Welcome to ‘El Celler de Can Roca’.

Modern and flat design combined with wooden elements and lots of green make a good contrast between the modern and the rustic.

The adjoining house (which I believe houses the kitchens) is beautiful.

The three stones at each table represent each of the three brothers who run the restaurant: Joan, Jordi and Josep

A triangular cutout in the middle of the dining room with floor-to-ceiling glass panels. It makes the room look larger and portrays more to us the rustic and traditional nature combined with moder architecture. Just like the cuisine here – modern Catalan

The menu for the night. That's not everything, as there is a number of amuse-bouches at the beginning. I went for the full tasting menu with the wine pairing. The price is a very good deal compared to some three-star restaurant in the USA which seem to charge large premiums for alcohol pairings, on top of which they add tax and on top of even that, they add tip. Eating in high-end Michelin-rated places in the US is very uneconomical with a much worse price/quality ratio than we can find in Europe.

You are served cava as an aperitif, and apparently it's bottomless. As soon as I was nearly finished, I got some more poured in! Probably not a good choice not rejecting that as I took the wine pairing which included more than fifteen glasses of wine.

We start with a set of amuse-bouches called ‘The World’. The presentation is keeping me guessing as to what's hiding beneath

Here is what hides underneath! We have a world tour of different cuisines. Each dish has a very concentrated flavour, and if you have visited the country or had the type of food, eating this will instantly put you back in the moment. The tour takes us through Mexico, Turkey, China, Morocco and Korea.

Mexico: “taco” with mole poblano and guacamole. Just look at the size and detail here. Making it requires skill and precision, and the taco delivered all the flavour I have come to expect from a Mexican taco.

‘Turkey: Tartlet of vine leaf with lentil puree, eggplant and spices, goat yoghurt and raw cucumber’. In this dish we are exploring Turkey. If you've had something like this before, you'll know what it tastes like.

‘China: pickled vegetables with plum cream’. I have failed to properly focus my camera on the right dish but the dish delivered what you would expect from a chinese cuisine. Particularly reminded me of the times I go to Chinatown in London and order Peking duck – the duck comes with rice pancakes, vegetables, and plum sauce, just what we have here.

Morocco: almond, rose, honey, saffron, ras el hanout, goat yogurt. Making these must require a very steady hand.

Korea: panco fried bread, bacon with soya sauce, kimchi and sesame oil. This is the leftmost dish in this picture. It amazes me how it's possible to concentrate flavor in such little packages.

‘Memories of a bar in the suburbs of Girona’: A beautiful fold-out dish that's bringing us to the childhood of Joan, Jordi and Josep.

‘Memories of a bar in the suburbs of Girona’: From left to right, breaded squid, anchovy bone in rice tempura, potato and onion omelet. Again, just like ‘The World’, we have more very concentrated flavors in tiny packages – fantastic!

‘Memories of a bar in the suburbs of Girona’: kidneys in sherry. Culinary art.

‘Memories of a bar in the suburbs of Girona’: kidneys in sherry. The kidney is served with a sherry that's in a tomato-like sphere.

Josep Roca in ‘Memories of a bar in the suburbs of Girona’.

Young Joan Roca cooking.

Jordi Roca, the youngest.

‘Crispy corn with Iberian suckling pig rind’. Not much to say here except that it was awesome and full of flavour! A pork dish that we will get to later on captured my heart – the restaurant definitely knows how to make pork.

‘Caramelized Olive’. You get a bonsai tree for the whole table with caramelized olives hanging from it. I'm not sure of the caramelization process, but the olives had a hint of ocean flavor to me.

Caramelized Olive on bonsai tree.

The next amuse-bouche comes on a ‘coral’. We have ‘Pickled barnacles with bay leaves and albariño. Seabream ceviche.’

‘Coral: Pickled barnacles with bay leaves and albariño. Seabream ceviche.’ This is the pickled barnacles.

‘Coral: Pickled barnacles with bay leaves and albariño. Seabream ceviche.’ The seabream ceviche.

‘Saint George's mushrooms bonbon’: A mushroom-shaped, mushroom-colored bonbon filled with a mushroom-flavor liquid that propagates everywhere as soon as you bite into it! I'm very curious as to how it's made and regret not asking!

‘Saint George's mushrooms brioche’: The second dish on the theme of mushrooms. A very light brioche with a strong mushroom flavor and a thinly sliced mushroom on top. I can see that the theme of trying to concentrate as much flavour into small portions continues to be executed with a lot of success!

First main course of the night – ‘Spring vegetable stock’. Vegetable emulsion, carrot, baby broad beans, flat beans, flowers and leaves. The emulsion itself had a thickish consistency meant to support all the other ingredients. It was a much more concentrated flavor than equivalent more watery stocks.

Yes, this is an ice cream as a starter – ‘Three flavor corn ice cream’. Fermented corn and toasted corn sable, huitlacoche and fried huitlacoche, fried corn and vanilla. Top notch minimalist presentation and a marked separation of flavors between the three layers.

Three flavor corn ice cream

Cuttlefish with peas: peas pesto, cuttlefish ink and coral. Good separation of the individual pieces of the cuttlefish. If you didn't know, a cuttlefish is not a standard fish, but a cephalopod, like a squid or octopus. I found the plating to be slightly messy, and I'm not sure whether the plate itself fit the dish.

Cuttlefish with peas

Mackarel with pickles and mullet roe: mackarel sauce with white wine, lemon, capers and chillies in vineger, fried tomato, mullet roe, mackerel marinated in sugar and salt. Exciting presentation of this dish! The plate here definitely fits with the theme of the dish and the strands of the mackerel sauce. I'm wondering myself how they achieved such silvery texture of the sauce.

Mackarel with pickles and mullet roe

Prawn marinated with rice vineger: head juice, crispy prawn legs, seaweed velouté and phytoplankton. I think this was my favourite dish so far. The prawn is not cooked at all, only marinated. This little thing hiding in what appears to be a mortar was the softest and juiciest prawn I've probably ever eaten. I need to try this at home.

Prawn marinated with rice vineger

Oyester with anemone: anemone sauce, “ajoblanco” sand, tender walnut, seeweeds and apple. In my rushed desire to taste this, I ruined the dish before I realized I didn't take a picture, so this is not the original presentation. We have a sea-inspired dish here. The edible sand is a nice addition, and I always like it when it appears in a dish (Fat Duck's ‘Sounds of the Sea’ comes to my mind).

Skate confit with mustard oil, beurre noisette, honey, chardonnay vinegar, bergamot, aromatic mustard, confit capers and smoked hazelnuts. We continue with the seafood dishes with this skate. I don't have much to say here except that it was very smooth and delicate! I would probably go for a white plate, not a fan of transparent plates.

Skate confit

This is not what it seems! ‘Surf and turf’: sardine with pork jowl, charcoal-grilled sardine-bone broth, suckling pig sauce and chervil oil. It looks like a sardine, smells like a sardine, but it's actually a sardine skin on pork. I didn't enjoy this dish too much, but I'm generally not a big fan of pork. Your mileage may vary. Possibly the presentation could be better, as you see the broth and sauce are all over the place.

Surf and turf

Iberian suckling pig with charcoal-grilled young garlic, garlic pesto, black garlic, “nyores a l'ail”. I wrote above that I don't like pork too much. Well, that goes out the window with this dish which I promote to my favourite so far. We have suckling pig cooked at 65C for many hours, then finished off and pressed on a plancha grill for the amazingly crispy skin. I doubt you have eaten pork that tender. It is falling apart and melting in your mouth.

I like minimalism and symmetry and so the presention of this dish appeals to me a lot.

The suckling pig deserves a closeup. It was the most tender pork I've ever had and an amazingly crispy skin to top it off.

Veal shin and saint George's mushrooms, marrow, tendons, avocado and morels. Good that this dish is not too big as I'm getting slighly full (and drunk, each one of those dishes has its own wine pairing). I believe the veal was also cooked at a constant temperature for an extended period of time. I like the taste of morels so I generally enjoyed this dish.

Veal shin

Pigeon trilogy: Pigeon heart and the cloud of rice. This is for my whole table, one per person. We have an aerated rice cloud with a pigeon “heart” on top. Very light, and looks like a technically difficult dish.

Pigeon trilogy: “Botifarro and Tatje pigeon breast”. The second part of the trilogy. We have a pigeon breast and a botifarro (a type of sausage) that complete the trilogy. This is last main course. I liked it, but I think the pigeon breast could have just ever so slightly more soft and tender.

Simple presentation on a simple plate make me happy!

Starting the desserts now, with ‘Suspiro Limeño’. Milk, lime, coriander, milk caramel, pisco. The dessert is amazingly light and fluffy, not too sweet, and definitely leaves you enough space for the rest of the dessert menu.

Second dessert – ‘Orange colourology’. Great colour and presentation, with a taste to rival. I like the additions of flower petals making this dish appear more natural and organic. Even though the plate isn't a simple white plate here, I think the petal-like design goes well with the petals in the dish and visually drives us towards the center the plate.

Orange colourology

The final desert – ‘Chocolate Anarchy’. Here we find chocolate in all forms and types. Foam, ice cream, cake, emulsion, dots, jelly-like cubes, and probably a couple of others. Definitely a chocolate feast. I like the ‘organized chaos’ presentation of the dish.

Chocolate Anarchy

Arrival of the sweets cart, to go with coffee and tea.

Selection of teas and coffees. I went for a relaxing tisane.

A selection of sweets by Jordi Roca. All of them were impressive and very flavourful. I particularly liked the spheres with woodland strawberries in them.

Me and Joan Roca.

Kitchen. Everything is immaculately clean and ready for the next day.

Kitchen.

Kitchen.

Kitchen. Here we have combi ovens cooking pork at 65C. I would love to own one of these but for now I have to settle for sous-vide.

Kitchen.

A stand for one of the tapas.

A stack of Michelin guides.

Michelin man.

Goodbye! Hope to come back here someday.