Look, guys, we get it; The Bear is the hot new show that everyone loves right now (and rightfully so), and so everyone has since fallen somewhere on the spectrum of fine dining culture, whether that’s attending more high-end restaurants and pretending that you understand the culinary nuances, or even taking a crack at high-quality home cooking.
Let it be known, however, that just because the Michelin folk are now finding free real estate in the Carmy Army, in no way does that mean that they’ll all be fooled if the food is actually bad under that artistic presentation. In fact, no attendee of Spanish restaurant Mugaritz seems terribly pleased with the $800 sand they’re being fed, and TikTok‘s @chloejadetravels was one such attendee.
Sure, Chloe and her friends may not be getting murdered by Chef Slowik from The Menu, but this particular lineup of tiny meals seems to be doing its damnedest to suck the life out of them. The trials begin as a QR code that, when scanned, leads them to a webpage full of buttons that make lamb noises when pressed. Shortly after, lamb is served to the guests. The mood has been set.
Subsequent servings include potato skins that look like makeup wipes (complete with barbecue sauce that probably tastes like mascara), caviar on an energy bar of sorts, some saving grace in the form of almond butter-topped mochi, a thoroughly unappetizing beeswax egg, and a flan made from cod tripe and eggs. Everyone is miserable, one other patron makes a scene by refusing to pay, and Chloe is pretty sure at this point that they’re—literally and figuratively—being fed nonsense here.
According to Chloe, Mugaritz has harbored not one, but two Michelin stars for over 20 years, and apparently used to serve genuinely delicious meals, but has since fallen off in a big way here. Knowing this, there’s a bit too much humor to be found on the restaurant’s website; one of the tabs under the “Experience” dropdown menu is “Eat?” (yes, with a question mark), and when you click it, you’re taken to a page whose headline reads “Food?” (again, with a question mark). Does Mugaritz even know what it’s doing anymore?
All jokes aside, perhaps this was just an off-day. According to the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, the Michelin rating criteria includes five factors; product quality, mastery of flavor and cooking techniques, the personality of the chef represented in the dining experience, value for money, and consistency between visits from the Michelin inspectors (Michelin inspectors attend these restaurants anonymously, visiting at different seasons and ordering different things at different times of the day).
In other words, Mugaritz had to be doing something right in order to retain its two-star Michelin rating all these years, but who knows what might happen to its reputation from here on?