El Celler de Can Roca

El Celler de Can Roca is the musings of three brothers, Joán, Jordi and Josep Roca (executive chef, sommelier and pastry chef, respectively) who took over an old family business in 1987 and turned it into one of the best restaurants in the world. The food is whimsical, evoking landscapes of memory and their stated goal is to “generate states of mind while trying to find the perfect match between the sensory and emotional description of all the ingredients that make up the dish.” Recently, the restaurant moved into a new space – a minimalistic glass and wood wing attached to a beautiful old stone house, enclosed by thick greenery to cushion the diners from the world beyond. But that outside world is exactly what you are expected to bring along to the meal.  Can Roca invites each diner to realize that the process of sharing a meal is only communal in that moment, but that every ingredient and flavor and smell has a different association for each person. So, to share my experience at El Celler de Can Roca, you get a memory with each course – a 11-anecdote escapade across my two decades of life.

Snacks: Black sesame cracker, caramelized olive, anchovy bone, cucumber skin soup with smoked eel and morels with foie and Pigeon bon-bon with Bristol Cream.

1. Fish soup with brioche of tuna and wasabi. My mom filled a thermos of miso soup for me almost every day in third grade. She got up early to cook it for me, and recently she told me it was one of her favorite morning rituals. She sliced some scallions and tofu, tossed in some wakami and dashi flakes and zipped it away in my lunchbox. While I slurped down the contents at noontime, I gazed longingly at the Lunchables and ham sandwiches surrounding me.  I knew nothing about the antioxidants and fatty acids and vitamins packed into my fishy broth but I did know no one else was eating it, and to an eight-year-old girl, not much else matters (even though I really did love the taste.) There was one place that I can remember being proud of my palate for Japanese flavors. Every Saturday morning my grandfather cooked Japanese breakfast. He was a seismologist and spent a good deal of time in Japan, and while my visits to him in Colorado were not all that frequent, this was always a much-anticipated part of the trip – no judgmental third graders in sight.

Here, the brioche, tuna and dashi flakes were perched atop a write grate over the bowl of soup. All of the rising aromas seeped into the spongy brioche, so I ate the tuna and brioche, floated the dashi into the broth and cradled the bowl in my palms to slurp away (see Japanese soup drinking etiquette 101.) The warm broth helped ease the chill of the rather cold dining room.

2. Charcoal-grilled oysters with citrus marinade and leeks. There is a modest, rusty Weber grill in my backyard. Grills are made for fresh ingredients on sticky summer days – and because there are not too many oysters floating around in the Missouri River, my grill normally saw the likes of vegetables, turkey burgers and the occasional salmon filet (okay, not really a Midwest local either). One day our neighbors put a gas grill out on the curb with a sign that said it worked perfectly and it was free. Perhaps our bag of charcoal had gotten soggy in the rain, or maybe it just looked spiffier than the decrepit old Weber, but we took it in. It only took one episode of burgers infused with the essence of propane to confirm my allegiance to charcoal grills. To this day I am a staunch advocate of charcoal and eating this oyster reinforced every basic tenet of my philosophy. It is absolutely impossible to get that genuine smoky flavor without real charcoal. I have been fooled by the guises of molecular gastronomy before – but on a tour of the kitchen later that night I was very pleased to see a big, black, gunky pit of charcoal cinders – it is simply the only way.

The individual pods of citrus pulp added wonderful flavor and acidity without dominating my mouth and the big, meaty yet tender oyster was phenomenal.

3. Charcoal-grilled king prawn, king prawn sand, king prawn essence, velouté of prawn head juice. Please reference above for my fanatical love of charcoal grilling. Next, my love affair with beaches. This dish was a beach. And it was just as fun to play in it – the “sand” stuck to the tines of the fork like granules between my toes. First feel on the tongue is the really soft sand that is enjoyable to dig your heels into, then it mysteriously melts away leaving a prawny-aura lingering behind. The velouté was almost mushroomy, and I dug even farther to get all the good juices out of the head of the prawn.

Beaches in Missouri are a little bit lackluster. The close ones are manmade to say the least, and normally on the edge of muddy lake water. Many people I know have houses at “the lake” – a body of water that needs no specification for most Missouri residents. However, I was never an Ozarker. My childhood beach memories are on the sloped banks of the Fire Island – a sliver of an island a short ferry ride away from Long Island. I spent (not quite enough) summer nights on the back deck of the beach house with fresh fish on the grill and sunburned shoulders waiting for the respite of nightfall. I do not think I ever ate the sand there, but I was a master at building “beach faces” and using the same greenery flecked on this plate to make wild locks of seaweed hair.

4. Herring smoked caviar omelet. I had caviar for the first time during a Christmas visit to my uncle’s apartment in New York. As a gift for my younger cousin Aaron we bought the game Don’t Eat Pete – the basic premise is you cover the game board with cheerios, one person closes their eyes, the rest of the players decide which square is “Pete”, they open their eyes and pick cheerios to eat one by one, until they are about to eat Pete and then everyone screams DON’T EAT PETE!!!! The first round ended in tears, Aaron couldn’t quite figure out why everyone was yelling at him and that was the extent of the game. After Aaron had gone to bed and I was given special on-vacation-big-kid privileges to stay up late, the adults changed the rules a bit. Instead of cheerios they used shots of vodka and bites of caviar to cover the board.

I dug out this picture of Ron in the mischievous act of eating Pete

With droopy eyelids I remember nibbling my first taste of the salty eggs. I already knew they were considered a delicacy, and the novelty of the ingredient was very appealing to me. To this day, I cannot eat caviar without seeing Ron -my uncle’s wife’s dad (got that?) – animatedly choosing a square with the same innocent fear that his selection might set off a cacophony of pleas for Pete’s sake.

The architectural design of this omelet was very intriguing. The elongated football shaped egg case appeared to be a mini omelet, until it was cut open and the milky colored middle spilled out. The egg layer was actually quite thin and the herring caviar insides were delicate, concentrated and absolutely delicious.

5. Catalan cod pot-au-feu. This is a traditional Catalan dish, normally made with meat, but re-adapted here to a fishy theme. My initial reaction was –fancy tuna casserole – the presentation of the fish and pasta was nice and the buttery fish consommé was delicious, the cod was fine but not remarkable

As you may have noticed, the “to be continued” was starting to look permanent at the bottom of this post. I have been sifting and sorting through my brain for some memory I could even closely tie to some of the remaining dishes. So, maybe that is the point also – I made some new memories here. Had I been catalan I’m sure this Cod would have sparked all sorts of nostalgia, but I have no strong associations with the fish.This whole trip was almost an overload of new memories. Had I not been taking notes, much of the details would have been lost. I will likely never had a Catalan Cod Pot au Feu again, but if I do, my memory will automatically jump to this meal of amusement and awe.

6. Sea Bass, Olives, Capers, Pickles. I am notoriously a pickle fanatic. As Dave Chappelle once said: “some people say cucumbers taste better pickled” – I definitely side with the picklers on that one. Last summer I discovered the Mecca for pickle-eaters. Guss’ Pickles, on the Lower East Side, is the home of barrel upon barrel of every possible pickled production (say that 10 times fast): new pickles, half sour, quarter sour, fully sour, kosher, spicy pickles, pickled green tomatoes, pickled ochre and more. The briny salty memory of this establishment lingers in my taste buds and I wish daily I could find a pickle that even came close. While I enjoyed the pickled, briny, caper aspect of this dish this fish itself was not outstanding. The creamy sauce underneath balanced the olives and capers. The olive was not an olive, per se, but a reconstructed liquid ball that looked like an olive, exploded with olive flavor and then melted away – no pesky pit involved.

7. Lamb, bread, tomato. Catalan pa amb tomàquet - is a traditional dish of bread rubbed with tomato. Here, tiger tomato was used, and even though it was soaked into the bread the flavor was outstanding. Apparently, this dish originiated during the Spanish Civil war and the tomato was just used to moisten stale bread. However, it caught on, and the brothers at Can Roca stepped it up a few notches and made a delicious dish. The lamb had an interesting flavor on the first few bites, one I was not familiar with, but I acquired a taste for it quickly and finished this dish absolutely loving it.

8. Goose à la royale, peach compote, foie sauce. I did not know what went into a Royale preparation while I was eating this. I did know that the goose had the most interesting, dark, rich sauce ever. This mysterious potency comes from the goose blood in the sauce. The yin yang of beige and orange around the base was a wonderful peach compote and a goose foie sauce- they balanced sweet and savory, complementing opposites creating a greater whole, just like the shape they were plated in.

9. Charcoal Grilled. Wild mushroom consommé, charcoal grilled mushroom ice cream. My dad’s former studio partner was a etched and stained glass artist. Every year for their holiday sale she hand-etched dozens of delicate glass bulbs. I was always mesmerized by her gentle movements with the bulbs – taping and sandblasting and untaping and drawing and sandblasting, layer by layer, until she took off all the tape and revealed the beautiful ornament. Sometimes she would let me help tie the ribbons to the top or put them in boxes. My hands were shaky I was so nervous about shattering one of the paper-thin bulbs.

I initially hesitated to send my spoon crashing down on the sugary bulb on this dish. But, I could see the smoke swirling around inside and I knew it would be worth it. With one tap, the bulb cracked open and thin fingers of charcoal smoke came snaking out. The wonderful smoky smell was reminiscent of the dishes from earlier in the meal. This was a very savory take on dessert, but I will never complain about creatively used mushrooms. The mushroom ice cream was smoky and earthy. The consommé was equally potent and then when all was said and done the residing flavor was sweet – the dessert aspect sneaks up at the very end.

10. Orange chromatism. This word means abnormal pigmentation, or an illusory visual perception. This dish was all about the color orange, combining orange ingredients to create the impression of eating a color, but it still tasted lovely. Carrot compote, egg yolk, iced orange, apricot liquer and mandarin sugar. The carrot compote on its own tasted like a shot from the health food store. When mixed with the egg yolk it became creamy, sweet and delicious. The iced orange was tasty and the mandarin sugar added a nice little crunch. I suppose my biggest association with orange food is the wooden crates of clementines that pop up all over grocery stores in the winter. They take over my house, the find their way into my christmas stocking, sometimes they are small enough you can almost eat them in one bite, occasionally they have a few bothersome seeds.

11. Milk Dessert. milk caramel, sheeps milk ice cream, curd cheese foam, yogurt and a lactic cloud (milk cotton candy). I love almost every manifestation of milk except when it is poured in a glass. Cheese, ice cream, yogurt – I’m there, in large quantities. The only time I use milk in its element is over my cereal and in my cup of coffee. This dish milk to its full potential. It was fun to eat, exploring through the elusive layers of lactic cloud to discover the dairy delights below. The guava added just a taste of fruit, but left the dairy to do its thing. We were advised that if we hit the spoon on the bowl we could hear the cow bell. Indeed. Except this was ewe’s milk, so the visual of Bessie in her grassie field with her big bell was a little bit misleading. Maybe a more appropraite association is the Wallace and Gromit’s sheep fiasco in “A Close Shave,” which just made me realize that the lactic cloud looks a bit like a sheep was sheared over the bowl.

12. Chocolate: passion fruit, praline (which exploded all the way down my throat like pop rocks), raspberry, palet d’or, jasmine.

After dinner we took a tour of the restaurant and the wine cellar. From the outside, the walls were constructed of wine crates. Inside, more sensory experiences awaited. The cellar was organized by region. A remote control operated spotlights and TV screens in each station and on a pedastle in the center of each cove was something representative of the region at hand. A bowl of silk in the German Riesling section, complemented by a video with pictures of German wine landscapes, Velvet sacks of varying weights for red Burgundy, a bowl of metal “bubbles” for Champagne.  – Touch, sight, and all that was missing was a small glass to smell and taste from – with over 40,000 selections, this might not have worked.  The multimedia cellar experience was a fun way to end the night, and was a reminder once again of the creativity and passion the Roca brothers put into their work. The staff was gracious and service was pretty crisp. If it faltered at all, it was towards the end when we had a card down on the table to pay and multiple people walked by and did not acknowledge us (a fairly negligible error). I would absolutely return to El Celler de Can Roca purely to see what kind of creative dishes they conceive for the next menu and I’m sure by then I will be equipped with all sorts of new memories to associate away with.

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