It is extremely difficult to put into words the importance and magnificence of this cookbook. Three Spanish brothers, Joan and Josep and Jordi Roca, are on their third iteration of an exceptional Catalan restaurant. For thirty years, El Celler has been praised, loved, awarded, and viewed in awe. It has, of course, three Michelin stars and in 2015 was named the best restaurant in the world.
El Celler is considered the successor to the famed El Bulli. Spanish culinary craftsmanship continues its perfection in the restaurant and in this book.
The good news: you can make the dishes in this book. Yes, the best food in the world in your kitchen. The other news: it is going to demand some patience and time. These are not mere recipes for dishes. These are designs for the construction of edible extravaganzas. Here’s the picture for Steak Tartare:
To make this dish, you’ll need to create the 9 separate components that appear on the plate:
Mustard emulsion
Steak
Ketchup
Olorsos Raisin
Lemon Marmalade
Foyot Sauce
Mustard Shots
Soufflé Potatoes
Soufflé Potato Seasoning
It’s obviously a grand assembly, yet those components are all made with only a half dozen ingredients and few lines of instructions. Are you in a cooking club? This dish, as the others in the book, is perfect for a fun evening in the kitchen with different folks assigned their own component role in fashioning the final dish.
There is beauty in every dish here, from appetizers through dessert. Ah, you may have had Caramel Apple before. Behold the ultimate Caramel Apple:
El Celler is inspiring. It’s challenging, to be sure, but never intimidating. It makes you want to reserve a weekend day, and night, to enjoy the pleasures of food from the best restaurant in the world. This is a perfect cookbook, one that you will happily use for decades.