The Oxte chefs are coming to Barcelona, and Quirat serves the first taste on 18 June

Papalote, the new Barcelona project from Enrique "Kike" Casarrubias and Montserrat "Mon" Estrada, gets its first public outing on 18 June: a one-night four-hands dinner with Víctor Torres at Quirat, the Michelin-starred restaurant inside the InterContinental Barcelona in Poble-sec. The pair run Oxte in Paris, which has held a Michelin star since 2021, and their Barcelona restaurant is slated for Avinguda Diagonal near Plaça de Francesc Macià, opening after the summer.

The dinner runs €140 per person, tasting menu and wine pairing included, with sparkling and still wines selected by Codorníu. The menu is built as a back-and-forth between Torres's contemporary Catalan cooking and the Mexican-rooted, French-trained style Casarrubias and Estrada developed at Oxte. Seating is limited.

Papalote itself is pitched as the evolution of Oxte rather than a copy: around 80 covers, a tasting menu alongside a full à la carte, and a looser, more lifestyle register than the Paris flagship, with the same blend of Mexican memory and Catalan-Mediterranean product. The name means kite in Spanish (and butterfly in Nahuatl), a nod to transformation.

Casarrubias opened Oxte on Rue Troyon, near the Arc de Triomphe, in 2018; the star came three years later, and Estrada completed her training in its kitchen. Barcelona diners got an early look in late April, when the pair cooked a four-hands at Atempo. This one is the formal introduction.