Roca Moo

Roca Moo, in hip Hotel Omm, is a partnership with the world-famous Roca brothers, the chefs behind El Celler de Can Roca, an hour away in Girona.  This year El Celler de Can Roca finally made in to the top spot in the list of the best restaurants in the world.

After patiently sitting on nine month-long waiting list, my mother and I bagged a table at El Celler de Can Roca last summer, and it was phenomenal.  Since they've snatched the best in the world title from Noma, the waiting list has dragged out to over 12 months.

 

If you're too impatient to wait that long, or, like us, your trip to Cataluña is a rather more last-minute affair, Michelin-starred Roca Moo is a taste of the Roca brothers' experimental cuisine, without the wait, and with a less hefty price tag.

The room is sleek, small but spacious; slender birch trees are a nod to the trees dotted around the dining room at sister restaurant El Celler, and the plates are Moo- and Omm-branded.

I'd usually be suspicious of restaurants in hotels, but a slatted bookcase separates the restaurant from the lobby whilst still involving the noise and atmosphere from the bar next door.  The cold kitchen is in the restaurant itelf, adding an element of show-cooking.

Amuse-bouches are always my favourite, maybe because you don't know what to expect before they arrive.  Of the array of tiny bites which appeared on our table in an endless stream, my favourite were tiny frozen Campari and strawberry bonbons; their fragile, frozen shell breaks as you put them in your mouth, and warm Campari oozes out.  They came with tapioca pearl clusters, an experimental take on patatas bravas, and herring caviar and sesame mayonnaise.

We went for Joan Roca's eight course tasting menu - a similar, although shorter, menu to those on offer at El Celler, with matching wines, almost all European, most of them Spanish.

Carrot cream, foie gras and green cardamom

Mushroom omelette with white Catalan sausage: the fragile shell split to reveal the near-liquid mushroom and egg "omelette" inside

Pork tail with tomato and black garlic: a curious take on a pork sandwich, with gourmet Roca versions of ketchup, mayo and mustard

Since starting this blog I've become one of the people I used to hate, who take photos of their food in restaurants.  But I'm very grateful that I did (and that on leaving you're presented with a menu of everything you've had) - looking back now, my memory's hazy... maybe that was the endless stream of perfectly matched and meticulously explained wines.

"Pigeon and corn" - intensely rich meat and super-sweet sweetcorn, both overwhelming on their own, but perfect together



Pear, lemon verbena and tarrgon



"Mandarin and chocolate"

If you're in Barcelona, don't have 12 months to spare waiting for supper but want a taste of modern, inventive Catalan cuisine, Roca Moo is a great choice.  Just remember to take pictures.

 

http://www.hotelomm.es/roca-moo/

Bon dia Barcelona

The next instalment of The Year of the City Break was a lazy six days in beautiful Barcelona, one of my favourite cities. 

 

 

 

We stayed at the stunning Hotel Omm, just off Paseo de Gracia and a stone's throw from Gaudí's La Pedrera.  Part of Grupo Tragaluz, who have a hand in a fair few of my favourite Madrid and Barcelona restaurants, it's a mix of hipster and luxe.  Arriving late on Friday night, our first stop was the bar for a welcome glass of cava and cocktails.

 

 

Ten years ago the hotel started a partnership with the three Roca brothers, the world-famous chefs behind El Celler de Can Roca, an hour away in Girona, which this year was finally named the best restuarnt in the world after several years in second place to Noma.  After sitting patiently on their nine-month waiting list (the wait has now increased to a year), my mother and I went to El Celler de Can Roca last summer, and it was out of this world.

 

So without hestitation Boyfriend and I booked into the hotel's Michelin-starred restaurant, Roca Moo, which is a partnership with the Roca brothers and runs a very similar, although shorter, tasting menu (a separate post on Roca Moo is coming soon).

Aside from the show-stopping main restaurant, Omm has a second Roca brothers collaboration with their bar menu, Roca Bar, which combines Roca creativity with slightly more laid-back, "normal" fare. 
 

 

Rocadillos

 

After one particularly lazy day in the sun we popped downstairs for a late supper at Roca Bar, for a few twists on tapas favourites.

 

"Rocadillos" (bocadillos/sandwiches Roca style) are a mix of Joan and Jordi Roca's savory and sweet (the former is the head chef, the latter is the pastry chef).  Stamped with the brothers' signature "R", Joan Roca adapted his brother's ice-cream-filled brioches from El Celler de Can Roca into something more main-course friendly, with several fillings to choose from.  We went for pollo con mole poblano (chicken with mole, a Mexican chilli and chocolate sauce), which packed a rich punch for something so tiny.

 

Slightly more familiar were delicious tiny chicken wings with hoisin sauce, a sweet tomato and basil gaazpacho and oysters from Fishhh!, the famous oyster bar just down the road.  It's a taste of luxury on the cheap.

 

 

 

 

Hotel Omm's other crowning glory, apart from the food, is its rooftop terrace bar and pool, which quickly became our favourite late afternoon haunt after a day meandering around the city.

 

From your sunlounger there are views of the swirling rooftop of Gaudí's La Pedrera, so close you could almost touch it, and there's a glimpse of La Sagrada Familia further in the distance.

 

The Roca brothers collaboration is topped off by the pool's ice cream list from Jordi Roca's Rocambolesc, the experimental ice cream parlour in Girona, another of my favourite excursions from our trip last year.  With six days in Barcelona, it was no hardship working our way through the flavours (my favourite was tied between mojito and carrot, mandarin and apricot). 

 

 

 

 

But we weren't just in Barcelona to lounge in our hotel, lovely though it was.

 

We were there over the weekend of Sónar, one of Europe's biggest music festivals, and snapped up Saturday tickets for Sónar by Night to see Jurassic 5 and my favourites, 2manydjs.  Boyfriend is strictly minimal-techno-only, so he was far too cool to enjoy their video dj set, complete with each track's animated artwork mixed along with the music, but I loved it.

 

 

One of my favourite restaurants in the world is right here in Barcelona.  Cal Pep is a tiny seafood bar in el Barri Gótic (the Gothic Quarter).  Queues start forming for lunch around half an hour before it opens, a mix of locals in the know and curious tourists.

 

You sit up at the bar and the tapas starts flowing - mainly fish and seafood, cooked right in front of you, until you say stop. 

 

 

I've been coming here for years and it's always the same - mountains of frito mixto, clams in garlic and tiny squid stewed in their own ink with chickpeas.

From Cal Pep it's just a hop and a skip to the harbour front for a post-lunch stroll in the sunshine and an ice cream.

One of my work colleagues from Madrid recommended Restaurant 7 Portes, an historic nineteenth century dining room, which was full to bursting with tourists and locals alike.  

 

A gold plaque on the bench behind our table proudly informed us that this had been Joan Miró's favourite seat; plaques naming Lauren Bacall, Picasso and the Spanish Royal Family weren't far away.

 

After a mix of the restaurant's signature starters we rather over-ambitiously opted for their famous seafood platter, a mountain of grilled and fried fish, langoustines, squid and lobster tail.

 

An elderly Catalan couple on the table next door, dressed in their finest, knew the waiters (equally advanced in years) all by name, and didn't have to look at the menu to order what I liked to imagine had been their same Sunday lunch for decades.

 

Another new discovery for us was Monvínic, a contender for one of the world's best wine bars, or at least the one with the most extensive selection.  With over 600 wines in their sleek, glass-fronted bodega (no clichéd barrels in sight), you can choose by the glass from a list of 60 wines which change daily, loaded onto a ipad.

 

 

Wine aside, the food was as equally stunning; we nibbled our way through salt cod fritters, seafood risotto, a delicate beef carpaccio and a seductively runny duck egg with caviar and sobrassada, matching them with tasting glasses as many of the different wines as our bellies could hold.

 

 

Gràcies Barcelona, don't ever change.

 

http://www.hotelomm.es/

http://www.hotelomm.es/roca-barcelona/roca-moo/

http://www.sonar.es/es/2013/

http://www.calpep.com/

http://www.7portes.com/angles/

http://www.monvinic.com/en/

 

La Corrida de Toros

Few topics lead to more heated discussion than bullfighting.  Before I went to a live bullfight, I wasn't really sure what I thought about it.  But you have to try something before you can pass judgement.

Madrid's beautiful Las Ventas is the capital of bullfighting, the most prestigious bullring in Spain.

We went twice: first to a traditional corrida de toros or toreo, where the bullfighters are on foot (toreros), and again to a rejoneo, where they're on horseback (rejoneadores).

  

Bullfighting is all about the ritual - the toreros and rejoneadores parade around the ring before the fight, and each stage is announced with bugle calls.

In a traditional corrida there are six bulls, with three matadores fighting two each.  The matadores each lead a cuadrilla (team) of three banderilleros, on foot, two picadores, lancers mounted on horseback, and a sword carrier.

I preferred the rejoneo, where the riders show incredible skill controlling the horse and the bull in a dance of amazing speeds.  The show is just as much about the amazing horsemanship as anything else, with the rojoneadores changing horses after every stage, and some horses being almost as famous as their riders.

We watched the celebrated Portuguese rejoneador Diego Ventura, one of the world's best, who drew enormous cheers from the crowd.  After each of his fights he walked a lap of honour around the ring, and his fans threw down hats, flowers, flasks of wine and even live chickens for him from the stands.

Diego Ventura

At the time, it's shocking but impressive, above all at the rejoneo, where the the skill of the riders is unbelievable.  The crowds aren't baying for blood, they're applauding bravery, and what they want to see are quick, clean kills, carried out with skill.  One rejoneador who struggled to deliver a final, clean blow was met with hostile silence by the crowd.

Although it's a shock and gruesome to watch, the atmosphere is intense.  A bit like a car crash; you know it's horrific, but it's hard not to look.

But looking back over my photos now, away from the atmosphere of the day, the blood and cruelty is much more real, and it's an inescapable fact that an animal is being killed for sport alone (although the meat is later eaten).

Away from the live action, when the ritual, symbolism, music and costumes are forgotten, it's hard not to feel some revulsion at the idea.  So I'm still undecided. 

A quick opinion poll of my Spanish colleagues in the office gives mixed results: most quietly like bullfighting, or can take it or leave it, but it's the atmosphere, the crowd, the ceremony and the tradition that they like, rather than the bullfight itself and the grizzly outcome.  One girl my age absolutely adores it; no one at all pipes up to say that they passionately hate it.  But the newspapers mourn the fact that numbers at bullfights are increasingly dwindling, and several regions (Catalonia being the most recent) have outlawed it, so it may be on the way out.

If your mind isn't already made up, then definitely go and see for yourself.

http://www.las-ventas.com/