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A group of friends were the other day at the door of Desencaja , the excellent Madrid restaurant of Iván Sáez , saying goodbye after an opiparous lunch, when one of them noticed that the sign had changed and now said 'Desencaja Bistro' . "Does that mean something new?" He asked the room manager. "It means that the mandatory menus died," was the answer.
In the last decade, restaurants that only offer tasting menus have proliferated - not to be confused with the generally very cheap 'menu of the day', so widespread in Spain - and have suppressed the menu and, with it, the possibility of choosing each dish for customer's part It is, in this country, a relative novelty, since it was very frequent in the so-called 'gastronomic restaurants' that coexisted a classic menu and a tasting menu or several. But as fame increased - with its stars and suns - an establishment grew the temptation of one or more tasting menus as the only offer: fewer dishes to prepare, quantity of necessary ingredients easily and precisely calculable. And prices accordingly.
Thus, a recent review in Metropolis of Yugo the Bunker , an original and somewhat mysterious Japanese restaurant in Madrid with a Michelin star, indicated that it only offers three menus of 85, 110 and 155 euros per person, without drinks: for less than 100 euros no It eats there. And when the customer is also offered a ' pairing ' -'word 'which means to accompany the well-harmonized wine dishes with each of them- and the client embarks on that adventure, the thing goes off even more. In Coque (two Michelin stars) you can approach 300 euros per person.
The recovery of the 2008 crisis
We were reaching like this, in the restaurants that had passed to the tasting menu, prices already close to those of the most expensive cities in the world, when the average in Spain is much more modest. The recovery after the 2008 crisis and the increase in the number of tourists encouraged these luxuries.
Why then give up on them, as they say in Desencaja ? The sources of the sector warn - and they already did it before the first and still discreet alarms for the coronavirus sounded here - that a new crisis is beginning to be noticed, or at least a decrease in the influx of customers, and some restaurants are noticing very clearly in your income statement.
The feverish activity of the famous communication agencies, which are increasingly sending communications to journalists, is confirming it.
Thus, the agency of one of the restaurants distinguished by the guides in the capital, and so far dedicated only to closed menus, has just sent this note: "You can already eat in Gaytán a la carte! Javier Aranda opens this new format for his Michelin star in Madrid (from Tuesday to Friday at noon), which will change depending on the season. With this new proposal, the chef intends to bring haute cuisine to all types of diners and not only be linked to the tasting menu ".
How to lower prices
There are other formulas to lower prices and encourage parishioners, even those who already offered a classic letter. Thus, from Le Bistroman -a new French restaurant with very good reviews throughout the press- sweeten the thing with this note: "With an average ticket of 60 euros, Le Bistroman wants to give a wink to its most intimate side, promoting the Lunch schedule with 'plats du jour' (dishes of the day), a unique dish proposal that combines the authenticity of the French recipe with the touch of ' atelier '. This formula is available from Monday to Friday from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. , with a price of 25 euros, dessert included. The idea is that you can discover the best dishes of the restaurant at a contained price and without the experience getting too long, to be able to continue with the working day. "
In times like these, inventiveness emerges to attract more clientele to restaurants, and the notes of the communication agencies crackle. The 'four-handed' is a booming genre within this trend. Thus, we have just learned that the Horcher Madrid restaurant and the Catalan Vía Veneto , two famous veterans, will offer at the headquarters of Barcelona, on March 3, a 'four-handed dinner' cooked by Miguel Hermann , chef de Horcher, and David Andrés , chef of Vía Veneto, with "the most emblematic recipes of both houses".
Also in the same spirit, the 'triestrellado' Quique Dacosta received a few days ago in one of its restaurants, the Llisa Negra of Valencia, Bittor Arginzioniz , the Basque barbecue who has achieved worldwide fame in his Etxebarri de Axpe (Vizcaya), and both starred in one of those 'four hands', in this case a duel of grills around a red meat of a six-year-old animal that should be succulent.
Welcome be all that with regard to customers, no doubt. But you continue this space in the coming months, hoping that the coronavirus does not aggravate things yet, or do it very briefly, because although they are presented with the best possible face and with all possible inventiveness, the signs of a withdrawal are clearly there and they were before the alarm of the disease that comes to us from China . When the economy suffers meals away from home are one of the first luxuries that are given up.
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