The brothers behind one of the all-time great restaurants opened an ambitious new project in 2024. Take a look behind the scenes as we revisit the restaurants in the prestigious Best of the Best group.
Part Bond villain lair, part seemingly impenetrable fortress, part calm and welcoming space, Esperit Roca is a place of contrasts. Found at the top of the Sant Julia mountain, about 20 minutes outside the small city of Girona and accessed via a bumpy country lane lined with cork oak trees, the vast complex expands the Roca brothers’ empire even further.
The trio – Joan, Josep and Jordi – are royalty in Girona, and across the entire culinary world. Their restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, has twice taken the No.1 spot in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants ranking, and has a waiting list of more than 100,000 people who are desperate to try some of the best food and wine on the planet, served in the most convivial of settings.
Esperit Roca, which opened in 2024, adds to the family’s Girona-based portfolio, which includes El Celler; small boutique hotel Casa Cacao, which opened in 2020; Normal, a casual but refined bistrot; VII, a tapas bar with a focus on natural wines; Rocambolesc, pastry chef Jordi’s imaginative ice cream parlour and sweet shop; and La Bikineria, an experimental sandwich lab.
Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca chat with the Esperit Roca team
“It’s like a dream come true,” says eldest brother and head chef Joan Roca of the wide-ranging project, which encompasses the hotel, two restaurants, a distillery (where the name comes from) and exhibition, with further plans to expand. “It’s an adventure for us because we’re still very young and we want to keep doing things!”
Sleeping in a fortress
At the hotel, huge floor-to-ceiling windows follow the curves of the large circular building, offering showstopping views of the north Catalonia landscape and blue-tinged mountains in the distance.
“This is a unique building,” says Joan. “It’s an old military castle that dates back to the end of the 19th century. It's very close to El Celler de Can Roca, and it's very close to Girona. We were offered the chance to do something here, to build a gastronomic project, and we accepted the challenge. We have a small ecosystem of small business models around the Can Roca label, and this is an important piece which we will continue to develop.”
The hotel had already been modernised, including the dramatic L-shaped swimming pool
The fortress had been a ruin, but was transformed by jeweller Ramón López, who put a decade of time and many millions into developing the space into a gem museum, hotel and restaurant, finishing the project in 2018. During the vast renovation, the designer already had sights on bringing in the Roca brothers, even placing three large rocks at the entrance to cement the thought, but it wasn’t meant to be then, and the hotel closed during the pandemic.
That did, however, mean there wasn’t a huge amount to do in order to open again – although the Rocas deliberated over it for two years. Modernisation was complete, the striking L-shaped outdoor swimming pool was in place, along with the industrial-style decor, wooden floors and unusual compressed-earth textured ceilings. The changes mostly involved updating artwork and paring things back, so the focus remains on the world outside.
The 16 bedrooms all have impressive views overlooking the Catalonian countryside
The 16 rooms all have extensive panoramic views, freestanding baths, huge cocooning beds and minibars filled with Casa Cacao chocolate and the brothers’ own beer. There’s also a spa, with an outdoor jacuzzi made for sipping Roca Brut Nature Reserva cava in while surveying the world below.
Dining at Esperit Roca
Unsurprisingly, for the Rocas, where they’ve added their signature stamp is in the shape of two restaurants – the unnamed hotel restaurant, which is for guests only, and the Esperit Roca ‘greatest hits’ restaurant, open to the public.
Within the hotel, breakfast is as lavish as you’d expect, with the freshest fruit, meats and cheeses, stacks of homemade pastries and cakes from Jordi, a la carte options, plus Roca cava. Dinner is a la carte too, featuring plenty of local produce. The menu comprises refined comfort food, such as a velvety pumpkin cream with baked pumpkin, pumpkin seeds and shallots; confit hake with rocket pesto, broth, green asparagus and garlic and parsley oil; a huge veal sirloin escalope with Galmesan cheese, pickles, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs and parmentier potatoes; and caramelised banana with cupcake ice cream.
The Roca brothers exhibition is open to the public
A small walk – just a few minutes – down the mountain lies the exhibition and the Esperit Roca restaurant. “This is where we serve iconic dishes from the history of El Celler de Can Roca,” Joan says.
Diners are first greeted by the Roca brothers’ exhibition. The room is packed with impressive, 15-metre-high screens showing interviews and short videos, with explanations and detailed descriptions of some of their most-famous dishes. There are artworks delving into the minds of each of the brothers, kitchen gadgets they pioneered the use of – a water-bath from 1997, for instance – unusual dinnerware and nostalgic looks back to their childhood and their parents’ restaurant, Can Roca, which opened in 1967, and is still where the El Celler De Can Roca team eats its staff meals today.
A cathedral of wine
From the exhibition, guests take a pilgrimage through a mysterious curtain and step into one of the world’s most impressive wine cellars. Its 80,000 bottles were all placed on the numerous shelves by sommelier Josep. “It is very special to be able to place the wine in an underground cathedral and it’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to show off our nearly four-decades-long wine journey. It makes you feel really small, but it also acts as an homage to the people of wine, to the bottles, to the people inside the bottles, and to the landscapes inside those bottles,” he says.
Josep Roca's impressive cathedral of wine now has 80,000 bottles
With Baroque music by Handel and Bach filling the cavernous space, the experience feels religious. “The idea is for it to be a space for exalting the spirituality of wine,” Josep explains. “There is no one special bottle. They are all special to me because they all represent a dialogue, a gesture, an intention, a landscape, a light, an age, a vintage.”
As you might imagine with so much space, time and care dedicated to it, wine is never an afterthought at Esperit Roca – or at any of the Roca projects. “Wine is an important part of our uniqueness as a restaurant,” Josep says. “The kitchen embraces the wine. The kitchen listens to the wine and even creates dishes starting with the wine and its aromas. This makes it original and special. There is a lot of work behind it, study behind it, science behind it, to be able to cook with wine and find the right bottle in this very large cellar.”
Greatest hit after greatest hit
Once you’ve prayed at the altar of Bacchus, it’s through to the restaurant past the glass-walled kitchen. It is a joy to watch families, couples and groups of friends descend into childlike wonder as The World is carefully delivered to each table and the skilled front-of-house team wrangle clouds of mushroom distillate with paddles from a Willy Wonka-like cart that is wheeled around. The occasional one escapes and floats up to the ceiling. The futuristic device is used to create Jordi’s Bosque lluvioso (Rainforest) dessert, where the mushrooms turn into aromatic rain on the plate.
Diners can choose between six savoury courses and two desserts, or two savoury courses and six desserts
Those with a sweet tooth will be thrilled with the tasting menu options at Esperit Roca. As well as the Salty Spirit menu, with six savoury dishes and two desserts , there’s a Sweet Spirit menu, with two savoury dishes and six desserts.
The food is exciting, memorable and –most of all – fun. “The most important thing is to maintain curiosity and the desire to play,” says youngest brother Jordi. “It is the spark that ignites this engine. You need to keep the mind young and keep searching, so that ideas are generated, and we have the need to continue doing it.”
Those who have followed the Rocas over the years will recognise much, if not all the menu, with dishes like Apple and Foie Timbale, Turbot Trilogy, Grilled Pigeon and Old Book all featuring. But there are a few twists and updates here and there.
Classic El Celler de Can Roca dish Toda la Gamba is featured on the Esperit Roca menu
“There's 39 years of history at El Celler. There are dishes that are 30 or 35 years old, so you look at them and say, ‘OK, fine, let's update,’ but the spirit is the same,” Joan says. “We have a creative team. The three of us are also thinkers. We are from three different disciplines, and we work together for creativity, but we are also surrounded by an extraordinary, multidisciplinary group. For example, there is a botanist and an industrial engineer in the team!”
The restaurant seats around 50 customers per service, with 30 people working across front-of-house and in the kitchen. “This is a high-level gastronomic restaurant and it has the same capacity as El Celler,” adds Joan..png)
Iconic dish The World is regularly updated with new bites and served to guests on arrival
As well as having the same capacity, the service is as professional and friendly as at El Celler. Josep concludes, “We grew up in a bar that never closed for the first 12 years of mine and Joan’s childhood. This means always seeing your house full of people – a feeling of hospitality as a sense of life. And in this sense, we have learned through generosity and hospitality, and through the effort and sacrifice and perseverance of the culture and values of our parents, who have been pillars of showcasing how to give everything to the diner.”
Everything the Roca brothers touch feels intentional and natural, and the Esperit Roca complex is no exception. They’re now on top of Girona, and still riding high on top of the world.
Discover more about the incredible restaurants in the Best of the Best group. Each has topped the annual poll of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants over its history.
