Gurí, a neighborhood restaurant with Uruguayan cuisine and fermented foods
Uruguayan chef Nicolás Zas runs Gurí, a restaurant for about 20 diners where he combines Uruguayan recipes, modern techniques and ferments.
Nicolás Zas fell in love with cooking in the Canary Islands, where he went from delivering pizzas to kneading dough. A self-taught traveler, his path took him to New Zealand and Barcelona restaurants like Come y Disfrutar. These influences are evident at Gurí, where he offers a modern yet traditional cuisine, gourmet yet relaxed, welcoming and personal.
The team is small: besides Nicolás, there's a kitchen assistant and someone who manages the dining room and wine cellar. The kitchen is open and features a Ratatouille figurine and several books on fermentation and culinary techniques.
The menu includes three tasting menus: Gurí (10 courses, €85), Charrúa (7 courses, €58), and Gurí Daily (4 courses, €32). The à la carte menu features starters ranging from €4 to €9, main courses from €12 to €32, and desserts from €4 to €9. Signature dishes, Uruguayan influences, modern techniques, and street food come together to the rhythm of funk music.
Fermented ingredients have gone from being anecdotal to becoming a fundamental principle of cooking, crafted from scratch to enhance the flavor, refresh, balance the richness, or intensify the taste. The best example is Osvaldo Brito's sourdough bread from Pa de Kilo, served with shio koji butter made from the leftover bread.
Other dishes tell the chef's biography: the fainá, a crispy chickpea flour flatbread created in Uruguay in homage to his grandmother, with Reixagó cheese foam, from an artisanal cheese factory in Olost, 100 kilometers from Barcelona, Iberian bacon and fig leaf mayonnaise; or a blue crab empanada from the Ebro delta with sea lettuce emulsion.
The menu focuses on high-quality local produce. Jigged squid is served with salt cod brandade, pickled fennel, and saffron, while young lamb tortelloni come with a butter sauce, 10-year-old kefir, and black garlic. Desserts include the Mate, a cocktail with gin, yerba mate, and lemon, and an iced alfajor filled with dulce de leche and yogurt ice cream. The wine list ranges from Corpinnat to whites, rosés, sparkling wines, and reds from Catalonia and Uruguay, with bottles priced between €23 and €68. Beer, vermouth, and specialty coffees from La Cherry in Barcelona are also available.