El Celler's tasting menu has 18 courses, takes seven hours to get through ... and is worth every cent. Photo / Getty Images
El Celler's tasting menu has 18 courses, takes seven hours to get through ... and is worth every cent. Photo / Getty Images
Maxine Frith rises to the occasion (with a bit of help from the waitress) for a gastronomic treat.
About two thirds of the way through the 18-course tasting menu at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, my sister-in-law and I began to falter in our previous, much-boasted-about determination to eat every single thing put in front of us.
The other four people in our party were waxing lyrical about the perfect cubes of Iberican suckling pig, the intensely-flavoured beetroot puree and weird/wonderful mango terrine, but Penny and I were not entirely sure we could manage the sheer array of tastes, sensations or amount of food we'd had so far - let alone what was yet to come.
Suddenly, silently our beautiful waitress materialised beside us, a look of sympathetic encouragement on her face. "You can do it!" she said when we explained our predicament.
"Keep going, it's so wonderful, you can't stop now." We, paused, rallied, and within minutes were off again, in raptures.
When our friend Mike, a brilliant cook, began to have an existential crisis during the prawn course ("I'm never going in the kitchen again - I'll never be able to do things like this so what's the point?"), the waitress was there again, promising him the secrets of the fish stock.
This is why I loved El Celler, which has just been voted the world's best restaurant. Yes, it's ferociously expensive - $480 for its tasting menu plus matching wine flight - and yes some might consider it what my mate Peter calls "poncery" - but it was hands down the best meal - and service - of my life.
Three years later, my husband and I still talk about the asparagus icecream as one of the most incredible things we've ever tasted.
I've been to Michelin-starred restaurants where the menu sounds and tastes amazing but the staff were so snooty and cold, the atmosphere so bland, that all the fun went out of the food.
Chefs prepare dishes at El Celler de Can Roca. Photo / Getty Images
This was something entirely different. El Celler is run by brothers Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca. Despite the three Michelin stars and bonkers waiting list, it still has the feel of a family restaurant - somewhere you can cackle with laughter. It also has none of the wooden table top austerity of say somewhere like Noma, which it has knocked off the 50-best restaurant top spot this year.
I don't like snootiness but I do want a sense of occasion for €300, and the El Celler staff understand that. Yes, you can have brilliant meals in village tapas bars and small town trattoria for a tenth of this price, but from the moment the amuse bouche - a mini olive tree for each person hung with little edible baubles of delight - came out, we all knew this was something we wouldn't forget.
Seven hours after we started the meal we were finally on the last course, sitting in the little walled courtyard at 1am with coffees and a plate of divine petit fours in front of us that none of us could quite manage.
The ever-resourceful husband tipped them into his hat to take back to our modest three-star B&B in Girona. The staff didn't even blink as they waved us - and the hat - goodbye.
CHECKLIST
Getting there: Emirates flies daily from Auckland to Barcelona via its Dubai hub. Girona is 100km from Barcelona.
Where to stay: Girona has reasonably-priced accommodation, and note that the restaurant is a taxi ride away from the town centre.
