A Michelin star restaurant that offers bang for your buck and yet a truly distinctinguished culinary experience. Everything from first impressions, to food to service was spectacular. If you are looking from a break from eating tapas, look no further. Please excuse my poor descriptions in my picture captions. I promise everything is much more elegant than I described them to be.

It's been one of my bucket list goals to try a Michelin star restaurant. Fortunately Barcelona has many of them, with a lot of them being relatively affordable and fairly easy to get reservations. Oria is located in the Monument Hotel. The inside is beautiful and spacious. Service was very attentive and friendly. They did a good job of explaining all of the dishes they brought out. I didn't see this on the menu online, but they were offering an option where you name your price (anywhere between 50 and 100 euros), and the chef will "surprise you". I was given about 10 courses. The items seem small, but I was still full at the end of the meal. Some of my favorites were the oyster dish, fish, ice cream & granite, and coconut ice cream. I loved the balance of textures and flavors in each dish. There were only a couple of items I thought were overly pretentious (marshmallow cube w/ coconut flakes). Overall I thoroughly enjoyed almost all the food, and it was a fun experience. In the beginning they ask for any allergies or dislikes. I stated "chocolate". Despite this they still tried to give me a chocolate dish for my petit fours. There was also a bone in my fish. The pacing of the meal was also not timed well. The first few rounds came by fast, to the point where I couldn't savor my meal and felt rushed. The last third was a lot of dead time waiting for the next course. I feel like these kind of mistakes shouldn't happen at a Michelin star restaurant.