An Accessible Tasting Menu Surprise in Barcelona
United Plates was founded with the very purpose of discovering and highlighting restaurants exactly like La Sosenga.
What would you think if I told you that we paid just €35 for a nine-course tasting menu, and that every single plate either surprised us, satisfied us, or left us genuinely impressed? Would you assume I was daydreaming, or that I had simply forgotten to add a zero?
Our lunch was built around Catalonia’s local produce, deeply flavorful and genuinely creative dishes, paired with La Sosenga’s natural, non-interventionist wines, selected under the guidance of sommelier Marta.
“We work with natural wines. We follow ancestral and traditional methods in both vine cultivation and must fermentation. The philosophy behind our drink selection is based on a clear idea: proximity, artisanal projects, and authenticity. We stay away from commercial and industrial beverages. We firmly believe that great products are born from small projects,” they explain.
La Sosenga
I told them quite openly that by refusing to collaborate with monopolistic supply chains, they were making life difficult for themselves when it comes to entering the well-known guides. They were aware of it. In my view, as they are now, they are better than a fair number of Michelin Recommended and Bib Gourmand restaurants in Barcelona.
Most importantly, they know exactly what they want to do and they know precisely what they are doing. Their choices are clear, and they have no intention of changing them.
Those who appreciate this approach already do so, and I am certain the guides cannot entirely ignore them either.
With Mark Perez Arias in the kitchen and Tania Doblas in the dining room, they can look to the future with confidence. I hope that in the near term they are not pushed too far away from their current path. In the medium and long term, I hope they continue to create dishes that remain accessible to the working classes.
I would like to share a few examples from La Sosenga’s November menu.
Bunyol
The service began with a bunyol filled with Rossinyols mushrooms from Catalonia (Cantharellus cibarius), topped with Iberian ham and subtly flavored with hazelnut. Traditionally, bunyols are sweet fritters sprinkled with sugar and commonly prepared on Catholic holy days. Their roots lie in Arab and Jewish cuisines. Pere’s version, however, is savory. It looks almost like a bomb, though it is not breaded. The filling is intensely flavorful.
Bunyol
Emmascarades
The second bite was a modernized Catalan classic: patates emmascarades, served with apple purée and a surprise piece of blood sausage waiting at the bottom of the glass. Its only flaw is how quickly it disappears. It feels like a single-shot experience.
Emmascarades
Eauté of Espigalls
Next came a sauté of espigalls, Catalan cabbage sprouts that we initially struggled to identify, although Tania even explained where one might find them. Their lightly sulfurous aroma sparks curiosity and remains well balanced. The Catalan character is reinforced with a caper-infused jurvert sauce.
Eauté of Espigalls
The Poached Egg
The pace does not slow. Thinly sliced Jerusalem artichoke arrives with mushroom sauce and a perfectly poached egg. Mushrooms are clearly one of their strengths. In this dish, however, the artichoke does not fully integrate with the mushroom. There is a slight imbalance. A sharper olive oil dressing might have helped, and for my taste it needed a bit more salt.
The Poached Egg
Skate with Pil-pil Sauce
Then comes the fish course: skate with pil-pil sauce, llenegues mushrooms, black garlic, and ganxet beans. Once again mushrooms, once again beautifully handled, this time playing alongside the skate and the pil-pil. Good. Very good. It makes you think that skate could not possibly taste better than this.
Skate with Pil-pil Sauce
The Pork Cheek
Finally, meat which is an offal: pork cheek wrapped in chard leaves, with chestnut and fig. More face than cheek, really. Another balanced dish, deep and satisfying.
The Pork Cheek
The rhythm never drops, the bar keeps rising. This is one of the strongest plates of the menu, in my opinion, though it would be unfair to diminish the others. All of them are memorable, coherent, and well balanced.
It is also worth noting that “La Sosenga” takes its name from a traditional dish rooted in medieval Catalan cuisine, mentioned in the Llibre de Sent Soví from the 14th century, considered the first known cookbook of the region. This dish is essentially a rich meat stew prepared with a spiced sofrito of sautéed vegetables. I hope one day to encounter this dish here as well.
I am already impatiently awaiting my next visit.
Churro with Persimmon
