DN innovación (Taipei, TAIWAN) ★★★☆☆

Type the words "molecular", "restaurant" and "Taipei" into your favorite search engine, click "Go" and you'd be surprised with all the search results pointing to one direction - DN innovación.

Tucked away in the ground floor of a commercial building in central Taipei (across the street of Les Meridien Hotel), DN innovación is a contemporary Spanish restaurant specializing in artistic and innovative cuisine that is both exciting and unique (unique in Taipei !). 

DN are the initials of the restaurant's famed executive chef Daniel Negreira. Having worked for some of the top molecular restaurants in Spain including El Bulli, Arzak and Mugaritz, Chef Negreira has gained a strong reputation both as an acclaimed chef as well as an accomplished artist.

At DN innovación, you would find the interior design as modern and elegant as its cuisine.

As always, we started with the bread basket and this was beautifully presented. Hopefully that would be a sign of things to come.



Appetizer was unfortunately a forgettable start. We had the homemade marinated Norwegian salmon with vanilla dressing and it was well short of our expectation (2.5/10).

Perhaps we should have picked the D.N. version of chicken Caesar salad instead.



Next up was a baby peas pudding with Spanish Iberico ham and coriander emulsion. Finally a small redemption from the talented kitchen.

This was easily the best dish of this lunch. Perfectly presented like a mousse cake, the ultra-soft baby peas pudding was nicely complemented by two thin slices of delicious Iberico ham and a coriander / olive oil emulsion (8/10).



Another well-prepared dish came in the form of a Spanish "A" Degree saffron creamy rice with seasonal seafood. A paella-style rice, that was rich in texture and flavor (7.5/10).



But the wheels began to fall off with our two main courses starting with my grilled Yilan cherry duck breast cooked in "Chasseur" style.

Firstly, I have specifically requested my duck breast to be served "medium" but it arrived badly undercooked (more like medium rare). So I had to send it back.

But my major disappointment came from the award-winning Yilan duck. While I was expecting something much more tender and flavorful, it came up way short of that promise (3/10).



The other main course, black pork sirloin with manchego cheese and bacon crust also failed to impress. 

When I first saw this in the lunch menu, I thought they had something going with the brilliant idea of combining black pork, manchego cheese and bacon all into one single dish but unfortunately the kitchen failed to execute.

The contrasting flavors and textures did not really stand out as expected and it turned out to be nothing more than a piece of pork sausage (2/10).

Dessert was a molten chocolate cake with raspberry lava. It was amazing how the taste of this simple dessert is enhanced with the addition of a fig purée, caramel sauce and almond chips (6/10).





Food Rating: 5/10
Price: $$
Address: 93 Songren Road, Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan
Closest Metro Station: Taipei City Hall
Tel: +886 (0)2 8780 1155
Website: www.dn-asia.com



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