EMi – Madrid

I have made no secret to anyone unfortunate enough to have to listen to me, that I had EMi pegged as ‘the next big thing’. A former Atomix R&D chef and the former world’s best sommelier from DiverXO, shipped in together to deliver intimate counter dining, and gaining a Michelin star just months after opening it. This has got to be one of the most exciting restaurants around, right? Right?

Well, perhaps not. Don’t get me wrong, EMi is great, and very solidly a 1*, but I definitely overhyped it to myself and there are exceptional highs and mid range disappointments. The food, first, starts off quite underwhelming. The snacks don’t hit with flavour and a seaweed one had a particularly chewy texture where the kelp has been made into a tartlet. An early dish of almond and peas is wildly unbalanced, tasting of absolutely nothing but over-sweetened almonds. However, as the meal progresses, the food does improve, and we have a piece of fish and then a piece of venison that are two of the best cooked pieces of protein I’ve ever eaten. The venison main, with lobster head curry, is in fact, one of the finest main courses I’ve ever eaten anywhere. It’s divine, and the same can be said for a chawanmushi with duck and lobster.

The service is nice, but impersonal and very scripted. I can see why this happens, especially in a newer restaurant with newer staff, but if you’re going to offer counter dining this has to come with a personal touch. There were only 9 people dining on the evening I was there and there wasn’t a particularly large effort from the wait staff to engage with anyone past giving them their food, including never asking if anyone liked a dish.

This leads me to the biggest 50/50 feeling of the night. The wine. The wine served in this restaurant is absolutely spectacular. It’s probably one of the best wine flights I’ve ever had. But, you are sold hard on it from the moment you enter. The person next to us was relentlessly pushed to switch from wanting her own glasses to a flight. What made this weirder then, was my friend wanted the cheapest option and I wanted the next up, but we were told we had to have the same…….why? You’re using a coravin???? For such a hard sell they talked themselves out of loads of money. We were the only two who had a wine flight that evening and every time we tried to ask a question about the wine we were brushed off. This was infuriating and again, doesn’t lend itself to counter dining at all.

So, high highs, mid lows. EMi is still great – but it needs some work yet to take off astronomically.

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