The creative team at Disfrutar's restaurant has done it again. They've invented a new culinary technique, now featured on the restaurant's Festival tasting menu, which recently celebrated its eleventh anniversary. It consists of eight colorful spoonfuls, each a textured food created using starches. These are presented on a white plate, like an artist's palette, and eaten with a spoon. "The waiter explains to the diners that they can eat them one by one or mix them together with their cutlery, which is what they end up doing," say Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro, and Eduard Xatruch. The result is a dish that's visually stunning, thanks to the starches that give the food its natural sheen, and also delicious, thanks to the precision of the cooking. The dish represents a novel technique, preparation, and concept: playing with the idea of painting on the plate.

I interviewed chef Mohamed Quach at his restaurant El Terrat in Tarragona, after enjoying the Olivus menu (€85), one of two he prepares. Located high above the city, very close to La Rambla, El Terrat has a panoramic view of the sea from its entrance. In 2018, Chef Moha Quach opened it with a partnerBut he's been running it alone for a year now. Before he rented the space to open the restaurant he dreamed of, Moha Quach, El Terrat was already operating as a restaurant. "I felt sorry about changing the name; and I kept it when we started our own in 2018, but now, little by little, I'd like to add my name," he says. Perhaps soon, the sign will say Moha Quach-El Terrat. For now, he's already engraved his name on the napkins, white and spotless. The chef is thirty-four years old, this year has won the revelation award at the National Gastronomy Awards and has an endless passion for cooking, especially Catalan, Roman, and romesco dishes, because he was born in the Rif (northern Morocco) and claims that, ultimately, all the peoples bordering the Mediterranean cook in a similar way. Moha lives in Tarragona, but when he arrived in Catalonia at the age of twelve, he settled in Miami Platja, where his mother lives. He has his siblings far away, between France and Germany.

It's Wednesday, the Virgin of Carmen, and in Cadaqués everything is ready for the afternoon procession of the boats; there will also be mass and a sardine feast. And if there's a festival in Cadaqués, there's no shortage of corks. In fact, they're never missing any day of the year, but it's in the summer when Mercè Cabrisas, from the Can Cabrisas bakery, sells 4,000 a day. If you go mid-afternoon to buy them and haven't ordered them, you probably won't be able to try them. "But this happens as it happens, because yesterday, for example, there were some left," she says. Each one costs 0.90 euros, and in addition to selling them in bulk, it's also traditional to buy them in boxes of 15 (13 euros) and 30 (26 euros). The boxes have the unique profile of the Alt Empordà town drawn on them, and this very wrapping is also what has made the corks popular, identified with the town.

In a Palau de la Música packed with chefs, producers, and officials, the Generalitat (Catalan government) presented this Monday the commercial that will spread the word around the world that Catalonia has the best cuisine in the world. The spot begins with producers singing the chorus of the song. Nyam, yam, bon appetit, and concludes with the chefs awarded by prestigious guides who stand together—dressed in their usual jackets—and toast with dishes from our recipe book. You can see Joan Roca, Jordi Cruz, Carme Ruscalleda, the Torres brothers, and also the three chefs from the Disfrutar restaurant: Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas, and Eduard Xatruch.

There had been a lot of chatter in the days leading up to the race to find out who would replace Disfrutar on the World's 50 Best list. Many people believed it would be Asador Etxebarri's year, as it was in second place last year. But instead, it was the year of the Peruvian restaurant Maido, an excellent restaurant specializing in Nikkei cuisine. Etxebarri had to settle for an individual award, that of its sommelier, Mohamed Benabdallah, who was recognized as the best in the world.

Blank plate, the documentary that aired on Nights without fiction On Tuesday night on TV3, the show showcased the work and obsession that goes into haute cuisine through the Disfrutar restaurant. This isn't new on television. Starting with the media star Ferran Adrià and continuing with all the chefs. crashed that has taken place in Catalonia, we viewers are quite experienced in the dynamics of this ultra-demanding nature of the most prestigious and elaborate cuisine. Ferran Adrià, as the forger of a certain DNA, served as a narrative endorsement to accredit the legacy left behind by his three disciples and protagonists. Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro, and Eduard Xatruch generously expose themselves in front of the cameras, to the point of including a domestic fatality in the restaurant. We viewers witness a sewage system breakdown that causes a backup in one of the toilets, forcing the staff to reorganize to fix it. This debacle, uncomfortable and unsightly in a luxury restaurant, breaks with this epic narrative about gastronomic perfection.

Just a month before the announcement of the new best restaurant in the world in Turin (Italy), Disfrutar in Barcelona has just released the documentary Blank plate, which revives the moments that led chefs Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch to become the best in the world according to the 50th Best Restaurants rankingThe film premiered Wednesday afternoon at the Phenomena Experience cinema in front of a packed auditorium of chefs, family, friends, and politicians; next Tuesday, May 20, Blank plate (co-produced by Abacus and 3Cat) will also be broadcast on TV3, in the Non-fiction, at 10:05 p.m.