Quique Dacosta both the chef and the restaurant were a mystery to me before I decided to make a reservation at his 3* eatery located in a small town called Dénia tucked on a scraggy Mediterranean coast. Coming with no preconceived notions I left quite contented and yet…

Quique Dacosta, carrer Rascassa, 1, 03700, Dénia

Dénia is a beautiful port town located on the Mediterranean sea. Before coming here, I knew nothing, except that it has a regular ferry service to Ibiza which is located just a stone’s throw from Dénia. As I later learned, Dénia is also known for its seafood (daily catch is brought in the afternoons), especially for its red prawn that can only be found in the deep trench separating the coast of Dénia from the island of Ibiza (the red prawn will make an appearance during the dinner too).

After taking a few cute pre-dinner pictures on our balcony facing the aforementioned port, we scrambled to find a taxi that would take us to the restaurant (that proved harder than expected but we got there in the end). After being welcomed on the premises of Quique Dacosta, we were offered a seat in the lounge area where we will be served the appetiser part of the dinner or the first out of six acts that the dinner consists off.

This is also where we were given our “gift” – the Quique Dacosta booklet “Cocine Belleza – Cooking Beauty” (if you have been following our 3* odyssey you know the booklet drill by now). In comparison to Aponiente and DiverXO, this booklet felt more like a bunch of promotional material interspersed with even more promotional material – both of other brands (Dom Pérignon, Breitling, etc.) and his other restaurants. The booklet had more than ONE HUNDRED PAGES!!! and it was completely unnecessary and did not do much for me. Very well produced but with minimal personal value.

We started 1° Act with a few aperitivo drinks: Matas chose to have a glass of cava and I had a glass of vermouth made in this region. Recaredo produces some really lovely cavas but I personally prefer Terrers 2018 over Serral del Vell 2015, as the latter is less smooth and a tad heavier on the palate in comparison. Primitivo Quiles red vermouth that I had was very strong on raisins with a variety of spices coming through the balsamy feel of the drink which I found quite tasty.

Leaving the drinks aside, the lounge area was actually quite disappointing. We were seated outside in a small nook facing a glassed in lounge area. This would not have been that bad if we also were not facing the restaurant entryway where every subsequent group of people coming to the dinner had to pass. This did nothing to create a relaxing and intimate lounging experience that I would have preferred. Also, those concrete tiles are ugly, at least have some fake grass or something. Very un-lounge-y.

1° Act consisted of three appetisers. The first appetiser to be served was chili crab with prawn flavoured bread. And let me tell you that this tasted so much like the chili crab you get in Singapore that both Matas and I were blown away! No other place that boasted to serve Asian-influenced dishes ever came this close to actually nailing the taste but these guys at Quique Dacosta did it! It was just so FLAVOURFUL. The entire dish was a sort of chili crab tasting mousse with crab meat served in the bottom. It was very delightful to eat but right of the bat we thought that the portion was a tad big. The dish light, yes, but more than two or three bites!

Next appetiser to come out was called “Roots, barks and buds…” and contained a variety of parsnip textures with Mediterranean pine served on a beautiful bed of forest moss. Again, I loved this dish. The various textures of parsnip were served on a tangy, creamy mousse that was further enhanced by the drops of fragrant pine oil.

The third and last appetiser to arrive consisted of two things: a pumpkin doughnut with black truffle and a consommé of pumpkin and its seed oil. The doughnut was much oilier than I would have preferred but the outside was incredibly thin and crispy. The doughnut was filled with a liquid-y filling that was very runny and also very delicious.

The pumpkin consommé was delicious too, especially with a slight balancing bitterness that was coming from pumpkin seed oil. An overall very yummy dish but again it felt like a much larger portion than an appetiser should be. Do you see a theme emerging here? Yup.

After finishing our appetisers and aperitivo drinks in the lounge area, we were escorted to our table inside the restaurant. The restaurant is actually quite small in comparison but it did not feel too crowded. I think we only counted 10 tables (4 of which were not being served that night).

To our biggest dismay another party of four Lithuanians was dining at Quique Dacosta that night and of course they were seated at a table closest to us. I cannot explain why we have this big aversion to our compatriots at any time anywhere but it is what it is. I guess this innate necessity to avoid other Lithuanians in public is a proper neurosis stemming from our post-Soviet upbringing. Needless to say we elected to speak in English in as much as possible among ourselves.

We were offered a wine pairing consisting of a 50/50 mix of Spanish and international wines and we were not convinced by it. We had a little discussion with the sommelier and asked whether it was possible to substitute the international wines for the local ones. It was possible with the exception of one wine (champagne, actually) and we happily agreed to proceed.

2° Act consisted of two dishes and started with something called “vegetal abalone” served with emulsion of sea anemone in a gorgeous half shelf that belonged to who knows what animal. This vegetal abalone proved to actually be a mushroom and it ended up being quite an interesting, very sea-forward dish. The plate contained a few bits of different sea weed and a dusting of spirulina, so you can imagine HOW sea-forward it was. The anemone emulsion was quite tangy, so despite the hard sea-sell of spirulina, it was a balanced affair.

Do Ferreiro Cepas Vellas is produced from 100% Albariño vines that are more than 200 years old. Coming from D.O. Rias Baixas in Galicia, it is a coastal wine drawing minerality not only from the Atlantic ocean but also from the granite soil. This wine was really surprising with a heavily floral and acidic nose, yet incredibly light and refreshing taste lingering with an elegant and effervescent acidity. A great pairing that helped rounding out the sea-forwardiness of the dish with the light minerality of the wine.

According to the printed out menus that we had on hand, the second dish in this act was marinated wild carrot with chilled cream of bacon. I do not think this setup looks like a “marinated wild carrot with chilled cream of bacon”, so, obviously, this dish was not on the menu. What we were served instead consisted of lobster meat, a variety of caviar and crispy bits served on the plate, lobster head served on the side and some fine lobster bisque served in conches.

The sauce was poured by the waitress, so we did not handle the conches but in any case this proved to be quite a tactile dish since we needed to negotiate the meat that was in the lobster head. Overall, this was an excellent dish. The soup was light and velvety, the plate very unexpectedly contained an interesting mix of stuff that not only was delicious, it proved to be a textural sensation with the softness of the meat, the pops of different caviar and something crunchy that popped up out of nowhere. And I hope I do not have to tell you how fresh the seafood was and how that lobster meat was sweet and juicy and divine.

Alongside this dish we were served a glass of Dom Pérignon Brut Vintage 2012, the only drink that could not have been substituted with a local offering and we had an inkling as to why. The chef is their brand ambassador (there is a whole long write up in the booklet), so he is probably contractually obligated to include it in the wine pairing.

Anyway, I do not think I have ever had Dom Pérignon before as it is a little too expensive for my tastes. Although this did prove to be a worthwhile pairing. The champagne powerful on the nose and bold in its taste. It complemented the dish marvelously, so there was that.

As the first time visitors to Quique Dacosta we were served the chef’s signature dish of Dénia’s famous red prawn. The chef claims that the best way to prepare the prawn is to boil it in sea water. No additional preparation, no additional seasoning, nothing. And let me tell you, this has been the best prawn I have ever had in my life.

Hear me out, right of the bat this red prawn had such a fascinating taste and texture, that it blew my mind when we had it here and every time we had it prepared elsewhere in Dénia. If you are familiar with the texture of the fake crab meat, you would notice it in this prawn as well. It fell apart in layers and layers of sweet, juicy and succulent meat that melted in the mouth with an explosion of flavour. No seasoning. No nothing. Boiled in seawater. The best prawn I have ever had in my life. Truly truly exceptional.

3° Act consisted of three dishes, the first being a red tuna kombucha with marrow jelly in the cup. I know what you might say: a tuna kombucha?! what the actual..?! And yet, this was probably one of my favourite plates (cups?) of the night. The kombucha was not only drinkable, it was delectable. The black tea light and crispy with a punch of umami in your face and a soft and jiggly finish when you find that tuna bone marrow at the end. Conceptually, this was mind-blowing and I was there for it. Phenomenal.

The second dish was delivered on a huge side table that held three types of preserved tuna. We were served a red tuna belly cured for 6 months, smoked jerky of red tuna made from tuna filet and cured black tuna collar with dry aromatic herbs. In order to elaborate their tuna, Quique Dacosta worked with engineers from one of the universities to design and create a curing chamber that would not necessitate using salt-to-fish contact. They built a chamber that has a saline atmosphere enough to cure the fish without ever having to rub it in salt. The first two tuna variations were produced this way (kept for 3 and 6 months in the saline chamber). The third piece was encased in salt to completely dry it out.

I am sure it is visible in the picture how oily the first piece was. It was so rich, it felt like drinking fish oil and munching on a seaweed butter stick. It was unbearably rich and I hated every single second of having it in my mouth.

The only thing that helped at all was a huge gulp of La Riva Manzanilla Pasada sherry that was served alongside this course. As I am sure everyone already knows, manzanilla is a type of fino sherry produced in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. This sherry was not one of those very yeasty and briny sherries, on the contrary, it was rather light almost with a hint of chamomile and it did wonders to wash the palate clean of that fish oil sensation. I still get shivers when I think of that tuna.

The second and third tunas were better. Still an acquired taste I would say. The smoked jerky one was dry and salty enough that it cut through the original richness of the fish. After the previous one, I actually managed to enjoy this one. The third was very interesting though. It was so peculiar, I am not sure I have words to describe it. It was like eating a goat. Maybe because it was dried with a mix of mountain herbs like rosemary and thyme that it had that “goat-y” quality?

I can appreciate the process and the acumen needed to serve such a creation but I have to say I liked this “dish” the least out of all the things I was served that night. I cannot say that it was disappointing because both the process and the result was intriguing but this is where the dinner turned for the worse I think. The portions were too big. The food was too rich and too fatty. There was nothing on the plate to ever balance it out.

That said, I liked this next dish a lot. It was introduced as grilled “pearl” with seaweed charcoal but it was much more than that. Under the dark sauce oysters were waiting for me to find them and under the same sauce there were curious crispy bits that gave this dish a crunch and created a textural change. I found it very delicious but again, the portion was quite big.

4° Act started with a grilled bread. FINALLY, I exclaimed in my mind. Finally, a course to celebrate bread and not only that, to celebrate olive oil that is made from the olives of Farga variety that grow on millennial trees and are only found in Maestrazgo, Aragón. Not only I was finally served a bread course, this flat bread was the most delicious bread without any doubt I have had in Spain. It was incredibly crispy with a fluffy interior soaked in incredible olive oil and sprinkled with finishing salt. This course was divine. This course made me very very happy.

This was another favourite of our night: Albufera stew made with boiled peanuts, foie gras and smoked eel. “Cacaus del Collaret” are very rare peanuts that are only grown around Valencia. Have you ever had boiled peanuts before? I absolutely love them! And this dish was a total sensation with soft boiled peanuts, a few pieces of rich foie and smoky eel – it sounds like a weird mix of things but surprisingly it worked together so well. Absolutely delectable.

Although they need to lose that stupid raw Brussel sprout leaf?! That dish lacks nothing and they decided to put some “healthy, green thing to balance it out”? Balance out the rest of your fatty dishes and then go about placing random redundant stuff where it does not belong. Rant over.

I honestly do not remember much about this wine. I recall that the sommelier was very passionate about this wine with an interesting story about how it is produced. Alas, nothing including the taste profile stayed in my memory. Oh well.

This “stuffed pepper” was my absolute favourite dish of the night. The sweet, smoky, leathery pepper was placed on a pile of very creamy and fragrant rice that were made so well, you could separate every individual grain. This dish was a total and utter flavour explosion and textural heaven. I am in lack of words how FLAVOURSOME this was. Bold. Rich. Sweet. Smoky. Tangy. Umami. It had it all and it carried me on a wave after wave of satisfaction.

Quincha Corral Mustiguillo was one of the wines that was brought in as our local pairing. On its own, it was very nice, complex yet perfectly balanced between acidity and boldness. It did not, however, work with our food. Something happened between the two, where the wine lost its perfect balance and instead hit heavy with acidity. I would have to drink this wine on its own but not with that particular dish.

5° Act continued the service with more rich and fatty dishes and that was beginning to weight on us. Remember that saline atmosphere chamber that the tuna was cured in? Well, this beef was aged in the same chamber for over one year. It was a fabulous piece of beef, fatty and succulent but it 100% did not feel like it was aged at all. Yes, you could taste a mature quality of the meat but it was so red and moist, it really played some tricks on my mind. At this point I was just glad it was thin and relatively small as I was already full since like four dishes ago.

El Reventón was another wine brought in as a substitute. The same situation as above occurred: the wine was truly memorable on its own – delicately balanced with enough complexity that is required of a red, yet paired with the aged beef, it developed this acidic characteristic that I did not like. Truly lovely on its own, though.

I cannot even begin to describe this absolute monstrosity of the dish. I really just cannot. To finish the savoury part of the dinner with a fatty killer like this is madness. I get shivers just by looking at that picture. The dish consisted of griller marrow (the white outside bit) and beef tartare (the dark inside bit).

Beef tartare was actually not that bad as it had some slight acidity coming from the rich sauce, although for the life of me, I would never call that part “tartare” – it was so heavily sauced that you could not distinguish where the supposedly raw meat was.

Grilled marrow part was obnoxiously punch-in-you-face fatty. It was like eating shortening and even with that slight acidity from the tartare part of the dish, there was no helping the sickly and overpowering fatness of it all. Have you seen how thick and huge that marrow bit was? Who serves a dish like that at the end I keep asking myself?!

The wine only helped so little as well. It was a lovely one, quite bold and tannic with ripe fruits on the nose and in the mouth. A very nice wine overall but I just could not appreciate it or enjoy it in any way because I was legitimately feeling sick.

The funniest bit is how the staff kept asking us if we liked this rich menu over and over again and I still do not understand how does a restaurant located on the shores of the Mediterranean sea produce such an overpoweringly rich and fatty menu.

We were finally nearing the end. 6° Act started with a polvorón – a type of almond shortbread cookie eaten around Christmas time as we were told. Instead of being shortbread-ish, it was actually quite light, mousy and airy. That did not change the fact that there was nothing to balance the sweetness. I would have killed for some citrus at this point but citrus we did not get.

At this point I was done. I guess I was done way before this overwhelmed by all the fat. But I was done with sweet now too and I did not care for any of the following dessert wines.

Do you think this mound of mousse filled dessert is quite large? Well, the pink pepper “muffin” covered in napkin cheese and raspberries not only looked big, it felt hefty in the hand and covered the entirety of the palm. It was so incredulous, I really cannot believe they were serving dessert the size of this. Was it in any way refreshing? No! It was another sweet treat in a long line of fatty and rich food. I did not like at all.

There was something special about the making of this wine but I have absolute zero recollection of what was said about it. I only remember that Tintilla de Rota grape variety is only found near Cadíz.

The last dessert (finally!) was dedicated to the chef’s mother. The dessert was served in a music box with a little note revealed on the side that was perfumed with her favourite scent and read as follows: “is there anything more beautiful than a memory of a mother?”. The dessert had a lace style sheet decorated with flower petals that revealed a whole lot of cream underneath once broken through.

Did you think the music box looks big? Well, yes it was and on top of that it was filled with enough cream to drown oneself after realising that you just had 17 full size courses AND there were still petit fours coming out.

As for the wine. Meh.

Petit fours came out not so petite but who am I to say anything anymore. The almond bomb was the closest thing to having something refreshing during the entirety of the dinner – the outside coating was a thin hard shell that burst with a cool liquid-y filling. Probably the only part of the dessert I actually liked.

The creamy mango bomb just tasted off. I am not a big fan of mangoes, they always have a weird taste to me and this was no exception. Maybe even more pronounced than eating a raw mango.

The honeycomb thing did nothing to alleviate the already disastrous imbalance situation. Sweet sweet sweet across the board. The cortado was also very bitter and at this point I was GLAD we were finally done.

Yes, there was a mandatory bathroom mirror selfie taken. And yes, all of the tables had a few legs too many. And yes, that is the picture of a walkthrough “patio” area where we sat for our welcoming snacks. Can you tell this dinner exhausted me? We both had upset stomachs the next day. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!

Summary

Food: sensational, this menu was a total flavour explosion and textural paradise, but the portion sizing did not work for us, neither did the constant and continuous richness and fattiness of the food served. 7/10.

Drinks: I was incredibly happy the wine pairing was adapted to fit our preferences (from a 50/50 mix of local and international to 99% local). The wines were very good, although some were better on their own than with the food. 8/10.

Service: umm, I did not like the service at Quique Dacosta, it felt a bit too familiar for my liking, there was a lot of loud questioning of where we were from and with the table of those other Lithuanians that was not something I felt was strictly necessary. 4/10.

Atmosphere: I did not like the lounge area, especially the part where we were seated and the restaurant itself was nothing to write home about. 6/10.

Bread course: YES! FINALLY! I loved the bread course. It was done exactly as it is supposed to be: celebrated and as a course on its own. 10/10.

Gift: another booklet, this one a thick read full of promotional material, there was nothing intimate or welcoming about it. 2/10.

Damage: degustation menu €250 per person, wine pairing €150 per person, glass of cava €15, glass of vermouth €9, two bottles of sparkling mineral water €12, coffees were complimentary. The value for money is definitely poorer than at Aponiente, for example. 6/10.

The summary of the summary

I cannot stress this enough and I have to stress it: the food was phenomenal. The taste, the flavour combinations, the textural differences… it all was truly amazing but everything was just so. incredibly. unnecessarily. rich. and. fatty. Combine that with the portion sizes – there was not a single dish that I would have considered small – and it significantly decreases my admiration for Quique Dacosta.

I am sad to say but I do not think this place gets Ieva’s seal of approval. It had great promise and incredible potential from the beginning but it got heavier and harder to enjoy as the dinner progressed. Everything, the atmosphere and service included, was just a little bit off and that shows at the end.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk on how NOT to serve 17 rich and fatty courses without giving anything ANYTHING to balance it out.