indescribable and it made me feel very happy. Also, for my next visit, I will try the cocktails because they were very good-looking.

More important than this small review (next time I promise to try more restaurants) and my irrelevant top 3, it is the festival itself that gives opportunity to know new/good places with a fixed-price menu to taste new flavours and options in your city that (most of the time) we don’t have the opportunity/courage to visit and discover. In my point of view, this feeling and opportunity are more than enough to prioritize my agenda 🙂

Hope it helps and sees you on the next Insider Week.