Baló, a dream under construction

Seven years have passed since their first encounter and they are still so young that if you add their ages, they barely exceed 50. Hardened in the demanding school of London fine-dining, their love story has survived the relentless pace imposed by other people's kitchens. And now, they have decided that, if they are going to keep enduring shouts in the kitchen, at least they should be their own.

Lena, who grew up in the Sants neighborhood, has brought Ricky to Barcelona to embark together on a project that started a few months ago and that suddenly promotes them from chefs to co-owners; forcing them to combine their genuine passion for cooking with the inherent demands of managing a business.

At a time when most new restaurants look alike (at least those not born thanks to a multimillion-dollar investment), Baló, on Déu i Mata street, 141 in Barcelona, stands out from the rest by opting for a large space, with high ceilings, white tablecloths, abstract paintings on the walls, and plenty of space between tables.

Backed by their family, the young couple's daring all-in has the powerful asset of talent, but at the poker table of Barcelona's hospitality industry, there are many sharks, and to win, luck is also needed.

"Baló" comes from the contraction of Barcelona and London; and its cuisine ---creative and refined--- intelligently incorporates elements from both coordinates.

At lunchtime, they offer a menu for 25€ and at night, the possibilities expand to two tasting menus (the short one for 45€ and the long one for 80€) and an a la carte menu, brief, composed of their greatest hits.

The wine list, local, is not very extensive but it is structured and daring, mixing different production styles, producing regions, and types of wineries. The list includes stimulating references such as Amistat Blanc (Côtes du Roussillon) and gems like the sparkling 109 Gran Reserva (Clàssic Penedès) or the nº3 Pedra Negra from Priorat.

We tried the Baló menu, for 45€, which starts with sourdough bread, accompanied by pomade butter and Maldon salt. This flake salt takes its name from Maldon, the coastal town in the county of Essex where it has been harvested since 1882. Ricky, the chef, was also born in Essex, and here he draws on his tradition to whet our appetite and get us to spread tirelessly.

The nods to the British imaginary continue in an appetizer in finger food format: on one side, a potato puff pastry covered with cilantro mayonnaise and a thin slice of spring onion; on the other, a pork croquette breaded with panko and topped with a touch of black garlic all i oli.

Two fried and unctuous bites that, in a crunchy way, synthesize the mythical bangers & mash, a dish of sausages with mashed potatoes that has been served in pubs since the time of Henry VIII.

The following track also sounds like brit-pop, as mackerel is one of the UK's fetish fish. Here, the mackerel arrives seared with a blowtorch and accompanied by herbaceous freshness: spheres of pickled apple, cucumber radiography, and a sauce of the same cucurbit with yogurt and dill, which refreshes our palate after the fried appetizer. Very clean.

The menu continues with a soup, which is welcome in a city that, with the exception of ramen, seems to have banished broths from its menus. This onion and mushroom soup (enoki, i.e., cultivated) is served with a low-temperature egg, garlic "air," and some chopped hazelnuts. The sweet and toasted nut adds little to the dish, but the truth is that more and more chefs are using it as a crunchy topping in their creations. Trends. Mysteries.

The soup imposes a pause that forces a slowdown, putting dinner in stand-by mode.

And suddenly, as happens during the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, bodies straighten, gazes fix, and things get serious.

First, the corvina. Its skin, toasted and crispy, protects the fleshy and pearly fiber, with an exact flavor. Beside it, the shell of a razor clam filled with the bivalve's meat, tender almond, and crispy bread powder concentrates in that narrow corridor the technique and instinct of the chef couple. Wembley on its feet.

Immediately after, an even better dish, with lamb as the protagonist.

The splendid chop arrives at the table as pink and juicy as those we see in cartoons when characters, starving, fantasize about food. On the other side of the plate, wrapped in a cabbage leaf, hides a bit of "butifarra" made with meat from the same animal: a bite that refers to the pilota and therefore, to happy Christmas nostalgia. The sea that bathes both islands is a meat juice bordered by a thread of black garlic cream: a concentration of flavor that pounds our taste buds with cannon shots.

Pomp. Velvet. Coronation.

The dessert (honey and turmeric cream with gelled lemon and cookie crumble) more than delivers, once again demonstrating Lena and Ricky's skill and good taste in combining flavors.

In Baló, one breathes the abundant ambition of the owner couple, their quality as cooks and their inclination towards the culinary rhetoric of fine-dining; but precisely in a proposal of this register, the service should transfer to the dining room the effort, talent, and desire that are intuited in each dish.

For now, this symbiosis still doesn't quite work, which translates into a feeling of work in progress that subtracts some spirit from the comfortable space they have designed, distancing the kitchen from the dining room and distorting the promising staging that the whole exudes.

Baló is an adventure driven by the passion of Lena Maria Grané and Ricky Smith, which will grow in form and substance as they are able to configure a team that accompanies them, as an extension of their eyes and hands, to fill with life the ambitious stage they have chosen to give shape to their dream.