MAE Barcelona

What MAE Barcelona Is

MAE opened in the space previously occupied by Freixa Tradició, a Barcelona institution, and the transition is worth knowing about before you arrive. The interior has been redesigned, but one element carried over: an 80-year-old sourdough starter inherited from the previous restaurant, which now anchors a bread course on both tasting menus. That single detail tells you something about how the kitchen thinks — tradition is a resource, not a constraint.

The name MAE comes from a Costa Rican word meaning companion or friend, which reflects the founding trio behind the project: Mariella Rodríguez (management, Costa Rica), Diego Mondragón (kitchen, Colombia), and Germán Espinosa (kitchen, Spain). The concept they have built around is Sincretismo , defined by the Royal Spanish Academy as the combination of different theories, attitudes, or opinions. In practice, that means Galician clams sitting alongside Latin American chilli peppers, or the classic tarta de Santiago appearing in the same menu as tepache. This is not fusion for its own sake. The kitchen uses Spanish and Latin American ingredients with enough discipline that the combinations read as coherent rather than arbitrary.

The flavor profile at MAE is built on acidity and contrast. Dishes like molluscs with tomato and aji amarillo , one of the kitchen's strongest plates based on available detail , use the brightness of the aji amarillo to cut through briny shellfish in a way that is more precise than most creative cooking in this city. If you respond well to food that is technically controlled but not conservative, MAE is calibrated for you. If you prefer the classical French-inflected richness of somewhere like Lasarte, the flavor logic here is genuinely different.

Two tasting menus are on offer: MAE and Gran MAE. No specific pricing is available beyond the €€€ range indicator, but at that tier you are looking at a meaningful spend , likely between €80 and €130 per head for food before drinks, based on comparable starred menus in Barcelona at this price range. Confirm directly when booking. The menus are the right format for a special occasion at MAE; this is not a kitchen built around à la carte grazing.

Timing and Booking

MAE is closed Monday, Tuesday, and Sunday. Service runs Wednesday through Saturday, lunch 1 PM to 3 PM and dinner 8 PM to 10 PM. That is a tight operating window , four days, two services each , which means availability is genuinely limited. Book as far in advance as possible; two to three weeks minimum is a reasonable baseline, and weekend dinners will go faster than that.

For a special occasion dinner, Saturday evening is the natural choice. If you want a less pressured experience with potentially more attention from the floor, Friday dinner or a Saturday lunch gives you the same menu quality with marginally fewer competing tables. Lunch at a starred restaurant in Barcelona is also a strong value move in general: the cooking is identical to dinner service, the room feels less performative, and you have the afternoon free.

On the question of whether the food travels well for takeout or delivery: MAE's format is built entirely around the in-restaurant tasting menu experience. The bread course with its 80-year-old sourdough, the plating precision on dishes like the molluscs with aji amarillo, and the sequenced progression of Sincretismo concept menus are not designed to survive a delivery window. There is no indication from available data that MAE offers off-premise dining, and the format makes it essentially incompatible with it. This is a venue where the point is being there , the room, the sequence, the service. If you need flexibility around location or timing, this is not your restaurant.

Reservations: Book well in advance , 2 to 3 weeks minimum for weekday dinner, longer for Saturday. Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, lunch 1–3 PM, dinner 8–10 PM; closed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Budget: €€€ per head; confirm current menu pricing directly. Address: Carrer de Sant Elies, 22, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, 08006 Barcelona. Dress: Smart casual at minimum; this is a starred restaurant in a designer interior , treat it accordingly.