Barcelona Home to World’s Best Restaurant

 El Celler de Can Roca. Girona, Spain

 

You wouldn’t expect the world’s best restaurant to be here, just outside the old town of the Catalonian city of Girona, about an hour north of Barcelona.

But this is the place, where the three Roca brothers took their mother’s cooking, some lessons from the French Nouvelle, a little Adrià instruction and a note of Basque. This is the final home to their now 3 Michelin Star restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, also now No. 1 in the world.

The space is beautiful – light and airy with glass, wood and plenty of rocks (rocas in Spanish) to minimally accent El Celler’s main decoration, which is the food.
And the alchohol. Oysters in cava and manzanilla. Clam with campari.
From mom’s Catalan kitchen – Iberian suckling pig with quince terrine, chicken legs with praw.

From the creative mind of youngest brother and dessert chef Jordi Roca: Milk dessert. And Anarchy – 12 creams, 7 gelatines, 7 sauces, 3 granitas, 2 foams, 2 ice creams, 3 fruit cakes and 7 crunches.
From the French – Timbale of apple and duck liver with vanilla oil.

The brothers have mastered their own technique of essential oil and smoke extraction. You’ll find it all over the menu, from the Dublin Bay prawns in curry smoke to the cigar-tasting Journey to Havana to the sweet Adaptation of Eternity by Calvin Klein.

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