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El Celler de Can Roca


pedro

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Don’t know if the restaurant deserves a third star, maybe not because of the premises but the food is trully three star experience in the way of Berasategui and Santamaría. And IMHO this is probably the most consistent restaurant in Spain nowadays.

Rogelio, I think it is more a case that the box ticking Michelin men might use this as a reason, and is not a case of Can Roca "deserving" just two stars. I really like the way this restaurant doesn't smack of formality and pomp. We sat by the window, over looking the pool in what is effectively an urban back garden. I loved the incongruity of this and I love being able to eat without the feeling of being constantly monitored by over zealous waiting staff.

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I agree with Corinna. I for one also prefer places where I can feel at ease and not care too much about what I should wear while enjoying great food.

Regarding the service at Can Roca, I can't point out a single issue with it. In fact, I believe most of the people in the front were the same that were serving the previous year.

PedroEspinosa (aka pedro)

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Personally I enjoy places where one feels the need to wear a tie at times. Alas they're a dying breed and the kind of service that went along with the formality of dress required by diners at formal restaurants seems to be dying out as well. Not so at Can Roca. The same may be said for elBulli, by the way. I don't think I've been to another restaurant in Spain where the service is so perfect. Well perhaps Can Fabes, but it's been a while.

I have previously noted my surprise at finding this level of service in a provincial restaurant in Spain. It's as good in every respect as any I've found in NY or Paris for example. It offers just about everything I want along with what I need from a service staff and introduces nothing I don't need. I've noticed unfortunate pretension in three star restaurants in France and a bit of stiffness in upscale country restaurants in Spain. The best ones are relaxed. At Can Roca, they manage to stay relaxed, while offering the most formal service. It's one of those restaurants where I enjoy watching the floor show. Corinna's comment about over zealous staff is a good one. It's a common fault. I always suspect it's a fault imported from the US. It's not a fault at Can Roca.

Robert Buxbaum

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Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

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It looks to me that ties were once the passport to access to the temples of fine dining. Now that correlation has loosen and ties mostly grant you access to places where a certain class meet, being food a secondary issue.

But let's not drift too far from Can Roca.

PedroEspinosa (aka pedro)

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  • 4 weeks later...

Finally made it and am now kicking myself for not having gone before.Three of us went for lunch, we decided on a la carte as the degustacion was a little heavy on liver and I am supposed to be avoiding it at the moment ( lacked willpower when it came to the stunning foie coca at 5 Sentits however).I started with the cold apple soup, a perfect lunch dish on a surprisingly warm day, my mother had the carpaccio of trotter and adored the sweet onion tuile and my wife went with the Comte soup, well documented already but still wonderful. All mains were wonderful, lobster with trompettes de mort, duck terrine with pear and fideu of prawns without the noodles, a great range of cooking styles and all perfect. The desserts were the high point of the meal for us, Viaje a la Habana for me which was the essence of my fathers ashtray the morning after a good Monte Cristo, my mum had the Zen Garden, essence of jasmine in green brushed sugar and y wife had the Poison which mirrored the perfume perfectly. Excellent coffee and petit fours, a bottle of Condrieu Depocins and a glass of Roda 2000 ( turned into several after the sommelier offered a vertical tasting), three glasses of cava and a 15 year old rum with a total bill of 275 euros. With Ryanair flying to Girona for £40 I am seriously considering giving up my local restaurants and heading south instead.Had a long chat with Josep and Jordi which rounded it off a treat. Well worth the 2 stars and a much more enjoyable meal than at Santi Santamaria in every way.

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The desserts were the high point of the meal for us, Viaje a la Habana for me which was the essence of my fathers ashtray the morning after a good Monte Cristo,

Funny, bu this doesn't sound terribly appetizing! :raz:

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and a 15 year old rum with a total bill of 275 euros. With Ryanair flying to Girona for £40 I am seriously considering giving up my local restaurants and heading south instead.Had a long chat with Josep and Jordi which rounded it off a treat. Well worth the 2 stars and a much more enjoyable meal than at Santi Santamaria in every way.

My husband and I had this conversation less than an hour ago! We were contemplating going to Cork in the South of Ireland to try some of the more interesting restaurants down there, and worked out that it would be cheaper and more enjoyable to fly Ryanair to Girona. For once Ryanair's idea of what constitutes proximity to a major city has its benefits!

Edited by Corinna Dunne (log)
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this is my attempt to post something useful to add to all the lovely reviews above and in nick lander's recent ft review.

i did the ryanair trip to girona for a meal to el celler de can roca. it was well worth it. my second time this year, and just as good, nay better.

the useful bit of my post is not my opinion which is gushingly favourable - just a couple of travel tips.

i stayed at pension belmirall, a delightful pension in the old town, just 60 euros for a double night. n.b this is advice for no frills travellers, not the posh lot on these fora. cab only costs about 6-7 euros from pension to the restaurant. cab to town from the airport is around 25 euros.

i had the menu sorpresa, 90 euros a throw, with all-spanish wine matches. menu as on other posts - apple soup, comte cheese soup, foie gras turron, shellfish veloute, smoked tuna belly, red mullet w couscous, pork belly, pigeon, hypnotic poison

the whole thing came to around 95 quid a head - sorry can't convert into euros or dollars, other than by saying, what a bargain for this standard and this much pure joy.

can any of you spanish speaker on the forum who know josep encourage them to dim the lights? v unflattering!

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. . . . .

can any of you spanish speaker on the forum who know josep encourage them to dim the lights? v unflattering!

No way! :smile:

Personally, I find the lightning at Can Roca quite pleasant and I can't stand this trend consisting of places where you hardly see your food.

Was the lightning uncomfortable for you?

PedroEspinosa (aka pedro)

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i mean it entirely lovingly! i love the place, but i suppose what i'm driving at by saying that is it's not the dimmed light kind of place.

pedro, i'm guessing you've not been in the ladies' loos, but honestly the cigarette burns on the toilet roll dispenser!

again, i mean it lovingly. don't expect perfection, except for on the plate. i suffered the stansted express and stansted airport just for this restaurant. i'm a fan.

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We don't have many 'dimmed light kind of places' in Spain - thank goodness! Not being able to see what's on your plate is a favorite sport, seemingly, in such places as New York. We are not so sophisticated here. To us, dining means enjoying every aspect of your food - including its looks. If you want dim lights to enhance the romantic atmosphere with the person you're with, you can always go to a club later. But dining is too serious an experience to cut away part of it.

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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A very recent visit to Can Roca on October 20 proved (at least in my own eyes) that my earlier praise for this modest place located in a dull suburb of Girona continues to be one of the most exciting places to eat in the Western World that I am aware of. Normally I am not a proponent of multi course small portion format but Joan Roca understands extremely well the concept of the flow of the meal and the progression throughout the meal is well thought out. I admire the way he creates explosive taste combinations from complimentary ingredients while at the same time adding an element of surprise (a contrasting ingredient) which elevates some of his dishes to a divine status (pork feet with espardenyes for instance). I am also quite skeptical about the wide scale application of "sous vide" technique to meat but somehow Roca is able to deliver crunchy skins (his lamb and pork dishes) and escapes some of the pitfalls of this method. Even though this method was originated at the kitchens of the Troisgros in the 70s, I would say that Roca fares better than Troisgros (where I ate on the 21st of October the day after Can Roca) when he cooks sous vide. I am also thrilled by Roca's constant search for highest quality ingredients as he brings his suckling lamb from Ribera Duero (churra breed) and his squab from Bresse (France) and so on. His fish and shellfish has been impeccably fresh in the last 3 visits too. In terms of sensitivity to high quality ingredients both Can Roca and Con Fabes score much higher than El Bulli.

I have two complaints though. One is that(somehow nobody mentioned) the bread tray is too good and I can not help devouring his various brioche concoctions to my detriment. Second, the wine list is is treasure for rare Spanish (Cantador 2001, Cursion 2001) and great Burgundies at very fair prices so no matter what I do I always leave the restaurant feeling that I could or should have tried bottles other than what I ordered!

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The ability to make you leave feeling you've still misssed something after you've wined and dined with full satisfaction is not the worst thing one can say about a restaurant. On our first visit, my only regret was that we hadn't ordered the longest menu. On my second visit, I thought my appetite gave out before the meal had ended, but nevertheless, I wiped clean every dish that followed my loss of appetite. As for wine, we simply asked for a pairing and requested they all be Spanish wines. We were pleased. I'd like to go with a group only to be able to order bottles and still taste several wines.

If I have a complaint it was that when we asked for more information about the red dessert wine we were served on the first visit, we were told we'd not be likely to find it in a shop and thus didn't look very hard for it. Several years later, actually the week after our second visit, we found a lone bottle in the bins at Lavinia. We grabbed it, brought it back to NY and served it (Dolç de Mendoza) to some worthy French guests (fans of food and thoroughly lacking any chauvinism) with local berries at the height of season. It was a simple and perfect dessert combination.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Went back for lunch last week. We ordered the seasonal menu.

the first course was the Comte soup for everyone but me, since I'd had it before and wanted to try something different. I got the squid (calamar) parmentier instead, which is featured in Roca's sous vide book and I hadn't tried before. It was interesting, particularly the different squid textures, but I thought the squid to potato ratio was a bit low. Maybe on account of being a lunch menu, they change the portion size and thus the dish suffers, but I don't really know (until I order the same thing a la carte).

Then we had the red mullet, cous cous and orange confiture (the cous cous was done with the fishe's liver), which was excellent.

The meat dish was a milk-fed lamb (cordero lechal, not sure about the proper translation) done sous vide which was good but nothing to write home about.

We then had a pear and gorgonzola dessert which was excellent as well, and ordered the "viaje a la habana", one of their "star" desserts consisting on a Partagas Serie IV smoke sorbet covered with chocolate, which resembles a cigar, and a mojito ice cream. While interesting, I still find these desserts an intelectual game not worth playing.

The lunch came at 75 euros p/person, and we had a 50 euro bottle of wine among 4 people.

my overall opinion: an excellent lunch and a great value.

Edited by Silly Disciple (log)

We''ve opened Pazzta 920, a fresh pasta stall in the Boqueria Market. follow the thread here.

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. . . .

The meat dish was a milk-fed lamb (cordero lechal, not sure about the proper translation) . . . .

Not something we're likely to see anytime soon in the U.S., but I suppose it would be called suckling lamb. A pig who's still nursing is a suckling pig. Then again, veal isn't called suckling beef. Anyway, I think I've used the term sucking lamb.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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  • 3 weeks later...
The meat dish was a milk-fed lamb (cordero lechal, not sure about the proper translation) done sous vide which was good but nothing to write home about.
They themselves translate in the English version of the menu: "Piglet with almonds and gentian".
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Hi Pedro,

Can Roca was great! We had twice the surprise menu (three snacks, three tapas, 10 courses, 2 desserts and 4 petits-fours) for only 90 €. (I had my personal conviction confirmed that this restaurant deserves more teh three stars then Sant Pau does.)

They managed to prepare us two completely different meals each day!

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Hi Pedro,

Can Roca was great! We had twice the surprise menu (three snacks, three tapas, 10 courses, 2 desserts and 4 petits-fours) for only 90 €. (I had my personal conviction confirmed that this restaurant deserves more teh three stars then Sant Pau does.)

They managed to prepare us two completely different meals each day!

...sigh... (with a growling stomach)...

u.e.

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Hi Pedro,

Can Roca was great! We had twice the surprise menu (three snacks, three tapas, 10 courses, 2 desserts and 4 petits-fours) for only 90 €. (I had my personal conviction confirmed that this restaurant deserves more teh three stars then Sant Pau does.)

They managed to prepare us two completely different meals each day!

Did they include dishes from the so called classic menu, that is, their stellar dishes dating back to the eighties?

PedroEspinosa (aka pedro)

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The meat dish was a milk-fed lamb (cordero lechal, not sure about the proper translation) done sous vide which was good but nothing to write home about.
They themselves translate in the English version of the menu: "Piglet with almonds and gentian".

I'm losing something here. Surely "Cordero lechal" is lamb and not translated as "piglet." "Piglet" would be good for "suckling pig," although I'm usually not content to rely on a restaurant's translation of its own menu. I've seen some really gross mistranslations on menus, even at world class restaurants with multilingual staff.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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