Magic Celler

It’s the second time I do an internship in this temple of gastronomy. The first was in the spring of 2010, when Celler de Can Roca came second in the World’s 50Best, the 50 best restaurants in the world [today it is at number one]. That was a crucial experience for me, as I learnt some new techniques which I later adapted to my small kitchen in via Adige. I adapted them to our raw materials and to Italian taste, a trick without which it would have been difficult for me to receive a Michelin star, a few months later.

Before the opening of the new Alice inside Eataly Milano [in 2014], a restaurant for which we have planned a super-technological kitchen, I asked to return to Girona. I applied to work there for a week, this last November 3rd-10th. They remembered me and offered me to sleep in the staff’s house. I accepted, of course. For me it was like putting myself to the test, once again, wearing the shoes of a chef who works side by side with guys who are often younger than me.

Every time I am struck by their sense of hospitality. I was welcomed by Montse - Joan, Jordi and Joan’s mother. She led me to my little room and the emotion was extremely powerful: I saw myself 20 years back, when I lived above my parents’ trattoria in Salerno. In Mrs Roca I saw my mother. For 7 days I experienced the same feelings of the guys who work in my restaurant: they too are far away from home, from their loved-ones, with a series of fears. This will help me to better understand them and to welcome them.

Working at Celler means being part of the complex dynamics of a group of 40 incredibly talented people. They are determined, constant, organised, clean. This is a perfect machinery in which everything makes sense, in terms of space and time. I wanted to understand what it means to organise a large kitchen in every detail. I wanted to carefully understand each step in a process of continuous, passionate evolution: the dishes change very often and a creative laboratory was recently introduced, something I dream about every day.

For two days, my colleague Cristina Bowerman, of restaurant Glass in Rome, joined me in the kitchen. We dined together, asking for the Festival tasting menu, the longest one! We truly enjoyed ourselves: all that was on the table gradually had new shapes and flavours. Because at Celler it’s not just the recipes that change, even the tools and the containers do. It’s a constant research of shapes and contents, a perfect synchrony between dining room and kitchen, between appearance and content, fantasy and reality. This cuisine ranges from classic to modern, avantgarde and futuristic preparations.

Once, they used to prepare banquets for up to one thousand people in the same kitchen; today the run their catering business in a villa near Girona. In the old Celler,instead, there’s Rocambolesc, an ice-cream workshop: the Roca’s own two ice-cream shops and, when the restaurant is closed, they also organise courses on vacuum cooking. Many people, many families live thanks to Celler, and many interns come here to learn and give their input.

Unfortunately, in Italy this is not possible: we can only have 1 or 2 interns at the same time, and so, having to restrain the budget, the staff is almost always below the real necessities. The Spanish government, just like the Danish one, have understood the importance of having great restaurants: they attract tourism, money, create business for hotels and airplanes. This is a huge thrust for their country. In fact, in my cv, I will always write that «I have worked twice at Celler».