Not so facetious...for many years, Akelare has been, and after eating at El Bulli, remains, my favorite restaurant in Spain. The El Bulli "experience" is unique, but for a chef who consistently challenges, excites and surprises you, Pedro Subijana (IMHO) rules. And San Sebastian (again, IMHO) is the best place in Europe to consistently eat and drink well at every level.

For all of you who PM'ed me asking how I actually got the reservation at El Bulli, here goes: Four of us went to Barcelona thinking where there's a will, there's a way, and we were determined to eat at El Bulli. The Hotel Arts concierge previously had said to each of us, via email, that getting into El Bulli was next to impossible but to check with him when we arrived. We did. He said the same thing. We asked him for other restaurant recommendations, which he willingly gave us. Knowing the Barcelona food scene relatively well, we had not heard of any of them, but tried the first two and raved to him about them....how good they were, what a great recommendation, how could we ever thank him, would he like to join us for lunch the next day. Turns out it was his day off and he did. The theme of conversation was El Bulli...had he been there, how do people get in, what had he heard about it, etc. We figured if we were going to get there, this guy was our only hope, as we had tried calling El Bulli directly each morning and were told the same thing...nothing available. On our third bottle of Vega Sicilia Unica, the guy cracked. He said he wanted to make a few phone calls. He left the table and came back about 15 minutes later with a smile on his face. Reservation for 4 the next evening. We asked him how he did it and said that the hotel often works with the Barcelona El Bulli catering team for special events and he had a few friends on staff who were always the first to know of cancellations. We were ecstatic and asked if he would like to join us, but he politely declined. No money changed hands, but he seemed to appreciate the wine.

Was it worth it? Yes and no. It is an experience. The overall concept of food and presentation is creatively brilliant, in a chemistry lab sort of way. If you are not ready for your limits to be pushed, don't go (i.e. deep fried fish skeleton (bones only, no fish). Surprisingly, it was not as expensive as you would expect....about half the price of lunch with the concierge the day before (but mainly due to the wine). Would I go back? If I were in Barcelona or nearby and had the opportunity, of course. But I would not make another special trip to Barcelona as if I were in search of the Holy Grail. And if I could choose to return to any one restaurant in the world again before the big trip south, it wouldn't be El Bulli.