The MNAC opens a Michelin-starred restaurant "where you can eat well."

BarcelonaThe National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) has given its restaurant a makeover, which is well worth a visit. It has partnered with Albert Raurich, the ex-Bulli chef we know for his two great restaurants, Dos Palillos and Dos Pimientos. And now this third one, which isn't two by two, is called Absis and is located in a room with privileged views of the city of Barcelona.

Previously, this space featured a proposal by Fina Puigdevall of Les Cols, under the name Òleum. After a period without a big name, it was Raurich who designed an offering that can please the million visitors the MNAC receives each year—and pay attention!—half of whom are Catalan. However, you don't have to visit the museum to eat at this restaurant—although enjoying the museum's fantastic collection is always highly recommended—because the Absis has its own elevator and can be accessed directly from the street without going through any of the museum's galleries.

What will we find?

For Raurich, there's one fundamental premise: "I became a chef because I like to eat, and what I wanted was for it to be a restaurant where you eat well. What you'll find here is good food." He says there are no flourishes or fireworks, it's a place "without pretensions." Here, there's Catalan cuisine, Mediterranean cuisine, and dishes of all kinds, prepared by Vilaplana's staff, the third leg of this new project. Vilaplana manages the museum's other restaurant spaces and will be there for five years. Raurich has described it as a "three-way marriage."

At Absis you'll find, to whet your appetite, a dish as simple as it is extraordinary: hot escabeche of olives and grapes. There's squid in "real" Roman style, smoked mackerel with white meat (a dish reminiscent of Dos Pimientos, as is the tonnato vitello), sardine fillets with beetroot and pistachio wrappers (inspired by a dish at El Bulli), and surf and turf Catalan-style free-range chicken with scallops. This dish, according to Raurich, is a tribute to a restaurant he highly recommends and which we've already discussed in this section: Cal Xim, in Sant Pau d'Ordal. While they will try to use local produce, Raurich will be more specific about ensuring that it is seasonal. This will outweigh any desire to invent new dishes or create avant-garde cuisine.

Raurich is so convinced of the proposal that he knows word of mouth will do the rest. There's a 35-euro menu, a 60-euro tasting menu that consists of half portions and allows for a thorough exploration of the menu, and then the à la carte menu. The fact that these three formats coexist means that the average bill can vary greatly, from around 40 euros per person and up.

The dining room has powerful natural light and a mirror on the ceiling that makes the space even more spacious. It's undeniably an incentive to visit this restaurant, which is starting out with a new culinary offering and, in Raurich's words, "isn't a one-time thing; we want it to last for many years and be a growing relationship."