🇪🇸 Spain · Spanish cuisine · b. 1964
The elder brother who built El Celler de Can Roca into the world's best restaurant — three times.
Joan Roca is the oldest of three brothers who together run El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Catalonia — arguably the most important Spanish restaurant since elBulli. He runs the savoury kitchen; his brother Josep manages the wine programme and front of house; his brother Jordi leads the pastry kitchen. The restaurant was named the world's best by the World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2013, 2015 and 2018.
El Celler de Can Roca opened in 1986 literally across the road from Can Roca, the family restaurant their parents had run since 1967 — hence the name (El Celler means 'the cellar,' can is Catalan for 'the house of'). Joan trained at the Barcelona Escola de Restauració i Hostalatge and subsequently at some of the finest restaurants in France, including those of Michel Guérard and Ferran Adrià's elBulli.
Joan's cooking draws on the Catalan culinary tradition — its centuries of combining meat and sea ('mar i muntanya'), its mastery of sauce-making, its use of black rice, butifarra sausage, and the wild mushrooms of the Pyrenean foothills — but explores it through avant-garde technique including sous vide (which Roca has been a leading practitioner of since the 1990s), distillation, and perfume-inspired aromatic cooking.
Beyond the restaurant, the three Roca brothers have been deeply engaged in food education and social responsibility — the Roca Foundation provides training and employment to vulnerable populations.
Memory, territory, and technique. Roca's culinary philosophy is rooted in the Catalan terroir and in the food memories of his childhood — specifically the smell of his mother's kitchen, which he has attempted to recreate through distillation and aromatic cooking. He uses advanced technique not for novelty but as a tool for expressing what the Catalan landscape and tradition feel like.
Three Michelin stars; world's best restaurant 2013, 2015, 2018.
Hotel and chocolate atelier by Jordi Roca.
These recipes from our database reflect the spanish cooking tradition that Joan works in. They are not direct reproductions of Joan's copyrighted recipes, but traditional dishes inspired by the same culinary heritage.
El Celler de Can Roca holds three Michelin stars. It has also been named the world's best restaurant by World's 50 Best three times: in 2013, 2015 and 2018.
Joan Roca runs the savoury kitchen. Josep Roca is the sommelier and manages front of house — he is considered one of the greatest sommeliers in the world. Jordi Roca heads the pastry kitchen and creates the dessert programme.
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