Catalan El Celler de Can Roca, the world’s second best restaurant, to publish a book on its 25-year history

The Catalan three-Michelin-star restaurant El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, considered over the last two years as the second best in the world by the British magazine ‘Restaurant’, will publish a book about its 25-year history this spring. The volume will include illustrations of 90 detailed recipes and a catalogue of its 240 most outstanding meals The Roca brothers’ cuisine is famous for its free-style, avant-garde techniques and an re-interpretation of traditional Catalan cuisine. The English edition will be published by Librooks.

CNA/ Clara Roig Medina

March 5, 2013 08:49 PM

Barcelona (ACN) – The three-Michelin-star restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, considered for the last two years as the second best in the world by the British magazine ‘Restaurant’, will publish a book about its history this spring. In the book, the three Roca brothers who run the restaurant together in Girona (in north-eastern Catalonia) explain the history, philosophy and techniques of its free-style, avant-garde techniques and traditional Catalan cuisine through 500 illustrated pages. This includes a 90 detailed recipes and a catalogue of its 240 most outstanding meals. The English edition will be published by Librooks.


The book is a large format volume (24 x 32.5 cm) and is illustrated by the photographers David Ruano and Francesc Guillamet. The three brothers explain in first person the secrets of the restaurant: the history, philosophy and techniques of 90 detailed recipes as well as a catalogue of its 240 most outstanding meals over 500 pages. It also includes the impressions of a day in the life of the restaurant by the writer Josep Maria Fonalleras.

In 2009, the restaurant was awarded its third Michelin star and was considered the second-best restaurant in the world in 2011 and 2012 by the British magazine ‘Restaurant’. El Celler de Can Roca is a free-style restaurant with a delicate and imaginative cuisine with a commitment to avant-garde techniques as well as to Catalan tradition. Mediterranean and local ingredients are combined in a surrealist style with new techniques: the freezing of calamari in liquid nitrogen, caramelised olives presented in a bonsai tree or desserts based on brand perfumes such as Calvin Klein’s Eternity or Carolina Herrera.

The three Roca Fontané brothers, who come from a family of chefs, run the Celler (Cellar, in Catalan): Joan, the elder brother, has learnt from Ferran Adrià in El Bulli and is now the architect of culinary creations, the researcher and the master chef; Jordi, the youngest, elaborates the anarchic desserts which combine a dozen ingredients and flavours; and finally, Josep, the sommelier and current manager of the cellar, selects the right wine for each meal and moment from over 60,000 bottles.