Kent Wang
Google
This dish exemplifies modern Spanish cuisine: Tartare of raw squid, carbonara ibérica, pine nuts.
Carbonara is a Roman pasta sauce of cured pork jowl (guanciale), Pecorino cheese, and egg yolk.
The guanciale here is not the typical industrial pork aged for 2 months, but one made by famed Spanish jamón producer Joselito using the finest pigs and aged for 12 months.
If you've never had the rendered fat of jamón ibérico, it's hard to describe but the closest thing would be bacon fat, except no smoke but more intensity and astringency from the longer curing process. This fat is mixed into the carbonara sauce and turned into a foam.
This dish is delicious, inventive, yet totally Spanish in its ingredients and techniques.
I find many fancy restaurants are making dishes that are too international, lacking Spanish identity. That's fine if you're a local, but if you are visiting Barcelona, you don't want to have a dish that a restaurant back home can make too.
Photo 1: Sea urchin, paired with Lustau Del Tonel oloroso sherry 20 years old
Photo 3-4: Anchovy, smoke
Photo 5: Raw razor clam, pickled quail
Overall, RíasKru is an incredible seafood restaurant that creates modern, creative dishes with a distinct Spanish identity.