Restaurant LES COLS | Olot

A wonderful experience in a designer setting on the ground floor of an old “Masia “ beautifully kept. Service efficient, attentive and knowledgeable. Elegant place with a relaxing atmosphere. A tasting menu based on the locally grown produce. These products are carefully prepared, with respect and a lot of creativity. It was a perfect moment.

We've been to some 2-Michelin star restaurants and 1 star ones over the past years. Les Cols will be amongst the top ones we've been so far in every aspect. The service was exceptional, our host Mark was charming and welcoming, sensitive to our needs and educated on various aspects of the business as well as wines and food. The food - 26 courses, every one was delicious, many of them were fantastic. Probably because the entire menu followed a concept and we were able to follow thru. The wine pairing was matching the food experience and the wines chosen were simply excellent, all from the region. The setting? Incredible! The architecture is stunning. If you like modern, simplistic architecture with clear lines, steel and concrete paired with a foundation of an ancient building from the 15th century - here you go. We'll be back when in the area, definitely!

Outstanding! Lunch here is not just lunch - it is a 7-hour experience from the start of the tour of the restaurant "huerta" (15 min drive up the hills from the restaurant) to the moment you leave the restaurant, well-fed. The food, the service, the sommelier, the tour of the restaurant garden and grounds, the architecture - all excellent. More than 30 little culinary surprises throughout the afternoon, all made with regional produce and Catalan wines to match. Simply amazing.

We came on a Wednesday, so very few people in the restaurant. Service was incredible, dessert served in the garden under the stars. Incredible evening. I’d say there is almost too much food, by the end we were stuffed!

We stayed at the hotel, which was magnificent! We had reserved a table for lunch at the restaurant, we entered at 13:30 and left after 17h (after telling the service to speed up the lasts plates because we had to drive back home). The starters were fantastic (see photos), however there were way too many dishes in the whole menu and served way too slowly. As someone wrote here in the comments (which made us laugh lots because of how true it felt): “you enter today and you leave next year”. No joke, this is how it feels. Never ending lunch, that you end up wanting to run away from… Of course some dishes were spectacular, but when you had too much food over so many hours you end up no appreciating anything at all. With half of the plates I would have been deeply satisfied and the experience much more enjoyable. Sometimes less is more, indeed. The service needs to work on their performance, the movements, the presence, the coordination… because the architecture and design is so powerful the human body needs to flow with more solemnity through the space.

Espectacular Brutal Amazing!!! Simply unbelivable!!!! The amazing soul of this cuisine, the roots of this restaurant is a piece of terroir, a small portion of Garrotxa region and a essence of the North Catalonia tradition. The way vegetables are cook are simply amazing. The manner the local product is cook is a 3* The service and the HUMANS that serve you are TOP. Great treatment and amazing service. Huge wine list with many local products. Thanks a lot for this TOP EXPERIENCE

I don’t want to seem like I’m exaggerating but this place could actually be the best fine dining experience of my life. The full menu is an experience like no other. It’s clear that the local pride and passion for each dish extends from the kitchen to the front of house. Everything is beautiful and interesting and part of a story of the family that watches over this extraordinary place in La Garrotxa. Stay at the Pavellons hotel after a meal to complete this otherworldly experience of a lifetime.

We were a bit concerned after reading the reviews but we need not to have worried.. it was an amazing gastronomic experience and don’t be mislead by the harsh reviews. Either they are not getting it or they were having a bad day... The house and grounds are very charming but you come here for the food.. and let me reassure you immediately the food is of a very high standard indeed. It’s worth of its two Michelin stars without question. Seasonality is the philosophy here and you can feel it with every dish you are presented. The quantities seem small at first but rest assured you will not leave hungry. Quite the opposite in fact... Service was attentive and professional if not warm. But you could tell they genuinely cared and we didn’t get any bad vibes nor attitude. Quite the opposite in fact. Food taste can be highly subjective but I feel I can recommend this place hand in heart. The only thing I was slightly disappointed about is the decor which is a bit bling and too modern for the setting and the message the chef is conveying with her recipes.

Les Cols has a very different feel from any other restaurant I've been to in the area. Ultra modern decor (you have to see it, it is indescribable) and a slightly strange layout immediately let you know that you're in for something different here. The restaurant is arranged in an "L" shape. The small side of the L has a few tables arranged as one might expect in a restaurant. The long side contains one giant long table down the middle which, on the night we went, was set for a number of couples with about 3 chair widths between each setting...awkward! Not to mention not very private...this part of the room was virtually silent throughout the evening. Off of the long section of the restaurant are a number of small rooms containing a single table each, and it was in one of these rooms that our table for 5 had been laid. The idea here is clearly to give you an experience centred around a meal (as opposed to just a meal). To that end, dinner actually starts outside behind the restaurant in a garden area. Here, you will be brought a glass of cava as well as an array of hors d'oeuvres common to both menus on offer (either their "normal" tasting menu or their vegetarian tasting menu, which bizarrely even shares the meat based hors d'oeuvres with the non-veggi menu). This was a nice touch, except that there was quite a long time left between the different food items, so we didn't actually sit down at our table until 45-50 minutes after our reservation time. Also, they did not have enough chairs for everyone who had booked at the same time as us, which meant that some people had to sit either on the grass or on the low stone wall ringing the garden (not great for the poor guy who decided to wear white trousers to dinner). A lot of the food on the menu sounded clever and interesting and there seemed to be a nice balance of flavours and ingredients on offer. The execution of the dishes though was very hit and miss, with some dishes being nicely cooked, well flavoured and well balanced, whilst others were bland to the point where you would not have had a clue what you were eating were it not for the fact that it had been written down for you first. Unfortunately, whoever was on salt duty in the kitchen that night was far too enthusiastic in their role and pretty much every dish came with what can only be described as a heap of sea salt sitting on top of it. The salt was in large flakes and easy to pick off but alas the damage had already been done and in many cases one would have been forgiven for thinking they had just been served a spoonful of salt. For wine, we accepted the sommelier's offer to bring us a selection of wines to compliment the various courses. The wines that we were served were, without fail, extremely good, but most of them were far too powerful for the food on offer. There were about 7 different wines served with the meal and the glasses poured were HUGE. I know I know, I shouldn't complain, but it meant that by the time we were done 1) we were very drunk (luckily one of us had not partaken and was able to drive home), 2) there was the equivalent of about a bottle of wine per person unfinished across the set of glasses on the table (huge waste!) and 3) our taste buds were thoroughly confused by the rapid delivery of so many over-powering wines. A good effort but the matching of wine to food was far from a win. On our way out, we were met by the chef/owner who insisted on giving us a tour of her kitchens. Again, this was a nice touch, and I couldn't help but think that her staff could take a page or two out of her book. If they had had even half of the enthusiasm and passion evident in her character our meal experience would have been greatly enhanced. Instead, they filled the role of hyper-mechanical silent drones which made the whole evening a little...weird. So where does this leave us? I'm honestly not sure. I think that with more personable service, a less awkward atmosphere, a new salt boy and a bit more care over flavour balance this could be quite the experience. As it stands though, I think the meal just wasn't quite what it should have been. Having said that, I have visited on one previous occasion when the food was much better, but the service was just plain rude. So I'm unsure what to make of the whole thing except to say that I'm not sure I'll be going back any time soon. It's just too much of an enigma! If you do go, you may wish to consider spending the night in their pretty cool glass hotel. This is as weird as it sounds (but has far more privacy than you could ever imagine a hotel made entirely of glass could have) and is definitely something to experience. It will also save you incurring hefty legal fees and fines (not to mention the possibility of death) on the way home if no one in your party opts out of the wine service.