Last week marked a “big” birthday celebration and also a big tick on my bucket list.
For a number of years, as long as I can remember to be honest, El Cellar De Can Roca has been a dream of mine to visit.
It won the prestige title of San Peligrino best restaurant in the world a couple of times but it was clear the standards and imagination here were in a class of their own - so they built a new class titled “best of the best” where it sits comfortably with a few other restaurants.
Perched on the outskirts of the historic city of Girona the restaurant is ran by three brothers; Joan, the eldest brother and head chef, Josep, middle brother and world renowned sommelier and Jordi, the youngest and pastry chef. Jordi deserves a special mention as sadly a number of years ago he contracted a virus which has left him unable to use his vocal cords and at best can only whisper!
Joined by my partner and closest friends we set out on an epic 5.5 hour journey, not to the restaurant itself, this is how long it took to get through the 26 courses, and service wasn’t slow; no time for breaks here!
The food and wine pairings were astonishing as you would expect, however what really makes you gasp is the genius in the creativity here. From broths when poured resemble each brothers head, to lives growing on trees that are actually olive ice cream, old library books that you thumb the pages and lick an essence from your hand that takes you to that nostalgic old book smell, but a flavour to the pinnacle, virtual reality headsets that take you to a chocolate festival with miniature aztec people dancing around a fire in the middle of the table! Incredible!
Needless to say it was an experience we will talk about for years to come and I doubt there could be many more that could equal it let alone surpass it!
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