El Celler de Can Roca, Girona (Jan 10)
Here come our wheels for the next leg of the journey, I close my eyes. Is it a tidy little Alpha, an Italian rocket, top down? Or possible a German number, more serious, a vehicle with power and purpose?
Not quiet, I wake from another little day dream as our Kia Carnival creeps up. That’s right, we decided against a grown up holiday, let’s take the kids on our well earned Iberian escape. This big, black chunk of Korean workmanship looks very sensible, spacious, and possibly even safe but I shed a small tear every time an Audi shoots past us on the Autopista. I was quiet inconsolable when, after winding the Kia up to 146km/hour, a matchbox sized, two seat Smart car passed me, I could see a smirk on his cramped, carbon neutral dial.
The questionable power to weigh ratio is drained even more when I look to the rows of seats behind where every piece of mobile technology is connected to the car via endless cables and chargers: mobile phones, GPS, 3 ipods, DVD players, Nintendo DS and Apple computer, it’s like going for holiday with Harvey Norman.
We are heading to the little city of Girona and a date with one of the world’s best restaurants. We booked what seemed to be a nice little family run hotel in the old city. Being from Canberra generally old means pre 1970, if you see old here it means seriously old, like biblical. Our GPS, after sending us in completely the wrong direction from Barcelona manages to gets us to this interesting city of some 50,000 inhabitants. I’m getting the hang of driving here, feeling increasingly confident with the payment of full collision waiver. All the signs and distances line up as we near the old city on the river Onyar.
Then it starts to get complicated, the streets narrow significantly, twist and just as we pretty well wedge the van in an archway at the footsteps of the impressively proportioned catedral, our GPS basically says we’re on our own and shuts down. We pull the side mirrors in and manage to find a carpark of sorts and all tumble out the smoking, slightly thinner car.
The Hotel Historic is a tiny 8 rooms, lovingly restored and decorated, our apartment just down the cobblestones street dates back to the 7th century. Incredible, what will Canberra look like in a few centuries, one great big mall maybe..
We feed and lock the kids up safe behind a huge Roman gate and head off to tea, our booking isn’t till 9pm, but that’s when most places open and it does take a while to recalibrate the system. Our crazy taxi driver shoots us down the road to El Cellar de Can Roca, three Michelin stars, rated as one of the top five restaurants in the world, and little old us, from Murrumbateman rock up first feeling distinctly out of place.
We’re shown to a lounge area that doubles as a cigar room after the meal, whilst we wait a lovely tall glass of Cava appears I’m getting used to this drink, fresh and pure its one of the few sparkling wines that rival Champagne. With this a little olive tree arrives, just 20cm high and full of life, hanging from the branches, 4 caramelised olives, crispy and chocolately on the outside, sweet and soft inside. Then a little golden ball, that dissolved instantaneously on the tongue releasing a shot of campari and grapefruit. Another arrived, an anchovy ‘bone’ with black sesame wafer, these are delicate crisp pastry like fish with a large flat disc of intense sesame, the tapes kept coming and we haven’t even seen our table yet.
We are shown directly there, the room is a triangle, quite a common shape in Spain, where the tables surround an internal small room filled with wintery birch trees. The staff all arrive at once, a dozen waiters, maybe more to serve the 40 odd people eagerly waiting tonight’s unique menu.
What happens over the next 3 hours is quite amazing, profound food really, we’ll regale the night for years as the kids wonder what happened to their inheritance, it challenges your senses, stamina and liver function. We know what we want, the feast menu; 12 course with 12 wines for just €200 each.
However the tapes haven’t finished, we are treated to a stunning combination of Botelus edulus brioche served with a delicate Catalan consommé, the concentrated mushroom flavour oozes out of the dish and aroma fills the room. Then chestnut soup, a little puddle of very thick liquid with grated black truffle, yum, this is a fine dish, so complex yet simple. The pre dinner fun finishes with fois gras nougat, it feels like we have had a meal already.
I ask, with a certain confidence, to see the wine list, it takes a while to come around as they only have three, each needing it own trolley to move it around the room. Seriously big and filled with the greatest wines of the world, I shrink a little, clearly out of my depth. “Ta, nice list” I say to Spain’s champion sommelier.
So now the feast starts, not sure I can fit in the entire menu, its quiet a personal memory really, this night, here.
Charcoal grilled king prawns with king pawn sand, sounds simple enough, two seared prawns – these are not just king prawns, lost in translation is that they are Palamós shrimp, a unique deep sea crustacean from the coast near here – smokey and blackenede they lay across the plate, arranged just below them is a sea floor scene made up of the prawn sand, really looks like sand and tastes of a thousand crustaceans reduced, within the sand are various little morsels, representing coral, seaweed and the like, that give the dish an aquarium look, it’s very pretty and the flavours are concentrated. The wine here is a local wine, Finca Viladellops made from the interesting Xarel-lo variety, peach pit and spice.
A couple of courses later we have artichoke with duck foie gras, eel and orange, the menu says “a dish of contrasts” from the almost bitter grilled artichoke with soft and creamy liver, crisp skinned eel all bound by intense bitter orange essence, remember here that this is but one dish, they must have an army in the kitchen to put all the complex plates together. A beautiful wine is served, one of the few non Spanish, Kesselstaat Josephshöfer auslese 99 Goldkapsel, second time I’ve had this wine this year so it going to be a great year, pure minerality, so complex and so ready for a dish like this.
I should mention the steak tartare, this is a signature dish they have been evolving over the years. As it stands tonight, you get a long neat oblong of raw beef mince, it’s very moist and fresh. Starting at the nearest point you begin the journey and as you work though it the flavourings change, each quite distinctive: spiced tomato, caper, hazelnut praline, béarnaise, oloroso raisin, chives plus many others. On top sits of each flavour a tiny soufflé potato and mustard ice cream and different spices like Sichuan pepper, smoked paprika, curry. Pretty hard to explain and presumably cook. With this we get a little splash of Sibarita by Pedro Domecq, an amazing old wine from Jeréz, super sweet and concentrated, the wine is very old and unblended, taste like burnt toffee, ground spice, citrus peel.
The meal goes on, the wine keep flowing we end up eventually at the two or three desserts, my wife of 20 years fades, my memory begin to as well, I sense a dish based on the perfume Terre by Hermes, where Jordi Roca I Fontane, one of the three brothers behind this brilliance, has put together a dish that recreates the famous perfume: chocolate, jasmine, orange are amongst the distantly remembered finale.
We are the last to leave, bypassing the dangerous cigar room and associated impressive spirit list. Just as we depart however they give us a dozen handmade chocolates to remember the night. These are consumed on a later sober date and sum up what Can Roca is all about, the unobtainable, dishes that are out of this world in their complexity and intensity. A night that will always be remembered now we just have the looming taxi ride to our old town digs.
Menu, 20th Jan, 2010
Snack
Campari bonbon
Anchovy bone
Caramelised olive
Black sesame cracker
Boletus edulis brioche
Chestnut soup wth truffle
Foie gras nougat
Menu
Crustaceans veloute with broccoli and tangerine
Charcaol grilled king prawn, king prawn sand
Smoked herring caviar and potato omelette
Artichoke with duck liver, eel and orange
Sole with olive oil, fennel, bergamot, orange, pine nuts & gren olives
Cod pot-au-feu, potato gnocchi, cabbage and brandade terrine, cod tripe
Lamb and tomato rubbed bread
Steak Tartare
Goose a la royale with peach compote and foie gras
Sweet potato
Vanilla, caramel, liquorice, dried and caramelised black olives with Tahitian-vanilla condensed ice cream
A fragrance adapted: Terre by Hermes
St John restaurant, London (Jan 10)
I’m pretty confident that we have travelled the furthest, just over 17,000km actually, to be here for lunch on this sunny, cold winters day at St John restaurant, near Smithfield markets, London E16LZ this January
You know the guy, famous for his faith in the whole pig, nose to tail and cuts of other animals normally tossed to the dog.
In a world where restaurants live or die by their investment into design, paramount to success, the food an afterthought, success here lies in simplicity. The building previously was a rundown smokehouse, unused until Fergus and partners came along with an idea to bring his essential English pub grub into a restaurant operation.
Not too many years later, with two widely successful and brilliant cook books, a Michelin star and top 20 in the world ranking you could say that it is a success.
The restaurant is easy to pass as our cab driver did a few times, “Bleedin’ oaf, couldna’ they put up a sign” just a white fronted shop and you enter by the garage. Inside a number of rooms house the various outlets, a bar then the restaurant itself. Simple seating, bare painted floorboards, the ramshackle kitchen sits off to the side.
The menu is simple, straight forward, no colorful language, 11 starters, 8 mains and 10 desserts. The starters and desserts sell for around 8 quid (see I’m sounding like a Londoner after two days), the mains around 17, cheap really, particularly with the exchange rate. Also note, they don’t allow mobiles in the dining room and the game may contain lead shot.
Each menu item is presented in very direct, concise language, you just need a handle on ye olde English speak” Natural oysters; smoked sprats and horseradish; turbot and fennel, spotted dick. No foams, jellies, NO3 or emulsions. This is the antithesis of molecular cuisine, which has its place, don’t get me wrong. The joy here is in the simplicity and confidence each dish displays, everything is what it meant to be.
Today the staff are in full swing, the man himself is seated next to us enjoying no doubt his creation. One dish that really is a SJ icon is roast bone marrow with parsley salad, the kitchen is churning them out, we have to have one at least. I do love this dish, remembering when I first saw it in a book about last suppers. A rustic dish, four sections of charred marrow sit upright with coarsely chopped parsley, caper and lemon drenched salad on the side and two big pieces of good toast to smear it on. It’s a happy little feast digging the soft, fatty life blood out of the bone, spread on toast then a sprinkle of salad. For some reason it just taste so good to have it here, a perfect Sunday chow down.
Alongside we also grab another rustic number – potted pork and rabbit – little terrine of sorts built on porkfat poached pork (yummmmmy) and bunny, shredded, again served with sour dough to lap up the unctuous deposits. So we’re both slurping these treats down with a half bottle of Chablis, weird I know but somehow the stoney acid of this Burgundy keeps the high concentration of lovely lipids under control, already I have a nice feeling of being satiated, fulfilled, it was a good decision to travel this far.
Main fare and for me Mallard and lentils grabs attention but only slightly more than braised venison and red cabbage, Arboath smokie and parsnips, which fills the dining room with an intense smokey aroma. The duck is half a little wild one, it has this flavour that I haven’t seen before, more than savoury, a brothy, wild character. The flesh throughout is moist and fatty. A pile of well seasoned little greenish lentils hits the spot, along with a bowl of sprout tops and roast potatoes on the side. It’s hard to convey why this works so well; this setting, this food, meeting high expectations mostly.
Across the table we also have faggot and swede, sounding like a entry into the Scandinavian alternate film fest. I know what Swedes are, turnips in disguise but never heard of a faggot before, turns out to be a large meatball, a tastes like it’s made from many a fine piece of offal, pigs liver would be my main guess. Food for the heart and soul, chunky, well flavoured, stuff that you hunger for. To see this course on its way we knocked off a grown up bottle of village Vosne, nice.
The desserts are a feature and mini-triumph, here Justin Piers Gellatly, great name, is unleashed. His desserts are featured in the second book, Beyond Nose to Tail, and show an uncompromising British tilt, as can be seen in his Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese. A big pillow of buttery pastry filled with fruit mince. The strong, moist and crumbly texture of the cheese has this unusual feature of tasting better with the cake, and vis-versa, maybe it’s some sort of tradition. Gellanty also is a renowned ice cream maker, so what could be better to finish off our long Sunday lunch than a bowl of rum and raisin ice cream, delicious. Unfortunately we could take on the spotted dick, because, as the chalk board sign says so plainly in the kitchen,”No dick”
The sky is darkening, our children are possibly wondering where we are and as we weave our way back to the West End we reflect on what a heartening experience is been, the only sad part is the fact that St John’s food is so accessible and value that you would need to come back again and again to really appreciate fully which, even at a good exchange rate, would seem a tad extravagant.
January, 2010
