The El Bulli restaurant in Spain was voted the best restaurant in the world for years. Many of the chefs that worked there have now successfully opened their own restaurants throughout the world (in Norway we had Oscarsgate with Bjørn Svensson, now the recently opened Fauna). Another one of these Bulli chefs has opened Compartir (which means to share) in one of the back alleys in Cadaques.
The restaurant is large for the area with several employees running around in grey outfits. And I think the only negative thing about this place was that it took almost half an hour before we got to place our order. After that, everything went smoothly, pleasantly and well tasting!
Their vine list was very local and not too big, but we finally found the Cava we had been reading about and wanting to taste. The Recaredo Brut de Brut Riserva has received great recommendations. We had the 2004, but it was still very fresh, delicate and had strong smell and taste of green apples. I loved it. Especially together with all the fish dishes that we ordered. We had a glass of Ribera del Duero with the rabbit, but it was rather dull, and really not worth mentioning.
We started, like we always do, with a plate of Iberico ham, and this one was of excellent quality and had just the right temperature. The girls loved their salmon sashimi so much that we had to order extras. It came with a warm pot of a miso-soup tasting broth and long tweezers, so you could cook it if you wanted too.
For me, the best dish of them all was the tuna, Asian style. It was rolled up like a long cigar on a bed of the best green oil/sauce/vinaigrette I have had in a long time. I could have left the place happy after this dish and the bottle of Recaredo… But there was more good stuff to come. We had mussels with béarnaise. A combination I had never heard of before. It actually tasted quite good, but it wasn´t the kind of thing you could eat too many of, but still a fun thing to have tried. And then the rabbit ribs. I must have read the menu wrong, because I usually never order anything fried (I believe my meat doesn´t have to be killed a second time), but it wasn´t too bad. The dip it came with was heavenly and convincing. Still, the starters, and especially the ones from the sea, are my recommendations for a visit to Compartir.