Review – El Celler de Can Roca restaurant Girona, Spain

Introduction

Rated the #2 restaurant in the world in 2018 (ranked #1 twice in the past) I was very much looking forward to dining at El Celler de Can Roca.  I had AMEX Plat concierge make reservations about 2 months out and they were able to find us a lunch reservation at 1PM on a weekday.

 

Getting to Girona

We took the direct 9:45AM – 10:23AM Renfe train from Barcelona since the next direct train would get us there too late.  I booked the train tickets about 2-3 days ahead of time.  It cost 16 EUR per person one way.

 

Girona

We really had no idea what to do in Girona for 2.5 hours, but once we got there, we learned some parts of season 6 of Game of Thrones was filmed there.  So we walked around the town (small city but will still take you ~30 minutes to walk from the train station to the Cathedral and attractions.)  By around noon, we started the 20 minute walk towards the restaurant.  I had read that there was a public library immediately across from the restaurant, and that’s where we sat for a bit in the A/C (it was nearly 90 degrees that day) and also where I changed into some dress pants and a dress shirt for the restaurant.

Experience

We got to the restaurant a little before 1:00PM, and there were maybe 2 other tables that had already started their courses.  When you walk inside, it’s a GORGEOUS layout.  The restaurant is in a shape of a triangle.  Glass everywhere, but trees outside to block your view of the town.  You essentially want to face the middle triangle area where these trees are (shown in pic above.)  We were given the menu with 2 tasting menus.

We decided to go with the “Feast” menu just because it had more courses and looked to have more seafood.  We also decided to get the wine pairing for the both of us.  Our first course was then brought out (tastings from 4 different countries; I forgot the first, but I know India and Japan and Korea were in there.  We had to decide which of the last 2 were India and Korea; if you guessed right, the globe opened to another amuse bouche.

 

I won’t describe the rest of the meal and let you see it in pictures.  It took us about 3 courses before we saw Joseph (the wine brother) walking around and greeting folks.  There was a young couple next to us who he must have known.  Throughout the meal, they got hooked up with some special wines.  They also didn’t want the wine glasses removed, and so by the end of dinner, their table was just full of wine glasses.  At the end of the meal, as we were walking out, we just randomly ran into Joan, the chef brother, walking out from the kitchen.  The two of them were nice enough to take a picture with us.  Too bad the pastry brother didn’t come out; I wanted to see him the most.

 

Conclusion

Was it the best meal I’ve ever had?  I don’t know; I barely remembered half the dishes [due to the wine pairing.]  Not that I was drunk since we both were sober enough to walk back to the train station just fine.  Was it really good?  Sure.  Was it worth it?  Heck yeah!  For $750 all in for 2 people with wine pairing at the #2 restaurant in the world, you can’t beat that!  Is it better than Eleven Madison Park (#1 in 2017?)  Yeah, I’d say so.  Do I recommend it?  YES.  Would I go back?  Probably not.  We had eaten at Roca Moo a few days earlier, which was pretty similar to this meal.  Plus, it takes up an entire day just to get there and back.

 

Pictures