Mirazur Delivers A Meal of a Lifetime

On Tuesday last week, I had the meal of a lifetime at Mirazur, in Menton, one of those postcard-perfect French towns on the Mediterranean, right across the border from Italy.

If you pay attention to the world’s notable restaurants and the chefs behind them, you probably know about Mirazur (three Michelin stars, #1 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2019) and Mauro Colagreco (first non-French chef ever named Chef of the Year by Gault&Millau in 2009). I know about both from the article we published on Fathom and also because I’m into dazzling, innovative, and (duh) delicious cuisine.

Mirazur turns 20 this year, and to commemorate the occasion, Colagreco invited Ferran Adrià to curate a special anniversary menu that Mirazur will serve this April and May.

Adrià, of course, is the Spanish visionary who created restaurant El Bulli and will go down as one of the most creative and influential chefs of all time, a pioneer who dared do things with and to ingredients that no one thought possible. (That I never ate at El Bulli is one of my few regrets in life.) Since closing El Bulli in 2011 — the year he was immortalized as a character on The Simpsons, just to note how wide his influence was — he’s continued to research all aspects of gastronomy through the El Bulli Foundation.

For its part, Mirazur isn’t a restaurant so much as a culinary movement and a universe — one increasingly committed to shaping a better world for the future through everything from its hectares of biodynamically farmed and regenerative gardens to Colagreco’s advocacy as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity.

This was not a collaboration between Ferran and Mauro (and his R&D and cooking teams). This was Ferran curating a tasting menu after having spent a year reviewing, challenging, and tweaking two decades’ worth of Mirazur dishes. The result is a sort of a greatest hits menu touched by Ferran’s magic conductor's baton.

And I was among the first to experience their combined artistry.

I say “experience” and not “eat” because this meal was about so much more than the food on the plate (or shell or wooden plank or carved box, as it were).

Champagne was served from a rose. Teeny peas were balanced on a sliver of vanilla bean, to be eaten like corn on the cob. Baby anchovies were shaped into a chip. A double layer salad was served atop a folded poem. (“Turn fear into a ladder; turn the dream into a bridge.”) Cassis-dusted spaghetti tasted of eucalyptus. Sea urchin arrived within a translucent wrapper. Citrus granita was served in seashells, wild strawberries on the side. A dozen chocolates arrived in a carved wooden box. I drank Japanese sake made by a Frenchman and a Sauternes that predated World War II by more than a decade.

The courses unfolded in masterful strokes of technique and poetry, of science and whimsy, divided thematically into phases — welcome, flowers, Japan, Mediterranean, citrus — that saw diners moving from garden to exhibition to dining room to kitchen. Service throughout was thoughtful, personal, and unobtrusive. The surprises were exuberant and unexpected — and entirely appropriate.
If Ferran’s food tickles the brain, Marco’s touches the soul, a thoughtful combination of head and heart. This wasn’t lunch. It was theater in the sunshine overlooking the sunny Mediterranean. And it was totally unforgettable.

Practical info: The anniversary meal (€530 per person) will be served from April 1 through May 16, 2026. It’s mostly but not entirely sold out. Reservations can be made online, but feel free to call to see what they can work out. I stayed at the four-star Hotel Napoléon Menton along the sea nearby and was very happy there.