Jiribilla: he left Barcelona when he was little, and thirty years later he has returned with a whole world on the table

Gerard's life changed twice before he reached adulthood. The first, at 12 years old, when his parents decided to leave Barcelona and move to Mexico to start a new life there. The second, at 17, when he discovered what he wanted his future to be. He started an internship at Tezka, a restaurant advised by Juan Mari Arzak, and there he understood that cooking was much more than a job: it was his place. He stayed there for a year without earning a single penny. He didn't care. He had found his path. Tezka was his first school. The second came at the Spanish embassy in Mexico; he had gone only for a period of three months and ended up staying for three years. Afterward, he returned to Spain and passed through Arzak and El Bulli, two of the great kitchens that would mark his way of understanding gastronomy. But Mexico was still waiting for him. He returned there to open Biko, a restaurant that would end up becoming one of the 50 best in the world.

But home calls. And about three years ago, he decided to bring all that baggage back to his city, Barcelona. He does so with Jiribilla, a restaurant that was born, he explains, “with the intention of offering Mexican food that did not exist in Barcelona. We want to represent the food from there but mixed with the food from here, and I think we have achieved it”.

The meal kicks off with a special house margarita and, almost before you have time to finish it, the journey begins. The puffy corn with spider crab, followed by the Balfegó tartlet, marinated tuna, avocado creamy and crispy leek. Afterwards, the flute of steak, stuffed with meat, macha sauce and cured egg yolk; the tiradito of amberjack with cherry tomatoes and gazpacho of jalapeño, and a aguachile of red prawns with chili ferment and peppers. And it is here that the cuisine begins to pick up speed. Then arrive the soft beans, a julienne of sautéed green beans over egg yolk cream and some seasonal mushroom tacos with black garlic and matcha praline. Two dishes that perfectly explain what Gerard is looking for: Mexico as a starting point, but without renouncing everything he has learned along the way. Afterwards, the marinated lentils stewed with carabineros and shrimp broth arrive, and the taco of cracklings with xnipec and avocado. The sea bass marinated with charcoal chili butter and beans gives way to the little bit of Iberian pork. The journey is long, intense and, above all, surprisingly ours.

With dessert on the table, sheep's milk cheese tartlet with guava jelly and flan with chantilly cream, we notice something else: there are no hats here, no flashy colors, or Mexican clichés. “We fled from stereotypes and, with a designer, we decided it should evoke Mexico, but in a more subtle way,” he explains. The name also has its story. After giving it much thought and, he says with a smile, avoiding ChatGPT, he spoke with a Mexican announcer and explained that he wanted to create a restaurant with “jiribilla”. Over there, the word means having an ulterior motive, a touch of sarcasm, a way of saying things without fully saying them. Perhaps that is why, when we ask him if there will be a Jiribilla 2, Gerard smiles. “Something will happen, but I can't tell you yet.” And we won't say much more either. Only that there are restaurants you remember for the dishes, others for the wine, and some, the ones that really matter, for everything that happens around the table: a conversation, some laughter, and a friendship that, without making a sound, grows a little bit deeper. There are those who travel to discover new places and those who travel to better understand where they come from. Gerard has done both. Perhaps that is the jiribilla of Jiribilla: that the journey between Mexico and Barcelona ends up becoming a unique way of understanding cooking and life.