If the cuisine at Lasarte in Barcelona speaks Italian, thanks to Paolo Casagrande, in the dining room, a purebred Iberian steed takes charge. Meet Joan Carles Ibañez, the maître honored for the best service by the Spanish Michelin after thirty years at the helm of national gastronomy.
The news
The latest Spanish edition of the Michelin guide has, as expected, confirmed the maximum score for the eighth time at Lasarte by Martin Berasategui and Paolo Casagrande. Three stars, with a magnificent cuisine carried by equally excellent waitstaff, as always certified by the red guide, awarding the prize for the best service in Spain to Joan Carles Ibañez, a familiar figure among Spanish gourmets.
He has served for thirty years, initially at the French cuisine restaurant La Ciboulette, now closed, then at Racò de Can Fabes by Santi Santamaria, Catalonia's first three-starred in 1994. Here, he spent twenty intense years, from 1991 to 2011, as a sommelier and waiter. Until the decision to move to Lasarte, also awarded three stars since 2016, the first in Barcelona. For him, by now, a habit. But in his accolades are also the National Gastronomic Award for the dining room and sommelier, conferred by the Spanish Academy of Gastronomy in 1996, and the regional equivalent by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition in 2018.
"I am very proud to receive this award from the Michelin guide; it makes visible the work and effort behind a restaurant like Lasarte and is a recognition tributed to all the people I work with, great professionals from whom I learn every day and with whom I share humility, discretion, sensitivity, commitment, respect, and passion," commented the emotional Ibañez.
The stability of the brigade in its main pillars of the dining room and kitchen, over more than a decade, explains the ambitious milestones achieved by Berasategui's restaurant, which, in the same luxurious neo-gothic style hotel, runs another establishment, named Oria, starred since 2019, and holds a total of 12 macarons, the record for a Spanish chef.
