La Broche. 1 star. 35 stars reached.

Like Lasserre back in Paris, this booking was a total knee-jerk reaction. I was supposed to be going to Sergi Arola the next day for lunch, but for whatever reason they decided not to open that day. Fearing that I wouldn't make my goal of accumulating 35 Michelin stars, I booked the first restaurant I could find that would be easy to book. Enter La Broche. Ironically, Sergi Arola's old restaurant/kitchen.

I didn't really have any preconceptions going into this one. My main motivation was just to hit the star target. When I booked it I had no idea that it would be THE restaurant that would have me hitting the target.

Located in a fancy hotel north of the city, La Broche appears to be attempting to fuse modern Spanish food with French flavours and techniques. What this entails, it appears, is having the waiters add the sauce to your dish, for every dish. It also follows the Spanish trend of assaulting you with a neverending barrage of dishes.

I'm delighted to see that the wine list has Jacques Selosse champagne, a wine I've been wanting to try for ages but have never seen around. It's an interesting one. A non vintage that includes grapes made across something like 14 years, and is made like a sherry wine, not a champagne. It's awesome. Salty, honeyed, rich but mineral.

It starts interestingly enough with a plastic sachet of foie gras and a dish of consomme. You dip the foie gras in the liquid and the plastic dissolves as you place it in your mouth. Then you drink the soup.

There are a few attempts at creativity throughout the meal, like when we get the fish with cuttlefish sauce and they bring burning sticks to the table. Why, I'm not too sure.

The food is good, but there aren't many wow moments happening. Food wise, it's not really up to the standard of a lot of other starred places and sits towards the bottom of the scale, near Il Convivio. But the chef has some great ideas and there are interesting things on the plate, so my attention is kept for the entire time.

And just like that, the star tally is hit. And with ten days to go as well. 35 stars in 25 days. Not bad.

Not bad. But not over.



Michelin star tally: 35