Octopus Confit and Saffron Potato Salad

I love octopus every which way, but no dish has impressed me more than this one. I tasted it at Saüc, a Barcelona restaurant where a modest décor belies truly poetic and quietly ambitious modern Catalan cooking. The octopus was amazingly tender, paired with meltingly delicious saffron potatoes and dabbed with an intense tomato-onion reduction. The dish seemed simple, but when the chef, Xavier Franco, started explaining, I realized how much thought and technique had gone into it. Octopus can