Delicious Spanish flavours at Barraca, a must-try during KL Restaurant Week 2025

The Star

02-06-2025

Most Malaysians are die-hard, cast-in-stone foodies. And yet, prices at some of the best restaurants in Kuala Lumpur are distinctly out of reach for many pocket-weary urbanites.
In order to even the paying field (pun intended), Kuala Lumpur Restaurant Week 2025 recalibrates the dining scene for a limited period, offering diners of all stripes the opportunity to savour meals at some of the city's hottest spots at pocket-friendlier prices.
This year's iteration will run from June 6 to 22 with lunch set menus starting from RM58 per person and dinner set menus starting from RM78 per person.
There are 30 participating restaurants including the Michelin-selected Wagyu Kappo Yoshida as well as celebrated eateries like Sushi Masa, Aposto, Barraca and Coast by Kayra.
The eatery's hallmark is the long bar counter seats which are designed to resemble the tapas bars in Barcelona.
If you're looking for a new place to try during KL Restaurant Week, three-week old Spanish eatery Barraca makes for an ideal option.
The spanking new restaurant is housed within The Campus in KL and is owned and operated by Samadhi Retreats, which also runs eateries like Tamarind Springs and sister Spanish restaurant Barra, the non-halal kin of Barraca.
The pork-free eatery is a charmer, with a long space largely taken up by a bar counter with seats that offer uninterrupted views of the scenes from the open kitchen. It is helmed by talented Spanish chef Ignasi Prats, who is also behind Barra.
'At Barraca, we have a bar counter because this concept is very popular in Barcelona in Spain where you can go to any tapas bar and have a big variety of tapas in a casual environment.
"We wanted to recreate the same environment but for a more inclusive crowd, because the area has a very diverse demography of people, which is why we opted for a pork-free restaurant,' he says.
Prats is the creative culinary force behind Barraca, which serves delicious Spanish tapas and paella. — ABIRAMI DURAI/The Star
For KL Restaurant Week, Barraca's three-course set menus for lunch and dinner offer incredible value. Lunch is at RM78 per person (RM20 less than the regular price) and dinner is RM98 per person (RM66 less than the regular price). A reservation for two is required to access Restaurant Week offers.
For lunch, Prats serves up a Mediterranean Salad as a starter. The salad is made up of roasted eggplant, bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and capers.
'Basically in summer time in Spain, before we barbecue the meat, we always grill bell peppers and eggplants to make a cold salad. And I put it on the menu because it was one of my mum's favourite meals,' says Prats.
The Mediterranean salad is a triumphant offering that features eggplant, peppers, olives and capers.
The salad is divine – luscious, slightly blistered eggplants form the structural heart of this dish, which is accentuated by the sweetness of the peppers and the briny overcoat provided by the olives and capers in this constellation.
The balsamic reduction served on the side adds a touch of acerbity and contrast that livens up this entire assemblage and gives it a pep in its step.
The main dish for the lunch set menu is the ultra-decadent Canalones De Pollo, which is long pasta logs stuffed with slow-cooked chicken and topped with bechamel and cheese.
This hedonistic charmer is a rich – and richly rewarding – dish that combines some all-star favourites – ooey gooey melted cheese, the stunning silkiness of a bechamel sauce, tender chicken and perfectly cooked pasta.
For dessert in the lunch menu, Prats serves up a Spanish favourite in the form of the Churros Con Chocolate. As its name implies, this sweet treat combines long spiral twists of churros (deep-fried dough) with a warm chocolate sauce in a combination no human could find fault with.
The churros are crisp to the touch and pair perfectly with the chocolate sauce served on the side.
If you're opting to eat at Barraca for dinner during KL Restaurant Week, the three-course set dinner is a sure-fire winner. The starter of Piquillos Con Bacalao for instance features red capsicum stuffed with milk cod fish brandade.
'We slow-cook the cod fish with milk, potatoes, and herbs to make the brandade. And then basically we mash everything together to make a kind of paste. And in Spain we have a small bell pepper that has a sweet, smoky flavour so we use the cod fish to fill into the pepper. And then we make a sauce with the peppers and some onions,' explains Prats.
The result is a convergence of soil and sea that somehow meld fluidly into one cohesive, incredibly tasty dish. The peppers have a smoky undercoat buoyed by a natural sweetness and this is balanced against the cod, which is incredibly flaky and supple with an aquatic undercurrent.
The sauce that ties it all together is robust and piquant and covertly turns the entire concoction into a superstar offering.
For mains for dinner, there is the crowd-favourite Paella de Chorizo, which Prats says was actually created as a back-up plan but has since become a bestseller on the menu.
'Originally I was doing a paella with duck but we ran out of duck. So this chicken chorizo paella was created as a back-up. But everyone really liked it and there was a lot of demand for the dish, so I added it to the menu,' says Prats.
The paella with chicken chorizo was originally created as a back-up dish but became so popular that it is now a mainstay on the menu. — Photos: ABIRAMI DURAI/The Star
The paella is cooked using a base of red peppers, green peppers, onions and tomatoes which are cooked until caramelised. The rice is then cooked with this mixture as well as chicken stock and porcini mushrooms. The entire assemblage is then topped with artichoke hearts and grilled chicken chorizo.
This is a dish that takes you on an euphoric rollercoaster ride of flavours, textures and sensations. The paella rice is cooked till it retains a firm bite. The mushrooms meanwhile have stealthily infiltrated the inner sanctum of the rice and saturated it with woody, rustic notes.
The chorizo that crowns the dish is surprisingly similar to the porcine brethren it resembles and is firm and incredibly flavourful. Trust me, this is a meal you'll want to have if you're looking to experience unfettered jubilance.
The fabulous Basque-style burnt cheesecake offers a wonderful way to end your KL Restaurant Week 2025 dinner. — ABIRAMI DURAI/The Star
For dessert as part of the three-course dinner menu, there is the incredible Tarta De Queso (RM36), which is essentially a Basque-style burnt cheesecake. This was a dish that attained fame when it was first introduced at Barra, so Prats says he had to have it at Barraca too.
The highlight of the cake is its texture – which is sweet, smooth and incredibly creamy to the touch with the richness of cheese swimming through its veins, offering an unforgettable ending to the night.
Bookings for KL Restaurant Week 2025 can be made through restaurantweek.diningcity.my or through the DiningCity app. Address: L1-08, The Campus Ampang, Jalan Kolam Air Lama, 68000 Kuala Lumpur