This post is not for the faint-hearted. This post is not for those who think that food is not supposed to be expensive. And this post is definitely not meant for those who eat to live. This dinner was an excess par excellence. It was magical. It was indulgent. It was an art, a play and a delight. It was a punk rock roller-coaster ride. I present to you the creative mind of David Muñoz. I present to you DiverXO: La Cocina de Los Cerdos Voladores.

Before we begin, this has ended up being an extremely long post but there is truly a lot to say about the food, the drinks, the service, the ambiance and all that jazz. If it starts to become a little tedious, do at least look through the pictures. This dinner is worth your time. Thanks!

DiverXO, NH Eurobuilding, calle del Padre Damián, 23, 28036

DiverXO is located so far away from the city that it is a trip on its own (not really that far but certainly not smack dab in the city centre). Once you enter, you are greeted by a very interesting atmosphere. Everywhere you look, you see different props like flying pigs, waving pigs, more pigs, wings and shiny vinyl looking hangy-thingies (I am not even sure what half of the decorations were and if I even managed to notice them all). So, does the entrance verge on being kitschy? Oh, absolutely 100% yes, but I am pretty sure THAT is the whole point.

A punk-rock piggy with a spike choker welcomed us at our table where the props continued to change throughout the night accommodating a variety of themes – we had a clay fishbone statuette throughout the seafood section of the menu. The use of the props was interesting if a tad over the top but who am I to judge?

What I liked the most was how the dining space itself was divided by the sheer white curtains that gave the tables a very intimate vibe without making you feel completely disconnected from the surroundings. I like how this clean, maybe even surgical, division contrasted with the absolute chaos that was the entrance. I think this spacing out has been done with the utmost conscious thought and the execution was true perfection – this was one of my all time favourite spaces to have dined out at.

At the beginning of the dinner we received a little paper case each that we were told we could use to keep the menu cards that will be coming out with every dish. I really like this idea and the design of these as well! Also, having brought all of the handouts home I can only say: they are *really* helping me write this thing now. Ieva’s little helper, no joke!

When I booked this 3* Michelin dinner in February (the reservations open two months in advance) I did not book it to celebrate anything in particular. Well, maybe to celebrate us moving to Madrid but what sort of an occasion is that? I just thought that I want to have as much amazing food as I can, hence I have to start crossing these restaurants off of my list now (more like “yesterday”). The fact that DiverXO is considered one of the pillars in contemporary Spanish cuisine did not even cross my mind (where do we go from here???).

Moving on, instead of starting our dinner with the requisite champagne, we decided to go with cava. We are in Spain after all! This cava actually surprised us both quite a bit. It was super light and very refreshing without any of the heavy zing at the end. I truly enjoyed it. Normally, at these fine dining establishments (read, mostly in Singapore) you expect a glass of bubbles to cost you anything upwards of €25 but this lovely glass of cava at DiverXO only cost us €13 (looking at you Odette and Les Amis with your €35-40 glasses of champagne).

We moved from Singapore to Spain to only start our dinner proper with five small plates that were inspired by the flavours of Thailand and Singapore (of all places!). The whole bit was called “A roller-coaster ride: Southeast Asian inspirations” and when the little booklet describing our dishes came, it had a special design and a cover of its own (pictured somewhere below). When our lovely waitress, Beatriz (I might be spelling her name) talked about this particular menu, it seemed like it only contained the Thai part, without any regard to the fact that two of the five dishes were actually Singaporean. It was actually a little bit weird, e.g. “how did you like this trip to Thailand”, “what did you think of our Thai inspirations”, “how was your Thailand experience”. I almost asked her where did they think Singapore was but I was nice and kept it to myself.

We started with the welcome drink that they named Thaipirinha. It contained white Thai rum, ginger-lemongrass liqueur, lime, lychees and muscovado sugar with mint-basil-cucumber froth. It was a very light and refreshing drink but despite the very Thai-forward ingredients, the taste itself did not transport me to Thailand. Maybe the cucumber or the mint was too strong but it rather brought me to a British cookout where I would have a Pimm’s Cup, not a street market in Bangkok.

The next three small plates were green curry, laksa Singapore and pad thai. We were suggested to eat these simultaneously to recreate how you share the food in the Southeast Asian food markets, although having me eat both Thai and Singaporean dishes concurrently felt like a little bit of a stretch, I thought. They do not even share a border?! Please! Anyhow.

Green curry contained tear peas with a homemade jalapeño peppers and matcha green tea curry. It was a very fresh tasting dish but it was so light! Eaten together with the rest of the dishes (like we were suggested to do) it got lost among these other stronger flavours. I would have loved to have it on its own first before I dug into the following dishes.

Laksa Singapore contained marinated beef tongue and wild river trout roe in a broth made from beef tendons, galangal, fresh coconut milk, kaffir lime and dried chili oil. I did enjoy this version of “Singaporean” laksa even if it tasted nothing like the laksa I am used to having at Singapore’s hawkers. The flavour was rich and balanced although much milder both in taste and intensity in comparison to the laksa you get in Malaysia and Singapore.

Pad Thai contained scarlet prawn tartare marinated in its own head juice, tamarind and fish sauce served on top of rice noodles with sweet chili, omelette skin, fried shrimp, ito togarashi and dry scarlet prawn powder. Again, the flavour was really good but it lacked that acidic, spicy, sweet oomph I associate with the Southeast Asian cuisine. It is as if the chef is familiar with the Asian flavours but not necessarily first hand (?) or maybe this is his attempt to tame the flavours towards a more bland European palate (?). We will never know. Also, my European friends that can actually eat spicy food, I am sorry for this slander.

The description of the Black pepper crab dish made me chuckle: “from Singapore’s Street Food Stalls”. Umm, sure, that ubiquitous black pepper crab, totally available in all these street stalls. Anyway, it was made with the juice from its shell toasted on charcoal with Saigon peppercorn, served with crunchy rice couscous. For the fourth or maybe even the fifth time: the dish was great, it was very tasty, the crunchy couscous provided a lovely textural contrast to the soft meat of the crab and all that but it did not transport me to a food stall in Singapore.

Let’s leave the food aside for one moment and let’s talk about the drinks. In my mind, the tasting dinner is not complete without a wine pairing and we had a choice between a “regular” wine pairing costing €150 or a “rare” wine pairing with the price tag of €300. Initially we wanted to take one each but the table had to share the same service, so we picked the more expensive, rare pairing. Bear that price point in mind because it will come to bite us in the end.

With the first four dishes we were served a very lovely Philipponannt Clos Des Goisses Extra Brut 2011 champagne. When it was poured I did not even realise it was champagne and thought it was a white wine because it seemed like it had no bubbles at all. Upon a few sips we got to know this champagne and could appreciate its subtlety. It was so incredibly light, having it felt like a weightless sip. Truly like nothing I have ever tasted before: an absolutely delightful pairing.

So this is the special cheat sheet they give you for “the Southeast Asian rollercoaster ride” as they call it. As you can see, this one has a lot of reading material. Which is rather unusual but I truly appreciate when I have some information about the dish written out in whatever form the restaurant sees fit. Sometimes, a lot of interesting ingredients or ways of preparation get lost in translation or are hard to catch, especially with all sorts of different accents going around, such a booklet would come in handy on any of these occasions.

The little booklet above contained the special Southeast Asian part of the tasting menu and after we were done with that every other dish came out accompanied with a single informational leaflet. I have to admit, there was a lot of likeness of Mr Muñoz on all of these.

Another thing of note is the cutlery used in this restaurant. I would say most of the choices were rather peculiar. You could see a lot of rubber spoons used to scrape stuff off of your plate and then the kitchen tweezers too! We used these tweezers where chopsticks would have been used otherwise and we even asked why such an unusual choice and were told that the chef wants to introduce something that is exclusively used in the kitchen to the front of the house. I am sure it is exactly that and not the fact that many people in Europe might not know how to use chopsticks. *wink wink*

Ah! And now we finally come to the main affair. That little red dot in the middle of the plate is a dollop of tomato consommé. They start with 80 kg of tomatoes and 24 hours later end up with 200-300 g of this tomato sauce. It was such an explosion of flavour!

This whole dish came to the table in stages. First, the tomato consommé is brought out. Then comes the long thin plate containing cured red tuna belly presented on a tuna rib. Alongside it rest two cups made out of tuna vertebrae (!) containing tuna marrow marmitako with yellow tomatoes, calamansi and yellow chili. They also bring out a raw piece of tuna spine still containing the marrow for you to look at.

Both of these dishes were excellent. The tuna just melted in the mouth and the tomato consommé shined through with its thick kick of acidity, sweetness and smokiness. The broth was rich and the crisp, made from the marrow as well, provided a light, yummy crunch.

You can see from the pictures above that these were two very different drinking experiences. We joked that surely the bone cup does not pass all of the EU’s food and safety regulations. But it was a very fun! Honestly, I really liked how this dish came out to be, starting with the presentation, moving on with the taste and ending with the choice of crockery. Somehow this whole elaborate affair came about very naturally, seemingly without any of the unnecessary pretense. It did not feel that it was done solely for the sake of the effect.

I am truly a wine novice and have no clue about anything, except maybe for a few things gathered here and there, so my wine commentary will be very minimal (and based on my very bad memory that has been further blurred by the weeks past). This dish was paired with Rafael Palacios Sorte Antiga 2016, a Spanish wine from D.O. Valdeorras (D.O. stands for Denominación de Origen Protegida). This wine had a very surprising apple-y note without any of the associated acidity in the mouthful. There was also a lovely oakiness to it too.

The next dish was called “Upside down world: frosted salad from the back of the fridge and their sea sides”. Basically, they turned the tables around and presented this frozen salad dish as the star of the show, leaving the three fishes to represent the sides.

The salad was very interesting. On the base it had tomato heart seeds, rocket and steamed edamame, while on the top there were icy scales with slightly spicy lettuce emulsion with jerez vinegar and some greens. The salad tasted very refreshing and the icy bits provided a curious crunch and cold-ish sensation.

Moving on to the sides, at the bottom left we have red mullet, at the bottom right – sea bream, and on the top – turbot. All of these fishes were only lightly grilled on their skin side on a yakitori grill and seasoned with different peppers. My favourite was turbot. It still had a firm texture and the taste was the boldest of them all, maybe because it was season with Sichuan peppercorns, although you could not feel any of that tingling sensation. Sea bream was my least favourite, it had a slightly wetter, gummier consistency and I do not remember tasting any Java pepper. Red mullet was seasoned with the sansho pepper and was mostly cooled down by the time I made my way to this last piece.

I am looking at this piece of paper now and it was such a long read. I honestly think this was a little bit over the top and unnecessary (says the person using these handouts to write her review, oh, but are they giving these out to everyone hoping that the Michelin reviewers use them in order to not butcher their reviews(?), again, we will never know).

The sake pairing was fabulous, so light and elegant, a true delight! Asahi Shuzo Dassai 23 Hayata Junmai Daiginjo is specifically bottled for DiverXO. Of course it is made only from the tip of the rice grain. And of course it bears DiverXO insignia on the bottle. Only the best for the best, am I right?

Right of the bat I can tell you that this was our least favourite dish of the night. The only dish we truly did not enjoy at all. I have no idea what happened with it but it ended up being so disappointing. First of all, all of this bringing the frying station to your table side and pouring some hot oil over the baby eels is so unnecessary and extra, obviously solely done for the purpose of the show. They could have cooked those eels just before, bring out the dish to the table and nothing would have been wrong with that.

The dish is called warm sashimi with upside down fried baby eels. It contained rock mussels veloute with Riesling, enoki mushrooms and grilled baby eels. So basically what they did is they set up all of this equipment out only to pour some hot oil over these baby eels and then plop them into your plate. They gained nothing by being “fried this way”. They remained slimy and gummy and the dish, sadly, was rather bland and flavourless. All of the following – presentation, execution, taste – were truly a let down. Such a shame.

Our wine pairing was excellent though. Forjas del Salnés Leirana Areas de Arra 2017 comes from D.O. Rias Baixas, Galicia. If I remember correctly (and I think I do) this wine had such a bold pineapple on the nose it was uncanny! The pineapple smell was so distinctly pineapple-y that the taste surprised me a lot since it had nothing in common with the nose.

Yes, I ended up being that person who takes pictures in the bathroom. Also, tell me these décor details (books, butterflies and winged pigs) taken together are not verging on kitschy, I dare you!

So I have to say that I really loved the glassware and crockery at DiverXO. Every piece was different, interesting and in most cases really enhanced the drinking and eating experience both visually and physically.

OK, so remember when I told you that that €300 wine pairing will come to bite us both in the ass? THIS IS IT. This is the bite (or one of many). The f*ck is this pour? Do you see it? THIS IS THE ENTIRE WINE POUR FOR THE COURSE. Am I a crazy uncultured swine? Or am I right that this pour is just blatantly unacceptable? Yes, sure, I have absolutely no reason to get a rare wine pairing because I truly know jack sh*t about these wines and can only appreciate the taste, not the provenance, the rarity or complexity of these. But seriously???

This “plate” is so funky, I love it! The dish itself was called Iberian steam explosion and it came in a form of an Iberian pork dumpling with grilled cuttlefish and yellow pepper pil-pil. You have to take it in one bite and it truly explodes in your mouth like a bomb of sensations. This is how a good xiao long bao should be done: it had so much broth it was almost too hard to eat but it was all worth it. I loved the flavours, I loved the sensation, and I loved the presentation. This dish was truly one of my favourites of the night.

I cannot tell you much about Domaine Macle Château Chalon 2011 because I was seething about my life’s choices throughout the entirety of two sips that glass contained and also many minutes after. This was not the first small pour and it was also not the last but definitely the skimpiest of them all. At this point I was truly starting to see the error of my ways. OK, nevermind, I will relent and tell you that this was one of the most peculiar and unusual wines I have ever had. It was incredibly dry and mineraly, verging on almost being peaty! It had more qualities similar to a sherry or even a whisky, not your regular white wine.

This fried egg with black pudding dumpling was super cute and I loved the taste of the crunchy fried egg bit on the top. It came accompanied by Cayuse Vineyard Cailloux Syrah 2017 which was the first red wine of the night. The nose had a lot of sweetness with plum and red cherry notes, while the taste was very bold and quite tannic.

After eating the fried egg crust on the top, an intact egg yolk covering the black pudding is revealed. This was such a decadent and delightful bite, creamy with the exploding egg yolk and rich with the taste of black pudding.

When we were done with the little dumpling, out came our waitress, lifted the bamboo steam basket and revealed this gorgeous lily bulb salad hiding underneath. It was such a little surprise and it made me so happy and delighted. Absolutely great idea and beautiful execution, oh, and the taste was great too.

Next came the turn for a three part dish called “Galician lobster waking up on the beaches of Goa”. This Galician lobster was roasted in tandoor and came with buffalo milk skin and all sorts of accoutrements, including tomato chutney and sushi rice. This was a truly lovely dish. It had a lot of interesting components that, in various configurations, worked really well together. I was close to licking the plate clean.

We have not even gone halfway through the lobster when in comes this huge elephant carrying an Indian salmorejo pani puri with a lobster claw. Oh what a lovely bite that was! This was a legit pani puri: light, crispy, fragile and full of tasty liquid inside. This was another one of those flavour bombs that I will not forget easily.

To accompany the lobster course we were served a Burklin-Wolf Kirchenstuck GC 1996 wine. This was a curious Riesling: mineraly, acidic, full of stony aromas of peach. Since I caught a picture of our sommelier, I will write a few words about him too. He was a such character! I could maybe understand 60-70% of what he was saying but he was so inspired, so passionate and so expressive that it was hard not to smile at him and nod your head along happily saying “yes, yes, of course, how delightful”.

The third part of the dish was a lobster head vindaloo that was served in… surprise surprise lobster head! Again, it had a great taste and consistency but where was the heat? I have to assume that the original iteration of the dish prepared by the Portuguese (its originators) was not that fiery and the vindaloos we are used to today that are rather quite spicy are not traditional? Anyway, it was delicious but I missed a bit of an oomph with this dish.

At this point we were joking that the sommelier realised we were not happy with the wine pours and came up to serve us more drinks. What actually happened, of course, was that the third dish, the vindaloo curry, came with its own pairing. This time it was a jerez wine or sherry. I am not a big sherry fan but this Valdespino Amontillado Coliseo V.O.R.S. (2016) was one of the more interesting ones (V.O.R.S. stands for very old rare sherry). This one was very dry and very oak-barrel-wood forward too.

And now we finally reach the time for our main courses. At the beginning of our dinner Matas decided to order lamb and I decided to try their pigeon (the preparation of which intrigued me but more on that later).

Matas’s dish was called “Aragón Forest Moistures” and it literally came on the bed of forest moss. This dish was presented in three parts as well: roasted Iberian lamb skirt steak, broth of lamb with stewed lamb cheek and black garlic gnocchis, and lamb fried milk with ponzu sauce. I did taste little bits of this and that and I cannot say I was fully blown away (but I also did not try every component). Matas seemed to have enjoyed it, so I will leave it at that.

So, normally I do not like game bird meat. All of these fowls, pigeons, partridges and whatnot never taste good enough when they are brought to the table (I am looking at you Les Amis and Odette). However, the preparation of this particular pigeon dish piqued my interest. When we were being familiarised with our main choices at the beginning of the dinner it was presented as a pigeon that has not been thermally prepared, it was actually macerated in sherry! I had to try it.

First thing to come out, however, was not my cold poached pigeon with palo cortado wine macerated for a week but a pigeon leg (preparation of which I do not recall). As I said, I am not a big fan of bird meats and this did not really present anything surpassing what I have already had before. It was very tender though and the sauce had a nice tang to it.

On the other hand, the sherry macerated pigeon was truly exceptional. It came with smoked caviar, palo cortado wine macaroni and grilled embryonic egg yolk. The meat tasted rich and juicy and was super tender. The egg yolk was silky velvet and so creamy it was decadence personified. Basically, if you want me to be happy, give me a runny egg yolk is what I am learning.

For these two dishes we had different wine pairings as well. Matas had Château Cos d’Estournel Grand Cru Classé 2000 which was very tobacco/dry leaves forward but ended up tasting light and elegant. I had a Hidalgo Palo Cortado Privilegio 1860 which was dry and very intense. It had a very powerful mouthful!

Our last dish was called “Texture as ingredient”. Before serving us the dish, our waitress brought us this huge hunk of Wagyu beef to appreciate the marbling. I wonder if this poor piece of meat ends up being staff’s dinner after being paraded back and forth for the entire duration of the night. One more thing we will never know!

For this beef course we were served Descendientes de J. Palacios Moncerbal 2016 wine and I really do not remember much about this one. I do remember us liking it but then again, there was no wine or drink that we did not appreciate during this dinner. It was mostly those dainty pours that we did not like!

This piece of Kagoshima beef was rightly succulent. It was so rich, so fatty, so melty in the mouth, you could really luxuriate in its velvety softness. Just before moving on to the accompanying white beef broth mousse with katsuobushi, the sommelier came up to stop us because he wanted to pour another drink (it sounded so spur of the moment “oh, wait wait, do wait, I have something else to accompany this”). We drank it before seeing the bottle since the sommelier said he will tell us afterwards. Not knowing what it was, we went back and forth from umeshu to ice wine as it had a lot of this strong, bold, rich sweetness of what I thought were plums (but turned out to be apples). We ended up deciding it was an ice wine! Brännland Iscider Fatlagrad Barrique 2018 was actually an ice cider! We were not that far off, sort of. * remembers plums and umeshu*

Those who know me and know me well, are familiar with the fact that I am not a dessert person. I can tolerate sweetness to a degree but most of the desserts usually feel like wasted calories. I would rather have anything else. Hence, most of the dessert courses at tasting dinners go through unnoticed, just something to eat before we go home. Oh no no no no no no not at DiverXO. The two following desserts are my favourites I have ever had.

The first dessert was toasted butter risotto with shaved truffle. It sounds savoury and yes, it did have that savoury quality, but it was done more like rice pudding and was only elegantly sweet. The frozen sphere provided a lovely contrast of cold and sour and the bubbly foam completed the experience. This was so good. I cannot tell you enough how good this was. This truly was the best dessert course I have ever had.

Doktor Bergweiler Whlener Sonnenhuhr Auslese 1979 was a very nice wine pairing to accompany this dessert. It was sweet-ish but not too sweet as it was rounded by acidity which worked very well with the dessert. Oh, what a pairing. I enjoyed this very much.

This dessert is my second favourite dessert ever. It contained coconut ganache, black garlic, blackcurrant bubblegum and liquorice with coconut-yuzu ice cream. This was so good! The bubble gum taste has been recreated so truly to its original that only the fact that it was a little bubble bomb exploding without any of that gummy chew told us this was nowhere near being a bubble gum. The bits of waffle provided a very nice textural contrast and the ice cream rounded it all up. Maybe the fact that both of these deserts contained savoury elements (truffle, black garlic) made me love them but love them I did.

I cannot say I remember much about Quinta do Noval Colheita Old Tawny 1986 port. I was so focused on eating my dessert and saying how much I loved both of them took all of my attention away.

The dinner was finished, the coffee was had, the bill was payed and off we went home… by the metro. This dinner does bring a significant damage. The menu itself costs €375 per person which you pay at the time of making your booking, the rest (additional drinks, wine pairings, water) you pay on the night itself, so it does not feel like you are being fleeced alive. In total this dinner cost us close to €1500, so when we decided to go home by the public transport (I still needed steps for my 10,000 steps a day) the irony was not lost on us.

Summary

The service: the service was truly impeccable. It was easy going and fun from the get go without any unnecessary stuffiness or pretense. 10/10.

The food: interesting, engaging, provoking, creative, rich and sumptuous (the exception being the baby eels and a blandish Asian flavour interpretation). 8/10.

The wine pairing: a truly lovely selection of wines we would have never had otherwise. Was it worth the €300 price tag? NOT WITH THOSE MEAGRE POURS NO. 5/10. I would get my €150 peasant tasting next time, thank you very much. 5/10.

Other drinks: water had a reasonable price tag of €5 per bottle. The cocktail selection was quite abysmal though, they had two and both with gin. No, thanks. 6/10.

The atmosphere: I absolutely loved how the entire space was partitioned with curtains creating that elegant and intimate atmosphere. 10/10.

The gift: NOTHING! You only get to take away the huge pile of bedside reading material. Nuh-uh, I need a little token of appreciation at the end (Osteria Francescana had the best gift with a little bottle of their balsamic vinegar that we are still using to this date). 0/10.

The bread course: how come no one ever does the bread course anymore? I am not holding this against DiverXO but surely there is a way to incorporate a little bao or mantou, eh?

The summary of the summary

Was this the best dinner I have ever had, certainly it was the most expensive? I have to say that no, no it was not. My all time favourite dinners remain at Zén (3*, Singapore) and Gaggan (2*, Bangkok, closed down). In the grand scheme of things DiverXO (*3, Spain) places itself slightly above Osteria Francescana (3*, Italy) for all of this genuine creativity.

Obviously this place gets Ieva’s seal of approval but at what cost?!