Just a month ago we published that businessman Kim Díaz was resuming an old initiative of his: it was the second time he called an appointment to select the staff for a new location. With only one condition, that the applicants were over 50 years old, he intended to contribute to offering an opportunity to experienced professionals in the sector who, as we know, do not find it easy to find a job after a certain age.
Today we are talking about the same businessman again, just the opposite. His Bar Mut (Pau Claris, 192), the business he opened in 2005, leaving behind years of dedication to advertising and film production to immerse himself fully in the hospitality industry, is in a very interesting moment. According to him, the best since those beginnings when he took the step thinking (“how deluded I was!”, he laughs now) that it would allow him to reconcile when the first of his children had just been born.
The consolidation of the offer to which we refer today, so many years later, has to do with the commitment to the youth and talent of the two current chefs. We are referring to Dídac Closa, three years in charge of the kitchen at the house, where he came under the orders of another chef whom he would end up replacing, and a few months ago also Xavi Gómez, four years as Jordi Vilà's right-hand man, at Alkimia and Al Kostat. They are 25 and 28 years old respectively and have a tremendous desire to take advantage of the trust that has been placed in them. In addition to a personality that appears in his dishes, without crossing a line that Díaz drew from the beginning: prioritizing the highest quality product - "luxury is in the product" - worked with minimal intervention.
However, Díaz himself recognizes that the business he started with the idea of offering appetizers - "because I liked to eat but I didn't come from the world of cooking" - and in which he was betting on good raw materials gave them a reputation for cajoling customers with suggestions that ended up increasing the bill beyond what they expected. That is a stigma that they want to put an end to, and now you can eat from approximately 50 euros to 200, if you go all out with the fish and fresh seafood that they continue to prepare, but advised and warned by the room team.
They are proposals to which a very interesting list of recommendations has been added, especially incoming ones. We are referring to suggestions such as pulpollo (octopus with chipotle sauce on a layer of crispy chicken skin), which Closa introduced a long time ago; the puffed bread of smoked cod with its liver, a more subtle bite, which crowns a delicious anchovy from Santoña, created by Gómez; sliced porcini with butter, toasted pine nuts and foie gras; raw squid San Sebastian style; the delicious carabinero tartar with caviar or a successful razor clam in tripe sauce, with toasted bread and pieces of piparra. One of the successes of the current stage are the rice dishes, which are prepared with grace in a meat or fish base and finished with the grilled fish that the diner chooses on the thin layer of rice and of which we tried the shrimp one.
Bar Mut set a trend in its commitment to almost naked products and interior design (The starry Mont Bar, whose owner worked here for years, is inspired by the cozy vermouth bar). “Our talent is to surround ourselves with talent,” says Díaz when referring to the chefs, the head waiter, Tatiana Pérez, or his partners, Alberto Casado, director and driving force of the business, and Enric Rebordosa, friend and traveling companion since During the pandemic, he bought the shares of Bar Mut from Díaz's ex-partner. The two met when Rebordosa was a client of the much-missed clandestine cocktail bar Mutis, which Díaz ran above Bar Mut, which would also inspire the successful Paradiso, from the owners of Grup Confiteria.
