Get Your Just Desserts

Hello sugar buzz, goodbye teeth. In a quiet corner of Barcelona 's Born district is a dentist's nightmare. This year, Europe's first gourmet dessert restaurant, Espai Sucre (Sugar Space), celebrates its fifth anniversary. The fantasy of Jordi Butrón, Espai Sucre is devoted to rescuing dessert from its secondary role in Spain 's gastronomic culture.

The intimate 30-seat dining room, decorated in a subdued, tasteful beige and black, offers a three- or five-course set menu costing $35 or $45, respectively. Diners may start with an appetizer of litchi, celery, apple and eucalyptus soup; proceed to a "salad" of spicy milk-pudding cubes, apple sticks, rocket and caramel; tuck into an entrée of cereal cake with Greek yogurt and crushed apples with laurel herbs; and cap it off with a dessert of almond cake with coffee and leche merengada (milk and meringue sauce).

And for an after-dinner treat, there's chocolate ice cream, black sesame crystal and yogurt, swimming in smoky-flavored tea ice cream. Well worth a few fillings. tel: (34-93) 268 1630; www.espaisucre.com.