Diverxo was recommended to me by the Spanish wine expert John Radford whose admirable girth speaks of a man to trust in culinary matters. Opened just a few years ago by a young husband and wife team who, moving back from London where the chef worked in several Asian fusion restaurants, had to sell their flat to set up business, it was recently awarded its second Michelin star.
The location of the restaurant is certainly bizarre, in a nondescript 60s block of flats in Northern Madrid, over the road from what appears to be a gay sauna. Thankfully it looks better inside than out, with minimalist, Asian influenced black and white décor with slightly ´punky´ twists such as the French bulldog statue (THE dog of the moment round here) and a black PVC couch that wouldn´t have been out of place in an S&M porn movie. Being typically English and having booked way past my parents´ usual dinner time we arrived 15 minutes early, causing mild consternation to the staff, who evidently stagger the arrival times to allow the carefully orchestrated service to run without a hitch. No matter, we were perfectly happy to sit and watch the theatre of the service of the other diners´ plates. From crisp pieces of ham sailing across perfect stacks of food, something in a polystyrene burger box and a dessert garnished with what looked like candyfloss , the signs of an interesting dinner were all there.
After appetite wetting glasses of Manzanilla sherry, we were asked whether we wanted 7, 10 or 14 courses. Diverxo has no menu, you simply choose according to the size of your appetite and wallet, let them know if you don´t like anything and they do the rest.
The first thing we were served was that Wagamama favourite, a ceramic pot of edamame beans, crusted with salt and enhanced with a yellow tuna and chilli salsa. This and the next course, an overly creamy pot of mussels with a béchamel sauce, tomato and balsamic reduction and crumble topping, were good but the meal had obviously been structured to get better and better. The mussels were served with a pot of green tea with strawberry pieces which paired surprisingly well with the dish.
Speaking of pairing, it is always difficult to know what to drink with a meal like this, especially when you don´t know what is to come. The sommelier recommended white over red and I decided to go for a wine that never fails to please, Marques de Murrieta´s Capellania. Oaked white Rioja is one of my favourite food pairing wines as it has the cleansing lemon acidity that works with lighter seafood dishes, as well as a nutty, creaminess that comes from oak ageing, making it able to cope with richer, meaty dishes without tasting thin and tart as some white wines can.
The wine worked particularly well with the next course which turned out to be one of our favourites of the meal, a fillet of seabass which had been smoked, giving a perfumed hint to the melt-in-the-mouth flesh. It was topped with quail´s egg dim sum, which elicted groans of pleasure from the table as the rich yolk burst out from the crisp shell in the mouth. A slick of black garlic aioli completed the picture.
The next dish also included dim sum – which is the one of the Asian cooking styles that the chef has obviously perfected to use with Spanish ingredients. This time they were filled with capon, with the chicken stock served at the base of the bowl with a perfect disc of shitake mushroom, calamari and chilli. Another well balanced and executed dish.
The next dish was the one we´d seen earlier with a crisp sail of dried jamon iberico. A chinese bun filled with mushroom and wrapped with a milk skin, served with cherry tomatoes. Rich and doughy it was one of our least favourite dishes, but that´s maybe just because of the contrast with the next dish which was a spectacular take on hoisin duck. Despite recreating the taste of this famous dish, it was in fact created from superior Iberian pork in two courses. I have no idea how the pork cracking that comprised the first part came to be such a fine, shatteringly crisp rectangle, but with the trout roe and hoisin sauce that decorated it, it evoked yet surpassed the crisp exterior of a Peking duck. A yellow polystyrene burger box was served next, containing a burger made of Secreto, the prized cut of native breed pig that is allegedly so called as it was usually secreted away by the butcher before the rest of the pig made it to market. Very lightly cooked and perfumed with mint, basil and a paprika and vinegar abodo sauce before being wrapped in a lettuce leaf, it reminded me of Vietnamese summer rolls.
The next two courses were preceded by a typed explanation of the current experiments in the kitchen, which are based on using meat more as an ingredient than the basis of the whole meal. In the first example, black cod was served cooked in a sauce that was wild boar stew that had been cooked so long it was now a rich, brown, meat syrup. The second was venison stew which had been skimmed of fat and reduced down to be served with a tender piece of seared beef, mushrooms and hazelnuts.
The richness of these meaty sauces was such that our palates had started to flag. Good news was the fact that we were now moving onto the dessert section of the meal which we accompanied with a glass each of perfumed muscat dessert wine, like liquid orange blossom.
The coconut and galangal foam which came next was a perfect palate refresher. The light, marshmallow texture was contrasted with crisp salty seaweed, bitter tamarind foam and a sorbet of blood orange, so intense that it was like a wave of citrus crashing over your taste buds. Spectacular.
The penultimate plate was based around carrots. A moist sponge, sugar crusted baby carrots and carrot sorbet served with an avocado mousse, it was perhaps taking the vegetable sweet thing a little too far.
The final course also included unusual ingredients, this time celery. On paper it sounded like a car crash of a pudding; white chocolate tempered to a fine crisp, black chocolate olives, celery foam and a celery and lime sorbet but the skill of the chef was such that it managed to be pure genius.
A meal at Diverxo is not cheap but for a meal that my father described as the “best he´d ever had” the experience is well worth it. The service, the exciting combinations, technical excellence, quality of the ingredients and visual presentation make this an example of why Spanish cooking is the best it´s ever been.
Apologies for the lack of photos in this post – I heard that the restaurant requests that its guests refrains from taking them “so as not to spoil the surprise for others”
Spain is delicious 
An excellent summation of a wonderful meal!