Mugaritz

Andoni Luis Aduriz set up Mugaritz in 1998 after working at El Bulli from 1993 to 1994 and from 1996 as chef at Martin Berasategui. Mugaritz gained a second Michelin star in 2005. Mr Aduriz is acknowledged as being at the forefront of the creative cuisine that Spain has become known for; not bad for someone who failed his first year at catering college. Mugaritz is in the hills a few miles from San Sebastian (about twenty minutes by car). After a major fire in 2010 it was completely rebuilt, with an attractive garden and spacious dining room. There is no menu here, but the restaurant ask you in advance of any dietary preferences before preparing a lengthy series of small courses from their famously wide repertoire of dishes, the meal priced at €170 (£137).

The dining room has widely spaced tables, seating up to 50 people at any one time, the room divided up into sections by little screens. No less than 35 chefs work in the kitchen to prepare the complex dishes. The wine list had a quite wide range, with plenty of fine Spanish wines but also, for example, some good German Rieslings. Belondrade Y Lurton Quinta Apolonia Blanco Joven Castilla Leon 2009 was priced at €42 for a wine that you can find in a shop for €19, Fritz Haag Juffer Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese Brauneberger Bereich Bernkasteler 2008 €70 for a wine that retails at around €24, and Vega Sicilia Tinto Valbuena 5 Ano was €320 for a wine that will set you back about €95 in a shop. We drank Jermann vintage Tunina at €90 for a wine that retails at around €48.

The meal began with an envelope placed on the table sealed with wax; inside was a thin card with the message "bread and olives"; the card turns out to be an edible cracker, olive paste is provided on the side. This was a foretaste of the very technical food in which Mugaritz specialises. A single strand of spinach was served warm and dusted with a powder made with chrysanthemum flowers, which had little inherent flavour. Harmless enough, but this was in the end just a little piece of spinach.

Sea anenome mousse was encased in a cigar-shaped savoury tuile and served in a box of sand. This was not unpleasant, and was doubtless a good example of sea anenome mousse. This was followed by bone marrow on toast, which I know some people love but does nothing for me. "Grapes" with dried tuna turned out to be warm melon, topped with hard pieces of dried tuna and spiced seeds; I didn't find this an enjoyable combination.

Noodles of milk skin were wrapped in lard and served with an emulsion of tomatoes and pumpkin. The "noodles" were hard in texture, the emulsion not having a lot of flavour. Baby squid with lemon had distinctly chewy squid, which was hard to forgive in a part of the world with very fine squid, and indeed where I had eaten superb squid at lunch on the very same day at Ibai. It may be hard to benchmark sea anemone mouse, but it is easy to tell good from mediocre squid. "Cheese" with mushrooms turned out to be a concoction of mail and flax seeds that resembles cheese, served with a few warm ceps; this was pleasant enough, but not as enjoyable as, say, an actual goat cheese.

Hake with cauliflower and marscapone cheese was the best dish of the meal to this point, the hake capably cooked, the powder of cauliflower pleasant, but this for me was still merely pleasant, perhaps 15/20 level cooking. Better was sargo, a fish a little like sea bream served with deep fried pasta; the fish was carefully cooked, well seasoned and the crunchy pasta with it provided an interesting texture contrast (17/20). The next stage involved some audience participation: a pestle and mortar was provided, with the diners asked to grind some pepper seeds. Then a few pieces of cod and a broth of vegetable stock and sunflower seeds was provided to be added in order to make a soup. The broth had an unfortunate grey appearance and little flavour, and the overall effect was distinctly unappetizing, the kind of thing that someone might serve at a school canteen (10/20). Better was veal with honey and meat powder, the veal nicely cooked, the meat powder giving an additional texture (15/20). Raviolo of aromatic vegetables and herbs, though, had a very bitter taste and the pasta had an odd, chewy texture. My lamb with brain ragout was better, with reasonable quality lamb and a creamy ragout of lamb brains (15/20).

Pear ice dream was served with caramelised milk and cheese, a combination of flavours that I did not enjoy. An almond "biscuit" was essentially almond ice cream,and was pleasant enough, though the simple almond ice cream I had at lunch on the same day was better. Milk with lemon and figs was odd; additional lemon juice was provided in a pipette, but the bowl already had far too much lemon in it to be remotely balanced. A leaf with chocolate and a grain of salt had a minty taste, which was fine if hardly exciting. Finally candles of frankincense and perfume of eucalyptus bark had a couple of sticks of chewing gum mint which resembled sherbet on the palate, and were pleasant. The meal concluded with good coffee and chocolate-coated nuts.

The service was very good throughout, the staff charming and efficient. The bill came to €489.50 for two, which works out at £193 a head. For all the technical culinary wizardry on display, I cannot say that I enjoyed my meal here very much. With this kind of food I was not expecting to like every course, but there seemed to me far too many misses compared to hits, and the dishes that were enjoyable were merely good rather than dazzling. I freely admit to preferring classical to modernist food, but this seemed to me far less successful than the food at restaurants such as Oud Sluis or Alinea, where inventiveness does not come at the expense of flavour. Moreover I do not think that poor ingredients, such as the chewy squid tonight, are ever acceptable in an expensive restaurant.