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El Celler de Can Roca


pedro

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Hi Bux.  I'm trying for a table in April too.  I've just left my booking on their web site, (thanks to eGullet threads) but I don't have a tel or fax number.  Could you possibly post them, as I'd like to cover off all angles if I don't get a reply to my email.

+34 972 22 21 57

+34 972 48 52 59 fax

Carretera de Taialá, 40

17007 Girona

Spain

Are you familiar with the Campsa or Michelin sites. It may take a bit to learn how to navigate those sites, but they're invaluable, if even just for addresses and phone numbers.

http://www.guiacampsa.com

http://www.viamichelin.com

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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  • 4 weeks later...

Stunning dinner here last week for my birthday. Chefs menu lovingly prepared for 6 of us. Wines consumed:

1996 Cristal 132 euroes

1996 Clos St. Hune 66 euros

2000 Raveneau Valmur 90 euros

1994 La Rioja Alta 904 57 euros

1995 Beaucastel 72 euros

1999 Dujac Beaune Mares 144 euros.

I really like this restaurant.

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Stunning dinner here last week for my birthday. Chefs menu lovingly prepared for 6 of us. Wines consumed:

1996 Cristal 132 euroes

1996 Clos St. Hune 66 euros

2000 Raveneau Valmur 90 euros

1994 La Rioja Alta 904 57 euros

1995 Beaucastel 72 euros

1999 Dujac Beaune Mares 144 euros.

I really like this restaurant.

Shit!, you're drinking my wines... :wink: Can't wait to go back and drink another Bonnes-Mares from Dujac...

Brgds,

Luis

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Stunning dinner here last week for my birthday. Chefs menu lovingly prepared for 6 of us. Wines consumed:

1996 Cristal 132 euroes

1996 Clos St. Hune 66 euros

2000 Raveneau Valmur 90 euros

1994 La Rioja Alta 904 57 euros

1995 Beaucastel 72 euros

1999 Dujac Beaune Mares 144 euros.

I really like this restaurant.

Shit!, you're drinking my wines... :wink: Can't wait to go back and drink another Bonnes-Mares from Dujac...

Brgds,

Luis

99 is a bit closed right now. Actually 98 is very good and drinking well. 89 is at the optimum. I finished my last bottle.

I spoke to Josep on the phone and prior to my arrival there we will discuss the menu and the wines. He is supposed to be the best sommelier in Spain.

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I think the thing was about the wines was how reasonably they were priced. A lot of these wine prices are well below the retail value in the UK.

My favourite was the Cristal - bubbly perfection in a glass.

The Rioja became the wine of the trip and we had that in nearly every restarant we went to.

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99 is a bit closed right now. Actually 98 is very good and drinking well. 89 is at the optimum. I finished my last bottle.

I spoke to Josep on the phone and prior to my arrival there we will discuss the menu and the wines. He is supposed to be the best sommelier in Spain.

I find that Dujac wines drink quite well irrespectible of the age. The Bonnes-Mares 99 was superb from a Riedel Sommelier glass the last time I was at Can Roca. If you don't drink it there'll be more chances they have any left for when I manage to get back there... :wink:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last we had the suprise menu and asked them if they could pair Spanish wines for each course, which they did very well. Of particular note were the sweet wines for foie gras, dessert and another course along the way. The dinner, by the way, was simply exceptional. It is clearly a destination restaurant of the first order. About halfway through dinner I asked Mrs. B to name her three best restaurants in Spain, just off the top of her head and without much thought. Can Roca was among them. Interestingly enough her other two choices matched mine as well. Only one of them has three stars from Michelin. They may all be top rated by Campsa however. Of course we all have short memories and Can Roca, being at hand, had an advantage perhaps. I'd only note that some of the best courses had yet to come including what, in some ways, may have been the best roast pig we've ever had. I was sure the next meat course would pale by comparison, but we also may have had some of the tastiest pigeon we've ever had. The rice accompaning the slices of red breast meat had more pigeon flavor than some pigeons I've had in New York. More later and likely I'll want to say more about dining in Spain at the top and in the middle in general, but we're off for Roses and most likely off the net for the next few days. I just needed to pay hommage to last night's dinner. Both the food and service are as good as one could hope to find anywhere.

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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Hi Bux,

I'll have lunch at can roca on next saturday ( and dinner at el bulli on sunday).

I definitly go for the surprise menu;

regarding the wine, could you give a price range for the pairing ?

thanx

Let Eat Be

Food, Wine & other Delights

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I asked Mrs. B to name her three best restaurants in Spain, just off the top of her head and without much thought. Can Roca was among them. Interestingly enough her other two choices matched mine as well. Only one of them has three stars from Michelin.

inquiring minds need to know.....what were the other two?

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but we also may have had some of the tastiest pigeon we've ever had. The rice accompaning the slices of red breast meat had more pigeon flavor than some pigeons I've had in New York.

Agreed. Had a superb meal a couple of weeks ago and the pigeon course was one of the highlights with the breast being lightly smoked and as you say the rice was exceptional, flavoured with the liver I believe.

Other highlights were an amuse of almond milk with lychee and cucumber. An intense dish of shredded lobster meat covered in a thick, rich, creamy lobster custard that had totally captured the essence of lobster, with a mint foam on top so the first mouthfuls had a slightly savoury edge yet underneath a little button of chocolate so the dish finished on a sweet level. Also a piece of lamb with crispy fat, roasted sweetbread and a morel stuffed with lambs trotter was also pretty special.

How was your foie gras presentation I had Foie gras nougat, the liver dusted in cocoa with some grated summer truffle. Amazing, probably the best foie gras course I've eaten.

And the wine list, stunning and tremendous value with many wines on the list under or around retail cost in the UK including Roederer Crystal '96 at €132, Trimbach Clos St Hune '96 at €66, Raveneau Valmur 2000 at €90 and a Dujac Bonne Mares '99 at €144. Add to that a Beaucastel CDP '95 and a La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva '94 and the experience as a whole was my best in a restaurant.

If this restaurant was in London, Michelin would need to create a 4* category :raz:

Edited by Scottf (log)
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We too had an incredible meal here a few weeks ago. We went for the tasting menu, which is phenomenal value at 67 euro. We opted to have our wine paired by the glass, and this came in at an unbelievable 29 euro per person!

The amuse, which were served with Cava, were similar to ScottF's and also included a green asparagus foam with pink grapefruit served in a shot glass. Our foie gras course was the same too. I agree that this is a wonderful dish. It looked like, and had the consistency of turron, yet the foie gras still had its voice. And the pairing of this with the fluffy shavings of white truffle was simply heady. A glass of a sweet grenache played a perfect support role.

The soup of comte with onion which followed was wonderfully intense and could have been a clever take on French onion soup, as it was served over 4 mounds of 'gelatinised' onions, with flavours of rosemary, thyme, bay and white wine. This was twinned with a glass of a single vineyard Manzanilla Pastrana (spelling might be wrong).

Next up was red mullet with cus cus of his liver. Another extraordinary dish; the skin of the fish was heavily salted and crisped, which contrasted beautifully with the soft, almost caviar like quality of the wonderfully flavoured cus cus. This was served with an orange oil and some samphire. It was paired with a grenache blanc Rioja.

A slow cooked egg with sea urchin, oil of black sausage and a rice latticed crisp followed. I presume that this is the sous vide technique (of which I know nothing), as the waiter explained that the egg was cooked at a temperature of 63 degrees Centigrade for 3 hours. The black sausage oil worked incredibly well with the richness of the sea urchin. Our wine pairing for this was a half bottle of Matarromera Ribero del Duero which carried over into the next course.

The final savoury course was a rack of lamb (off the bone) with morrels stuffed with lambs' trotters (cannelloni) and peas. This was also very good, but perhaps the least exciting of all of the dishes. (The pigeon on the surprise menu sounds wonderful).

The first dessert was Eternity by Calvin Klein which is a bit quirky. This is a very light, and yes, perfumed dish (notes of vanilla, mandarin, basil, almond), which upon completion, requires the diner to smell the perfumed strip to compare taste with smell. Maybe not for the macho man, but sensational none the less. This was paired with a glass of MR, a Muscat from Malaga (a mountain wine we were told).

The second dessert, Royale de Chocolat defied the typical heaviness of chocolate and was a delicate, moist mousse, encrusted in roasted nuts with cake, icecream and a blade of caramel. This was accompanied by a glass of Dolc de Medoza, a sweet blend of cab sav, merlot and shiraz which packed a great fruit punch (without too much pudding) but still had plenty of acid and tannins for balance.

Not only was this menu well balanced, it was also well paced and not too excessive. Can Roca hits all the right notes: exquisite food, incredible wines (at all price points), relaxed but competent service and unbelievable value for money. Remarkably, and thankfully, it doesn't carry the overwaitered burden of 3 stars, something which I feel detracted from our experience at Can Fabes. I really, really can't wait to get back.

Edited by Corinna Dunne (log)
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mmmm..I think it was possibly a texture/tempreture thing. I didn't like the feel of it in my mouth or the flavour combination.

I agree about the texture of the egg, it seemed a bit rubbery, and I wondered about the benefit of 3 hours slow cooking. Somehow, it was a bit of a disappointment not to have it slightly liquid in the centre. However, balanced against the rest of the dish, I think it had a role, and the robustness of the rest of the dish kind of carried it.

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Hi Bux,

I'll have lunch at can roca on next saturday ( and dinner at el bulli on sunday).

I definitly go for the surprise menu;

regarding the wine, could you give a price range for the pairing ?

thanx

Nine pours - 52 € per person. We didn't set any price range, only that they be Spanish.

Edit: There was also a cava poured as we sat and enjoyed with the amuses, or what they call "snacks" and "tapas." That wasn't listed on our printout and I believe it was complimentry.

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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I have to admit that the tasting menu was very tempting, but the last time we were there we felt we short changed ourselves by not having enough, so we ordered the surprise menu which had more courses than the seasonal menu or the tasting menu. Had the pigeon not been so exceptional, I would have said the meal should have ended with the roast pork.

On a personal note, I have to say that overload didn't kick in until several days later, after elBulli, when after eating my way through what may have been a huge plate of the best rice I've ever had, I delved into a dish of pig's feet, black sausage and espardeynes. I don't think I got more than halfway through that before I realized I had probably also had too much sun that day. More about that meal later, on another thead, but I have no sympathy for Luis, who on any given day is likely to be thousands of miles closer to Can Roca as well as a number of other coveted tables.

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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These comments here have made me even more upset that I had to miss my meal at Can Roca last fall because of illness. I will have to try to squeeze it in this summer. Unfortunately, I don't know if that will be possible.

John Sconzo, M.D. aka "docsconz"

"Remember that a very good sardine is always preferable to a not that good lobster."

- Ferran Adria on eGullet 12/16/2004.

Docsconz - Musings on Food and Life

Slow Food Saratoga Region - Co-Founder

Twitter - @docsconz

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  • 4 months later...

Reaching Can Roca is not easy, once you get there discovers that Can Roca is the former fammily restaurant still runned by the mother and that El Celler de Can Roca, the is the anexed modern restaurant runned by the three Roca brothers. Both restaurants share the kitchen reminding the brothers where they come from.

The dinning room has two separated areas divided by the cellar. The kitchen can be seen from one them.

Two different tasting menus features on the menu: The 9 courses surprise menu and the 7 courses proper menu as well as a selection of previous years’ greatest hits and a la carte.

After thinking for a while we chose the 7 courses tasting menu and didn’t regret because at the end of the meal our stomachs were completely full.

While we were chosing the snacks arrived, anchoives with raspberries, chanquete’s bread and cot tripe crunch.

And were followed by three more tapas: Mi cuit foie grass with wine reduction, marinated sardine with sangría icecream and veloute of anissed herbs with sea water gelee.

Both, the snacks and tapas were good bt the lowest part of the meal, the best part was still to come.

First dish was a fig gelee with safron in a foie grass soup, tha was both, delicious and reconforting and showed how the dishes were going to be composed, a main ingredient with an enhancing companion and a contrasting touch conforming a balanced whole.

Following course was a comté cheese soup but due to my cheese fobia I had a squid parmentier with the squid cooked two different ways and a paprika souce that contrasted the potato and the squids.

Nexte came on of the highlights of the meal, an smoked (literally the smoke was in the dish) tuna belly with ginger and peach, amazing the tuna beelly was plenty of fat strips looking like marble, the peach added some juice to the tuna and the ginger contrasted with both ingredients and all was enhanced by the subtle smoked tast of the whole dish.

When the next course arrived we were still stunned by the previous dish but the next was almost as good as the former, red mullets with their own livers cous-cous with orange and salicornia. Mediterranean red mullet is une of my favourites fishes and were cooked sous-vide with the skins roasted on the plancha giving two different textures and a seafood flavour enhanced by the salicornia and the cous-cous and again contrasted by the orange. Terriffic.

The last main course was an smoked pidgeon cooked to perfection with a crunchy skin and raw meat with arice made with the pidgeon’s livers and a sauce made with orange, oloroso wine, hazelnuts and juniper. Outstanding.

Every sigle dish is conceptually perfect and the whole menu is a whole by itself, each dish takes you naturally into the next course without disruption.

Many has been said about that there was no wow factor but a this is really serious cooking, made with pristine ingredients where there’s nothing missed and nothing is superfluous. In other restaurants once you have discovered the wow the trick is done you don’t want to repeat, but when I left Can Roca I was on the verge of booking for the following day to taste all the dishes that I had left on the menu. Something that had never happened to me.

Desserts and wine are something else that perfectly complete the whole dinning experience.

Two desserts where on the menu, two perfume interpretation, one by Donna Karan and Hipnotic Poison by Dior. Refreshing the first and aromatic the second. I’m not into perfumes at all but may wife was having a lot of fun with this interpretations.

The wine list is outstanding with three complete volumes. Knowing about the interest of Josep (Pitu) Roca, the charming maitre de’ and sommelier, for the german wines we left him to chose a riesling Im Sonneschein Rebholz 99 from palz that was growing during the whole meal being a perfect companion even with the pidgeon. The perfect pairing for a perfect meal.

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 Enríquez aka "Rogelio"
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. . . .

After thinking for a while we chose the 7 courses tasting menu and didn’t regret because at the end of the meal our stomachs were completely full.

. . . .

Well at least you had the pigeon which in our nine course menu came after I was quite sated. Even though I thought I was completely full, that pigeon and its rice disappeared in no time. I think I could have walked in there full, and still enjoyed every course. I must say however, that I didn't have much appetite the whole next day. That didn't stop me from ordering a very rich dinner the next night, but it did stop me from finishing it.

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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Following course was a comté cheese soup but due to my cheese fobia I had a squid parmentier  with the squid cooked two different ways and a paprika souce that contrasted the potato and the squids.

Man, you don't know what you're missing! Can Roca's Comté soup and all the cheese in the world! I'm so shocked I think I'm going to bed... :wink:

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Following course was a comté cheese soup but due to my cheese fobia I had a squid parmentier  with the squid cooked two different ways and a paprika souce that contrasted the potato and the squids.

Man, you don't know what you're missing! Can Roca's Comté soup and all the cheese in the world! I'm so shocked I think I'm going to bed... :wink:

Exactly my reaction. This soup was utterly sublime and the note of thyme worked perfectly. In my opinion, it is a classic example of the elusive fifth taste "umami".

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