Chef Albert Adrià confesses to being "mentally strong" because he was able to rest for a month between December and January, which allowed him to travel to Málaga and China, where he visited restaurants and observed that "we owe a lot to France in terms of front-of-house service." In fact, he says, "Chinese restaurants either become Europeanized or they won't be great restaurants because they don't know how to bring one dish to the next." In contrast, in China, they bring all the dishes to the table at once, without order, as if we were eating tapas. However, in China, he "saw that a single dish can cost between 800 and 2,000 euros."

Chef Albert Adrià spent one of his best professional nights in the Italian city of Turin last night, where the World's 50th Best Restaurants awards gala was held. He won the most highly valued award in the English ranking, the award voted solely by chefs, The Chefs Choice, sponsored by Estrella Damm, while his restaurant Enigma entered at number thirty-four and suddenly became the only Catalan restaurant at the top of the English ranking. "We've gained a foothold," said Adrià, to make it clear that Enigma had moved from 59th place in 2024 to 34th in 2025. This is a climb of twenty-five places in just one year in an awards show that has never been comparable with Eurovision, and perhaps. And Albert Adrià assessed all of this by saying that The chefs had told him this year that he was the most underrated chef, "and now they themselves have given me an award."The statue recognizing him as the winner of the 2025 Chefs Choice Award was given to him by chef Joan Roca of the Can Roca Winery.

The ray is an ancient fish, at least we can say so because the medieval recipe book Sent Soví's Book, which celebrated its 400th anniversary last year, dedicated three recipes to it: in a panada, roasted, and baked in a casserole. Of course, back then, only the wealthy could afford and eat the fish, and it was also associated with the season of Lent, but the fact that it appeared in the book is considered a sign that the fish was known and eaten, at least by a portion of the population. Thus, the ray was well described in the Middle Ages. Today, in our country, only the restaurants Enigma, by chef Albert Adrià, and Cocina Hermanos Torres, by brothers Sergio and Javier Torres, have it on the menu, and for the general population, it is an unknown fish. The twin chefs maintain that the fish's shape surprises them, so much so that Sergio and Javier Torres took a photo holding it in their hands in the first days of spring when it arrived at the restaurant, awarded three Michelin stars. These and many other interesting facts can be found at the Global Seafood Expo, the most important fish fair, which has just begun at Fira Barcelona (Gran Vía) and will end on May 8.

As an example of the type of decisions a statesman must make, the Coventry dilemma is often cited, which affects, of course, Winston Churchill. Although the story itself is false, it is interesting to tell it and see what relationship it may have with Spanish politics.

The Repsol guide has just announced its opinions on Catalan restaurants.The enigma of the chef Albert Adrià deserves two alone, the symbol with which they reward quality, and also other restaurants outside Barcelona: Villa Retiro, by chef Fran López, in Xerta; Espíritu Roca, in Sant Julià de Ramis and within the hotel run by the Roca brothers, and L'Aliança, located in the town of Inglés.