From Susegana, in Veneto, to one of Spain's greatest three-star chefs: Paolo Casagrande outlines a cuisine in which numerous ingredients find the right balance to achieve maximum expression.
The restaurant
Today, Lasarte represents the culmination of a long and profound evolution, a restaurant that has refined its style without ever chasing popularity or spectacle. It is not one of the most media-friendly restaurants in the world, but it has become a benchmark for solidity, consistency, and identity, thanks to steady growth over more than fourteen years. A united team, with stable pillars over time, has helped to create a gastronomic experience that always starts from a clear foundation: every dish must have a meaning, a reason. Nothing is left to chance, nothing is created for fashion or to impress.
Lasarte is Martín Berasategui's culinary embassy in Barcelona. It opened its doors in January 2006 and just one year later earned its first Michelin star, but since 2017 it has boasted three. It was the first restaurant in Barcelona to receive the highest recognition from the prestigious red guide, with Paolo Casagrande at the helm of the kitchen on a daily basis. In addition, since 2019, the restaurant has held the highest rating (3 Soles) in the renowned Spanish Repsol Guide.
The experience
The space stands out for its modern, avant-garde look, characterized by large, bright rooms. Attention to lighting, oak wood textures, and the choice of furnishings were the cornerstones of the entire renovation project (designed by architects Oscar Tusquets and Tote Moreno and designer Mercè Borrell), which aimed to give the restaurant a unique and charming personality. You will notice this immediately.
There are 45 seats in a semi-private room within the main dining room and a second, very exclusive private space called Il Milione, where a special tasting menu for up to eight diners is offered, taking guests on a journey to discover the limits of excellence. The Il Milione experience can be booked for both lunch and dinner and is completely different from the main restaurant menu.
Lasarte's gastronomic offering preserves the essence of the cuisine of the renowned Martín Berasategui, enriched by the significant personal touch of the affable, humble, and great chef Paolo Casagrande. The à la carte menu, tasting menu, and lunch menu combine some of Berasategui's iconic dishes with new creations designed specifically for Lasarte by Casagrande: cuisine in which the product is always the star, and the numerous ingredients in each dish are perfectly balanced to achieve maximum expression. Berasategui and Casagrande's cuisine avoids the superfluous and stands out for its deep respect for the environment, the sea, and the land that nourishes it. Casagrande's philosophy rejects the banality and excesses that sometimes characterize contemporary haute cuisine. For him, precision is everything: the construction of the dishes, their balance, the coexistence of savory and sweet elements, and the measured and never redundant harmony with wine.
This focus on balance also guides the structure of the menu. Casagrande rejects forty-course meals that keep diners at the table for hours, preferring instead a dynamic and concentrated rhythm, with about twenty distinct tastings, all different from each other, without unnecessary repetition of techniques. This choice also responds to the evolution of the public: “Today, many customers are looking for more agile and less ritualized experiences, without sacrificing great gastronomy,” he says. "Our creativity is continuous but controlled. Every day, some members of the team are dedicated to trials, tests, elaborations, and small experiments that often become the basis for future dishes. The menu changes every three to four months, replacing four to six courses to maintain rhythm and freshness, without suddenly turning everything upside down: a balance between innovation and standardization, essential to ensure consistency. During the year, in any case, the goal is to renew the entire menu, albeit gradually. For me, creativity is not an isolated stroke of genius, but a continuous process, made up of small adjustments, listening, sensitivity, and observation."
This evolutionary journey reached an important turning point in 2012, when the restaurant underwent a complete renovation, including the dining room, kitchen, and service areas. It was a total restart, comparable, in the chef's words, “to switching from a Ferrari to an Aston Martin: two different worlds, but both high-performance”. Two years later, the hotel was also renovated, and Lasarte closed for four months to allow the staff to travel, learn, absorb new ideas, and bring them back to the kitchen, which is essential for an ambitious and lively team. Since then, the restaurant has never stopped changing, following a path of continuous improvement.
The dishes
The result is clearly evident in the gastronomic journey that begins with a series of small bites with a strong creative imprint: hummus and vegetable creams, potato and salt cod with green beans, Peruvian ají emulsions with kimchi and shrimp. These are followed by more structured tastings such as glazed sweetbread tempura with chamomile and yuzu mayonnaise, a Jerusalem artichoke croissant with mushrooms and two tostadas: one with green curry shrimp sablé and the other with tapioca and beef tartare. Among the signature dishes is the famous foie gras millefeuille with smoked eel, green apple, and spring onion cream.
Bread deserves a separate chapter, with a selection of six types: bacon brioche, butter brioche, olive oil schiacciata, Catalan rustic bread pa de pagès, and varieties with cereals and olives. Next comes the squid tartare with green apple, jalapeño, licorice, and black garlic, topped with an amaranth wafer.
There is also a tribute to Italian tradition with a ravioli filled with burrata cheese and blue lobster, served with a rosé champagne foam. The meat section of the menu features a modern take on pork zampone, served with various sauces (mustard and capers, a reduction of its own juices, wine, mushrooms, and truffles) and finally roe deer, served with the same aromatic depth as its reductions.
It was precisely this desire to surpass themselves that led to the creation of the Il Milione project. An experience distinct from the main restaurant, conceived as a gastronomic journey inspired by the tales of Marco Polo and the itineraries traveled over the years by Casagrande and Berasategui. Located in the former private dining room inside the kitchen, Il Milione has been transformed into an intimate space where guests can explore new flavors, different techniques, and ingredients encountered around the world, pushing the boundaries of what is possible. The menu is completely independent and represents a sort of narrative laboratory, another level of experience that expands the Lasarte universe.
The relationship between Paolo Casagrande and Martín Berasategui is another key element in the restaurant's strength. The two have been working together for over 23 years, a partnership that allows them to anticipate each other's moves, understand each other, and align themselves naturally. Berasategui maintains a philosophical and creative leadership role, and although he is not present in Barcelona on a daily basis, his vision permeates every decision. At the same time, Lasarte has always cultivated its own identity. It is not a replica of Berasategui's world, but an autonomous extension with its own well-defined soul, and what a soul! Contributing to this consistency are the restaurant's long-standing figures, maître Juan Carlos, sous maître Antonio, and pastry chef Xavi, who, together with Casagrande, have formed the backbone of the restaurant for over fourteen years.
“At the heart of it all is a clear principle: to remain faithful to the Berasategui gastronomic family, sharing techniques, recipes, and ideas, but without sacrificing my own personality. This philosophy allows Lasarte to evolve without ever losing its core identity, continuing to grow and renew itself year after year, all together, and for me it is an honor as well as a source of satisfaction.”
Contacts
Lasarte
Carrer de Mallorca, 259, L'Eixample, 08008 Barcelona, Spagna
Phone: +34 934 45 32 42
