El Celler de Can Roca

HMMM, where should foodies go on vacation to celebrate?

For our latest trip, we (Emma and JJ) went to Barcelona, Spain to satisfy our craving.  We experienced our first Michelin 3 stars restaurant in Spain, since then, we have tried various Michelin star restaurants around the world, but we always can’t forget our first time, so to celebrate our anniversary, Emma and JJ decided to go back to Spain. 

This time we decided to try our luck at El Celler de Can Roca.  After many many attempts we finally got a TABLE….happie!!!  So why El Celler de Can Roca???  It currently ranked No.2 (in 2016 and No.1 in 2015) on the World’s 50 Best restaurants list, and it holds 3 Michelin stars since 2009.  It is definitely worth a visit!!!

The restaurant is located in a small town name Girona, it is about 40 minutes from Barcelona by a speed train.  We made a lunch reservation, since we are not planning to stay over night, however, we did catch an early morning train to explore Girona.   

El Celler de Can Roca is a short taxi ride from the train station; we actually walked there to explore the town and toooooo build our appetite. We almost got lost….hahaaa who suggested to walk there?!?   

Finally, we arrived El Celler de Can Roca.   So so so exited, we took out our iPhone and went crazy with the taking photos…. Yeah..we are still outside of the restaurant….LOL   

Let’s go inside…

We felt like we just entered into someone’s backyard, a nice patio seating area surrounded by big trees, we love the décor of the waiting area, simple and relax. 

We were there early, so we decided to chill by the patio area….but shortly after, the attendant came out to greet us…Let’s enter the restaurant.  The reception décor was average, but when we first walked into the dinning area, we saw a triangle shaped glass window opens to the sky with trees planted in the middle, the nature sun light warm up the atmosphere and the trees added a nice zen feel to the area.

Once we settled in our table, we received our welcome champagne.  Multiple appetizers or tapas (in Spanish cuisine) were served…so much welcome food.

Love these soft and creamy black truffle buns (with truffle cream filled inside), I love how the strong black truffle aroma melted in my mouth……truly to die for.

Little green olives frozen ice-cream, very light and refreshing.

We were so impressed by the “tapas” that came before we even get to see the menu. 

There were two fixed menu options: short or long and you can choose to pair with wines.  They have one of the most extensive wine menus and we forget to take a photo to show you the three big wine booksssss. 

It was not difficult to decide on the menu; since how often can we come back again??? Of course we picked the long feast menu. We opted out the wine pairing.  We wish we can pair with the wine…. we have tried that once and we can barely get back to the hotel. This is one of our biggest weaknessssssssss.  We both are super cheap dates.

Below are photos of our favourite dishes…especially the seafood dishes, most of the dishes were influenced by Japanese cuisine, such as serving fresh raw fishes and shrimps or cooking with an ingredient like miso.

Almost forget to post a photo of a dessert, we always need to end a good meal with something sweet :).  Well…they served us multiple sweet dishes, but this one is my favourite, inside the ball were flower peddles and I still remember the strong flower aroma from this dessert, truly a dish from heaven.

In summary, we both had an amazing time. 

El Celler de Can Roca is a free-style restaurant, this time the dishes we tried were influenced by multiple Asian cuisines, which also happened to be our favourite, so we were so so so satisfy with our amazing food journey this time…what a lucky day!!!

Restaurant website:  www.cellercanroca.com

Address: Can Sunyer, 48 17007, Girona, Spain    

Tips:

1st time Michelin Star foodie:

Plan to spend 3 to 4 hours to enjoy a great meal.

1st time visitor:

You can visit Girona by a regular or speed train from Barcelona. If you are not on a tight budget, we suggest you go by the speed train to save travel time.

Girona is a beautiful city; you should plan time to tour the city.

People eat late in Spain, average lunch time starts around 1:00 pm and dinner time starts around 8:00 pm.