How to make dishes from two-Michelin-star Disfrutar, world’s 5th best restaurant, at home –they are as complicated as you’d expect

Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas, the chefs behind the restaurant in Barcelona, detail their professional journey together in Disfrutar Vol. 1

The second book in the two-volume set goes into detail about some of Disfrutar’s menu items – and they’re as complicated as you’d expect

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The chefs of the restaurant Disfrutar, Eduard Xatruch (right), Oriol Castro (left), and Mateu Casañas (centre) in Barcelona, Spain. They are the chefs behind Disfrutar Vol. 1. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 4:15am, 27 Dec 2021

Disfrutar Vol. 1 (2021) is not light bedtime reading: together, the two books that make up the boxed set weigh in at more than 6kg (13 pounds). Fortunately, the lighter of the two volumes, which tells the story of Disfrutar, the two-Michelin-star restaurant in Barcelona in Spain (and No 5 on the 2021 World’s 50 Best list), weighs “only” 1.6kg.

Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas, the three chefs behind the restaurant, and the book, first met at the legendary El Bulli, in Roses, Spain, which closed in 2011. El Bulli chef Ferran Adrià wrote the foreword for the book.

The trio came together in 1998, when Xatruch landed a job at El Bulli, where the other two were already working.

In the introduction, they reminisce: “We honed our professional skills there, together with such chefs as Albert Raurich and Marc Cuspinera, understanding from the outset the very high levels of discipline that were required in order to be a part of the restaurant.

The Catalogue goes into detail about some of the Disfrutar creations from 2014 to 2017. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

“We started out as stagiaires [interns], and later as commis, station and sous-chefs, until we became head chefs and worked in the Creative Department, where we spent six months of the year developing new dishes, becoming acquainted with a large number of products, building connections with people who taught us a great deal, and travelling to other countries and familiarising ourselves with their gastronomic cultures.

“We were entrusted with such interesting and unusual tasks as photographing dishes and writing recipes, and taking part in recordings and publications, among others.