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Diverxo

Madrid

Showstopping avant-garde cuisine from Spain’s creative wunderkind

On the Pass

Dabiz Muñoz

In a nutshell: A wacky wonderland of a restaurant, Diverxo – styled as DiverXO – is the brainchild of Dabiz Muñoz, known for his daring approach to dishes and widely considered one of the world’s most creative cooks.

Who’s the chef? As a young child, Muñoz knew exactly what he wanted when he grew up – a wildly popular restaurant where people would queue for hours for a table. His father was sceptical, telling him that ‘pigs might fly’, but Muñoz got the last laugh – after training at top restaurants in London and Madrid, he opened Diverxo in 2007 and soon became the second-youngest person in the world to earn three-star Michelin status, at 33 years old. Now he proudly displays flying pigs throughout the restaurant, showing the world the power of achieving the seemingly unachievable.

Bring on the crazy: With twists and surprises at every turn, having a meal at Diverxo is like stepping inside Muñoz’s limitless imagination. The 12-course tasting menu takes diners through innovative, Asian-inspired dishes such as Cantonese sea noodles with eel stew, hare katsusando with toasted butter brioche, or ‘Galician lobster waking up on the beaches of Goa’, which combines tandoor cooking with sushi rice and a lobster head vindaloo – and looks like a work of art on the plate.

Sweet vs savoury: Muñoz doesn’t believe there is a point where savoury stops and sweet begins, so his desserts feature plenty of surprising flavours. A selection of mochi at the end of the meal incorporates fillings such as cottage cheese, parmesan and even tom kha kai soup with Thai basil.

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