ABaC Barcelona Review 2025: polished service, reduced ambition

My connection with ABaC goes back to my first visit 2009, when Barcelona had no three-star restaurants. ABaC held two stars and was among the city’s most promising tables. Barcelona was already a serious food city, shaped by the influence of El Bulli and restaurants like Alkimia and Cinc Sentits. I returned in 2021 and was impressed by a long, carefully staged tasting. In 2025 I visited twice for dinner, in May and again in September. The team remains professional and the welcome is warm, but the cooking has become narrower and safer.

Competition at the top is intense: Disfrutar, Lasarte, and Cocina Hermanos Torres also hold three stars, a field that merits a separate article on which of Barcelona’s three-star restaurants leads.

Location & Atmosphere

ABaC sits above the centre. It is a very good place to stay if the main goal is dinner, but it functions more as a restaurant with rooms than a full-service hotel. In September my room was reached passing through the kitchen, a practical detail that underlines the house’s priorities.

There is a small garden where the sommelier pours Cava with easy charm. The main dining room is calm, tables are well spaced, explanations are clear, and pacing is steady. One downside: reaching the city centre takes roughly 30 minutes by taxi.

Hotel guests are offered a shorter menu alongside the full tasting, which makes a two-night stay feasible: degustation one evening, the hotel menu the next.

Culinary Style or Distinctive Character

Jordi Cruz’s cooking blends Catalan roots with modern technique. In 2021 that approach was delivered through a longer, more ambitious arc. In 2025 the arc is compressed, with the tasting priced at 295 EUR. May still felt coherent at around seventeen courses; September dropped to sixteen and leaned more on familiar signatures from earlier years. I did not see the chef in the room during the September visit.

Menu / The Dishes

Appetisers returned to house staples: Bloody Mary on the rocks; a blue fish sequence with ajo blanco and romesco;

Pickled chilli with tuna belly; strawberry and black-olive kakigori with olive oil; and a Black Gilda, a clean riff on the classic pintxo of olive, anchovy and chilli.

Among the first courses, milk tomatoes with dry maccheroni as a pesto, green-tomato gazpacho and Caprese sprouts showed good product and neat acidity.

Cured sea bream with molluscs, frozen hummus and a spring-onion gazpachuelo with cilantro was the most precise plate in September.

The butter candle on black bread worked as a quiet table ritual, gently smoky rather than theatrical. Squid veil with tartar and a clear squid consommé with caviar was well judged and restrained.

Mains were straightforward. Monkfish with olives, seaweed and cabbages read as a solid Mediterranean dish. Iberian pork pluma with romesco sauces and pickled carrots was the stronger of the two, accurately cooked and lifted by the condiments.

Desserts followed the familiar sequence: yoghurt with essence of flowers, coconut, white chocolate and citrus; La merienda; the balloon of raspberry with begonia lollies and strawberry-lavender water, unchanged from 2021; and sweets from the pumpkin.

From the May dinner, two plates suggested a higher ceiling than September: carabinero prawn mokabaisse with cured grouper, and a deconstructed beef fricandó in a Japanese style. Both combined idea, flavour and detail with more intent than the later menu.

Wine

I relied on the sommelier’s guidance. The focus on Catalan bottles and a smart house Cava suits the restaurant. Service around wine is friendly and assured.

Verdict

Across the two 2025 dinners the direction is clear. The menu has tightened, repetition has increased, and premium products appear less often. Execution is careful and service is strong, but the ambition that defined 2021 has faded.

September 2025 was a step down from May 2025; the absence of premium ingredients, aside from caviar, made the menu feel improvised, as if a supplier had fallen through. May 2025 itself was already a step down from 2021. ABaC currently holds three Michelin stars; on recent evidence, the experience no longer feels at that level, and I am curious what the next Michelin Guide will decide. For now, it offers a pleasant evening, but it is not a destination in itself and I would not plan a special trip around it. One practical advantage remains: it is currently the only three-star restaurant in Barcelona open on Monday, which may help travellers planning around that day.

Location: Barcelona, Spain
Chef: Jordi Cruz
Michelin rating: ★★★
Visited: May 2025, September 2025 (previous visits 2021, 2009)
Tags: Fine Dining, Michelin 3 Stars, Barcelona, Restaurant with Rooms, Catalan Cuisine, Tasting Menu, Wine Service

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