Sant Pau
In St. Pol de Mar
Cuisines: Spanish
About
The owner of this world-class restaurant has been the subject of feature articles in women's magazines throughout the Spanish-speaking world. She's Carme Ruscalleda, Spain's leading female chef, whose restaurant in the town of Sant Pol de Mar earned a third Michelin star. Established in 1988, it has evolved from a relatively simple delicatessen into one of the culinary landmarks of Spain, replete with the associated fanfare and celebrity-watching. A location midway between Girona (55km/45 miles) and Barcelona (45km/27 miles) helps in terms of the urban-hipster and grand bourgeois clientele it has traditionally attracted. The setting is a once-private villa on the main street of St. Pol de Mar, near the railway station. Inside, a restrained and immaculate contemporary decor with ever-so-polite service is the setting for cuisine as high art. Menu items are noted for the way they pique the intellect as well as the palate. They change frequently, but might include Norwegian lobster with a black-olive froth; boneless scorpion fish with crispy skin, strawberries, and a broth concocted from the fish bones; a consommé of squid and duck with the duck's "spicy spleen," kombu seaweed, and the squid's gelatinized ink; stingray without its cartilage, served with roasted apples, citrus juice, pink pepper oil, and the stingray's own deep-fried cartilage; and roasted rabbit with hazelnuts, eggplant, and zucchini.
