The tasting menus run through dishes like Beso de carabinero a la sal, a shrimp served on a pink salt stone, Pepe, a crispy pork bun served in a pig-shaped clay bowl with spicy sauce, and Ajo Morado, a dish built to look like something else entirely but built on black garlic cream. Dessert, Maíz, plays on childhood corn memories and is meant to be eaten by hand.

The menus draw on a larder of 31 or 32 dishes in circulation at any one time; the longest menu uses 22, which leaves room to tailor a meal or follow the season. Dishes change constantly: the kitchen has built up around 800 recipes since 2014 and aims for 50 new ones a year. One, 'Un cuadro en la pared', is a tribute to the house motto and to the painting by Guerrero's mother that still hangs in the restaurant. Trompe-l'oeil runs through all of it, as does a habit of reusing what other kitchens throw away: fish bones saved from production end up as experimental flours.

Diego Guerrero trained under Martín Berasategui and spent a decade as head chef of El Club Allard, winning it a first Michelin star in 2007 and a second in 2011, before leaving in 2013 to build something entirely his own. DSTAgE opened in July 2014 at Calle Regueros 8, in the Salesas corner of Chueca, a restaurant meant to be free to create, to surprise and to break barriers, with a looser register than haute cuisine usually allows.

The first Michelin star arrived four months after opening and the second in the 2017 guide, both renewed in the 2026 edition, and Michelin added a Green Star in the 2025 guide for its commitment to sustainability. It also holds three Repsol Soles and scored 90.5 points on La Liste 2025. In 2019 Guerrero opened a second Madrid project, Dspeakeasy, on Calle Fernando VI, with DSTAgE's suppliers, a team trained at DSTAgE and a cocktail bar, Dpickle Room, run with Diego Cabrera. It has since closed; Guerrero has said it filled every service but would never have been profitable without cutting staff or product.

In 2025 The Best Chef Awards gave Guerrero its Best Science Award, for the research that happens under the restaurant.

DSTAgE occupies a two-floor industrial loft with no sign outside. The meal starts with snacks at the bar by the entrance before guests move into a dining room of 12 or 13 tables arranged around a courtyard, with exposed brick, retro touches and an open kitchen at the back that is visible from almost every table.

Alongside it is DSPOT, 370 square metres over two floors and the project's studio and events space: a kitchen and one large table that work as a private dining room, a show-cooking stage, an event venue and a classroom for cooking classes.

Under Calle Regueros, down a flight of stairs from the dining room, is DSTAgE's research department, started in 2016 when Guerrero pulled cook Jorge Lanuza off the line to think with him full time. Around eight people work there now, from biologists to cooks, with a wall of jars of powders, dried skins and inoculated doughs, and four home-built fermentation cabinets keeping onion scobys, vinegar kefir, tempeh and Aspergillus-inoculated tomatoes alive. The restaurant puts around 15% of its spending into creativity, with no outside patron.

The work runs from the molecule outward: one dish in development started from anethole, the compound shared by fennel, liquorice and anise. A 'laboratory of impossibles', born from Guerrero's conversations with nutrition and genetics researcher José María Ordovás, chases ideas like a dry broth, ghost fat and an absent ingredient. The lab also feeds the drinks: alongside a full wine cellar, the room pours house kombuchas, syrups and bread 'amontillados', and there's an alcohol-free pairing developed with Javier Barroso.

The Green Star rests on how DSTAgE says it runs: using whole products and leftovers, buying from source and from responsible suppliers, backing a circular, local economy and small neighbourhood shops, running on clean energy, and treating work-life balance for the team as part of the model rather than an extra.

DSTAgE serves tasting menus only, in three lengths: Dtaste, 16 dishes at €195; DSTAgE, 18 dishes at €210; and Denjoy, 22 dishes at €230, VAT included. Each has an optional wine pairing, at €90, €105 and €120 respectively. A meal runs about two to two and a half hours, depending on the menu.

The kitchen adapts every menu to any allergy or intolerance, as long as it is flagged when you book; other special diets are handled by contacting the restaurant directly.

Bookings are made on DSTAgE's own site, where the calendar opens 120 days ahead, with a waiting list for full dates and groups arranged on request. The restaurant serves dinner only from Tuesday to Thursday, lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday, and is closed on Sunday and Monday.

It asks guests not to bring children under 10, as there are no high chairs or space for pushchairs. The nearest metro stations are Chueca and Alonso Martínez.