El Celler de Can Roca

Worth the hype?

Squab civet and parfait

The name El Celler de Can Roca really needs no introduction if you are a serious foodie, besides the prestige 3 Michelin stars status, it was also listed as the top 3 best restaurants in the last 5 years by the popular and influential World 50 Best restaurants awards. Founded by the Roca brothers in1986, El Celler de Can Roca is now a world renown fine dining restaurant and booking a table could be a real mission. The cooking approach is very avant-garde, taking influences from around the world using prime local ingredients. It offers 2 tasting menus, a shorter "classic menu" containing some of the best dishes from the restaurant over the years and the longer "feast" menu with its latest creations, which is what I opted for.  

The infamous olive tree

Mushroom steamed bun

Cherry, watermelon, red sisho, red onion

Zucchini flower

Sea bream, rice, sake, tofu, lychee

Langoustine, sage, vanilla, butter

Prawn, rice vinegar, seaweed veloute

Cuttlefish with rabbit sauce

In the typical Spanish fine dining fashion, the meal kicked off with a selection of canapes, started off from a specially crafted world map that contained canapes inspired from around the world, I got to say it was fairly average and the drama element made it such a style over substance course. The best dish on the day was the langoustine cooked in sage and butter, the shellfish was finely seasoned, offered plenty of umami flavours while maintaining the beautiful refreshing seafood taste. Grilled eel with garlic was another strong dish, I really enjoyed the oily and meaty taste of the fish, the addition of the saffron oil added a lovely floral tone and delivered a great balance to the finish. Another really strong dish was the pigeon, super tender and moist, totally faultless and it was an absolute delight to eat, it was a pigeon dish cooked to the highest level.

Hake, bone juice, asparagus, rocket pesto

Sole with fennel, bergamot, orange, pine nuts, green olives

Steamed red mullet...

... stuffed with seaweeds and sea anemones

Eel, garlic, potato and saffron oil

Iberian suckling pig, cabbage and spiced meatball

Smoked duck magret and orange

Cucumber, cardamon cream, melon, apple, fennel

Honey, apricot, mato ice cream, caramel

Cocoa, lychee, almond, raisin, brownie

All in all, it was a very satisfying meal in terms of the cooking quality and the creative concept were both fun and engaging. Is it 3 Michelin stars level for me? It is a tough one for me as some of the dishes were average out the 20+ dishes but that is to expected from a long tasting menu. My other issue was the service, it was average at best and pretty poor for a top fine dining establishment. The attention to detail was lacking, such as taking away our wines before we have finished and forgetting our petit four. At the end of the day, I think I had too much expectation for El Celler de Can Roca as it took me 11 months in advance to secure a table, so my mind was flooded with so much hype so I always had the risk of getting disappointed if it wasn't perfect.  



Food 4.5/5

Executive chef: 
Joan Roca

What I paid: 
£300 per head with wine

Average cost without drinks and services:
Tasting menu: 195 Euro

Carrer de Can Sunyer, 48, 17007 Girona, Spain

https://cellercanroca.com/index.htm