Esperit Roca, Girona restaurant review: delicious brutalism

(Image credit: Photography by Salva López. Courtesy of Andreu Carulla Studio)

Set in a 19th-century fortress on the hilly outskirts of Girona, north-west Spain, a new restaurant evokes the beauty of raw materials with a rugged yet refined touch. Esperit Roca is part of a gastronomical centre by Spain’s renowned restaurateur trio, the Roca brothers, in a remote spot of northern Catalonia offering views across mountains, woodland and sea.

‘It’s a privileged part of the Mediterranean,’ says head chef Joan Roca. ‘We have ecosystems of wild products, with good agriculture, livestock and fishing.’ His new complex also houses a 16-bedroom hotel and will open a culinary research academy in future.

Wallpaper* dines at Esperit Roca, Girona

The mood: natural spirit with a rocky touch

Stone, concrete and wood form the new restaurant’s interiors, with neutral shades of grey and green. It’s the work of Girona-based designer Andreu Carulla, who wanted to exude a sense of nature with an austere, brutalist feel.

Carulla sourced piedra de Girona – a limestone characterised by the tiny fossils in its textured surface – from local quarries to sculpt counters, lamps, tables and the lavatories’ monolithic sculptural sinks. The pieces evoke the region’s rocky landscape while also echoing the original castle’s construction, which uses the same stone. ‘It’s not a noble material,’ says the designer, ‘but we wanted to elevate it with craftsmanship.’

Custom-made furniture includes midcentury-inspired wooden chairs and curved concrete benches seating diners in intimate alcoves. Vegetation sprouts from large, cylindrical concrete pots, while curtains and overhead lamps are made from shade cloths used in local farming, a nod to the region’s rural traditions.

The food: jaw-dropping flavours with inventive style

Concept-driven dishes include an ‘orange’ salad, where mussels and sea urchins complement the citrus fruit, and a ‘trilogy’ of turbot cuts – fin, loin and carpaccio – each with a different treatment. Exquisite local lamb and prawns are stylishly plated up, and who knew a pumpkin could do so much: three different types come dressed in juice, oil and milk from the fruit.

One of the tasting menus offers just two main courses but six desserts – it’s masterminded by pastry chef Jordi Roca, who shatters expectations of what puddings should be. One includes black chanterelle and powdered pine; another is infused with the aroma of old books.

Diners enter via a giant dome housing sommelier Josep Roca’s wine cellar, where 80,000 bottles are shelved on an expansive, ephemeral-looking structure designed by Carulla from steel pipes totalling 20km in length.

Complete the Esperit Roca experience with spirits from the on-site distillery, crafted with flavours of gentian, mugwort and other fragrant local herbs.

Esperit Roca is located at Carrer Major, Entrada 1, 17481 Sant Julià de Ramis, Girona, Spain; esperitroca.com

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Agnish Ray is a travel and culture writer based in Madrid. Aside from Wallpaper*, he covers Spain for publications like The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, Financial Times, Conde Nast Traveller, Sleeper, Elephant, Kinfolk and others. Agnish has also worked as a strategist in the arts sector and as an adjunct professor at IE School of Architecture and Design in Spain.