El Celler de Can Roca (*) – Girona, Spain

I've just returned from a trip to Girona and Barcelona, the latter of which was a return visit some 10 years in the making. During my stay, I ate at five fine dining restaurants; in order: El Celler de Can Roca (), SUTO (), Cocina Hermanos Torres (), Lasarte (*), and Mont Bar (). No Disfrutar this trip, though I'm set to return in December to…enjoy.

The most well known of these restaurants is undoubtedly El Celler de Can Roca, a restaurant that represents the culmination of the three Roca brothers' (Joan, the cook; Josep, the sommelier and Maitre D'; and Jordi, the pastry chef) cuisine, which put Girona on the culinary map when it won World's Best Restaurant in 2013, and then again in 2015 (back when restaurants weren't retired from competition after winning once, so it meant more, as far as these things do at all).

El Celler de Can Roca is inextricably intertwined with Girona. All three of the Roca brothers were born in this 2000-year old city, a city that has been conquered and reconquered throughout that history. Those may be military conquests, but in the culinary world, it is the Roca brothers that have done the conquering.

It didn't begin with El Celler, though. Three years after eldest son Joan's birth, the father of the family, Josep (which is also the name of the middle child) opened Can Roca, a bar and restaurant on the outskirts of Girona, that is still going to this day. It is here that the brothers got a firsthand view of the hospitality business, with Joan completing his hospitality studies at the Escola d'Hospitality i Turisme de Girona in 1983 (five years after the birth of youngest son Jordi; Josep completed his studies two years after). It was in 1986 that Joan and Josep opened El Celler de Can Roca. Almost thirty years passed until the restaurant was put foremost onto the world stage, and this evolution came through Joan's formative placements with El Bulli and Georges Blanc, as well as the addition of Jordi's unfettered creativity with desserts (for an insight into the latter, the Chef's Table episode on Jordi Roca is well worth a watch).

Three is the magic number, and it is utilised again and again during a visit to El Celler de Can Roca. The dining room is in the form of a triangle, where three lanes (three sides) are separated by a glassed off courtyard; three rocks sit on each table, each differing in size, representing the three brothers and their relative ages; and the first of the sixteen appetizers that comprise the Festival menu, consists of a 3D mould that – as three distinct volumes of liquid are poured into it – show the profiles of the three brothers in turn. This 'three-faced consommé' consists of a cocoa nib infusion for Jordi, mushroom broth with amontillado for Josep, and a grilled veal broth for Joan. A fun and spirited start to the meal, with the dish being an example of something that I particularly enjoyed during my visit: the move away from a completely linear menu from savoury into sweets, where instead the expertise of each brother was drawn on throughout the meal (such as the olive sorbet and gazpacho nose via Jordi, both of which were appetizers, and the wine-steamed prawn via Josep).

This was the begining of a massive menu: 16 appetizers, 12 savoury courses, 4 desserts, and petit-fours. Given the 32 courses, I've selected pictures of the twenty courses that were the most striking. This was not a difficult task, as I found that the meal was consistently good, but with only a handful of true standouts. These standouts include, from the appetizers: the frozen olive (an olive sorbet that was that was almost the essence of an olive, but with the salinity tamped down), the oyster with cava, the plankton mousse with seaweed (a wonderful bite with brine and herbaceous notes), and the foie gras nougat with cocoa (rich and decadent). The only appetizer that didn't pass muster was the squid nigiri; a nice enough idea, but it fell apart at the touch. Even as a simulacrum of a nigiri, it was unsuccessful.

From the main savoury courses, there were a greater number of exceptional dishes. The opener, the celebration of the tomato, was wonderful; various tomatoes prepared in different ways, starting with fresh and sweet at the bottom of the plate, ending in deeper umami flavours at the top. This was a journey on one plate, of one ingredient, that I would happily take again. I had to wait a few more courses for the next exceptional dish, that being the aubergine with miso and pine nuts. The miso sauce was smooth and rich, with the nuts adding a welcome textural crunch, and the aubergine acting as a perfect accompaniment, more also for its textural quality than outright flavour. This was the standout of the menu for me. Wonderful.

The final four savoury courses were all exquisite. The guinea fowl, the duck, and the seafood were all the stars of their respective dishes, and what I liked the most is the lightness of touch taken with the garnish and accompanying sauce for these dishes.

The desserts were a little bit of a let down, as I love desserts (this is probably in part why I hold Goldfarb's Room4Dessert in such high esteem), but perhaps this is also due to great expectations going into it, given Jordi Roca's reputation. I found the apple dessert to be very fun but also very bothersome to eat (the dinosaur cutlery was unwieldy, and the lack of a knife didn't help for cutting the aerated apple strips), the autumn dish – while again fun in conception – didn't stick the landing on being harmonious in taste (it ran too acidic), and the chocolate dessert was good but was exceeded a couple of nights later by the amazing chocolate dessert at Cocina Hermanos Torres.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to El Celler de Can Rocs, and while there was nothing here that truly fell short of the mark, I was disappointed that less than half of the menu left an indelible impression. That said, the highs that were reached were exceptionally high, and the lows were almost non-existent (most restaurants I imagine would be quite happy to attain that median level). In the end, when the napkin hits the table, there is no denying the great attention to detail and the excellent service that is on display at El Celler de Can Roca.

Courses:

1. Three faced-consommé. Essential grilled veal broth, Joan. Mushroom broth with Amontillado, Josep. Cocina nib infusion, Jordi.
2. Montse Cannelloni
3. Pig's trotters with sea cucumber and crispy ear
4. Shellfish velouté with caviar
5. Parrotfish in double tempura with bergamot emulsion
6. Olive bonsai with frozen olives
7. Oyster with Agusti Torelló Cava, apple compote, ginger, pineapple, candied lemons, and spices
8. Steamed brioche with boletus
9. Langoustine steamed with Manzanilla
10. Squid nigiri with kohlrabi and squid broth
11. Oyster leaf with distilled earth
12. Eau de Toilette "Le Sel". Plankton mousse, seaweed, apple with ginger gel, ginger infusion, and seawater
13. Pomegranate gazpacho
14. Red salad. Watermelon, confit piquillo pepper, beetroot, hibiscus, wine gel, and Campari reduction
15. Foie nougat with cocoa, soybean sprouts, Pedro Ximénez and burnet
16. Beet and apple sorbet, grapefruit foam, salad zucchini and impregnated kohlrabi. Parsnip and mushroom purée, grapefruit reduction, cauliflower and shallot pickle
17. Yellow pear cherry tomatoes pickled, Kumato tomato shots, beef heart tomato lacquered in its juice, Zebra tomato, Nippo tomato, Sweet Solano tomato, Summer of Love tomato. Anchovy and walnuts purée, semi-dried cherry, Sherry vinegar gel, tomato water gelée and tomato leaf oil
18. Lettuce grilled, pickled, dressed, with black garlic and aniseed herbs
19. Clay-baked zucchini, spiced zucchini demi-glace, figs, fig tree cheese, salt-cured zucchini flower, pistachio cream, and fig leaf oil
20. Cured and marinated sardine. Charcoal-grilled bone velouté with garlic and parsley. Pickled fruits and flowers. Anchovy garum. Apple with Amontillado, fennel and lime, and toasted hazelnuts praline
21. Glazed aubergine Katsuobushi, flame-roasted aubergine, pickled aubergine cream, peanut and tamarind sauce, fennel miso, citrus and buckwheat gel.
22. Hake cococha with leek, crunchy leek, hake head pil pil, leek pil pil, romesco and leek leaf oil
23. Marinated Palamós prawn, with almonds velouté, rice vinegar, tender almond and prawn head juice (pictures first)
24. Scorpionfish suquet with the juice of its fishbone, orange, capers and confit tomato, pine nuts
25. Langoustine with poularde parfait. Roasted poularde juice, chicken cracklings, Langoustine bísquet, poularde liver parfait, pickled seaweeds, pickled sea fennel
26. Guinea fowl with grilled red cabbage sauerkraut, smoked beetroot, endives with coffee, fresh grapes, butter-sautéed grapes and Guinea fowl sauce with mole
27. "Xuixo" of duck stew. Cured and smoked duck, duck sauce, duck marinade, duck consommé, pickled duck sauce, blood orange
28. Grated coconut. Orange blossom cream, coconut crisp, fig sorbet, coconut foam, lime and grated coconut
29. Autumn. Braised sweet potato, honey and brown butter béarnaise, orange, carrot cake, tangerine slush, egg yolk and tangerine liqueur ice cream, chanterelle mushrooms and spices
30. Apple fair. Green apple textured, butter sablé, Calvados and vanilla caramelized apple, brown sugar sphere, baked apple foam and catalan cream ice cream.
31. Jasmine Chocolate 80 %. Jasmine chocolate with lychee, soursop, and white flower.
32. Cocoa festival.