Aürt

Aürt: Michelin Precision in a Hotel Lobby, with Too Much Mythology

Aürt is the kind of place that makes you question, immediately, whether context is part of the meal. It sits in the lobby of the Hilton Diagonal Mar, a setting that can feel oddly exposed—half dining room, half transit zone—where the low hum of a hotel never quite disappears. The restaurant leans into that friction with an open, counter-facing setup and a tasting menu designed as a rapid sequence of small, “apparently simple” bites, tailored around the reservation.

When it hits, it’s thrilling. Aürt can deliver dishes with the crisp logic of high craft: clean flavors, razor-sharp timing, and the sort of restraint that reads as confidence rather than minimalism. A handful of courses have been genuinely superb—memorable enough to survive the walk back through the lobby and into real life.

The problem is consistency. Across our visits, the cooking has often been top-level while the ideas have felt uneven. About half the tasting menu can drift into the forgettable middle: competent, clever, and strangely weightless, as if the restaurant is saving its best arguments for later. Desserts mirror that volatility—some feel finished and expressive; others land like afterthoughts dressed in fine plating.

What also weighs on the experience is the narrative overhead. There’s a lot of storytelling orbiting the chef, and the room sometimes feels powered by ego as much as by service. It doesn’t help that, the times we’ve gone, the chef hasn’t been present—an absence that turns the myth-making into a louder, less flattering kind of silence.

Clean: 10/10
Comfort: 6/10
Food: 8/10
Wine: 8/10
Service: 7/10
The Experience: 7/10

Price: 150€/pax