Decided to make a post about Ca l’Enric after reading someone’s mention of it on another thread. This little-known restaurant hidden in the Catalonian countryside gave me one of my most memorable meal in my eating career and really deserves more recognition. Ca l’Enric is one of those rare kitchens that gracefully straddles the old and the new. They do employ the essential toys of avant-garde Michelin kitchens (sous vide, steam oven, aerators, pacojet, you name it) but the final results are still very much rooted in tradition and tied to their terrior. In the colder months (November to March), the restaurant offers a very special and ever-improving menu of local wild game and seasonal produce that has to be ordered in advance.
It was a long meal so I’ll limit my descriptions to the highest-lights:
– La Carbonera: crispy potato mille-feuille coated in mushroom (black trumpet) dust to be dipped in a bone marrow and truffle froth. The sweet and decadent sauce was so good I asked for a spoon to drink up the remaining (apparently I am not the first!).
– Simmental beef from Mas Aulina as carpaccio, steak tartar, and in bone broth. Superb beef – almost sweet like acorn-fed Iberian pork. The bone consomme, however, is next level phenomenal. Deep, golden, buttery, and funky (dry-aging flavors).
– Game soup: Breathtaking. There is a kind of meaty depth that, in my imagination, can only be achieved by the long cooking of animal bones in an ancient cast iron pot over wood fire. Topping the soup with peak-season and intensely aromatic black truffle from the restaurant’s own truffle grounds pushed it to the realm of hedonism.
– Guisante del Maresme (baby peas from Maresme), Butifarra de Perol (Catalan pork sausage), fennel textures, ginger air. Baby peas are part of the reason why I love being in Catalonia in early spring. Sweet and vegetal green caviar.
– Sheep cheese fonduta made from milk from their neighbor Mas Farró, roasted pumpkin, More black truffle. Rich, silky, and probably with a very high fat content fonduta. Usually, the fonduta plays the supporting role to the tuffle’s main act. This time, the fonduta itself was so good the roles were, in my mind, switched.
– Game risotto. Such intensity and glossiness. Heavily caramelized onions and tomato probably formed the base.
– Queen of game birds, hunted from just ‘over there’. I am not naming the actual ingredient because of reasons. Breast was juicy, metallic and grassy. Leg had a very interesting almost marine-like umami. Intriguing.
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Taken from my IG https://www.instagram.com/vinoyvaca/
Decided to make a post about Ca l’Enric after reading someone’s mention of it on another thread. This little-known restaurant hidden in the Catalonian countryside gave me one of my most memorable meal in my eating career and really deserves more recognition. Ca l’Enric is one of those rare kitchens that gracefully straddles the old and the new. They do employ the essential toys of avant-garde Michelin kitchens (sous vide, steam oven, aerators, pacojet, you name it) but the final results are still very much rooted in tradition and tied to their terrior. In the colder months (November to March), the restaurant offers a very special and ever-improving menu of local wild game and seasonal produce that has to be ordered in advance.
It was a long meal so I’ll limit my descriptions to the highest-lights:
– La Carbonera: crispy potato mille-feuille coated in mushroom (black trumpet) dust to be dipped in a bone marrow and truffle froth. The sweet and decadent sauce was so good I asked for a spoon to drink up the remaining (apparently I am not the first!).
– Simmental beef from Mas Aulina as carpaccio, steak tartar, and in bone broth. Superb beef – almost sweet like acorn-fed Iberian pork. The bone consomme, however, is next level phenomenal. Deep, golden, buttery, and funky (dry-aging flavors).
– Game soup: Breathtaking. There is a kind of meaty depth that, in my imagination, can only be achieved by the long cooking of animal bones in an ancient cast iron pot over wood fire. Topping the soup with peak-season and intensely aromatic black truffle from the restaurant’s own truffle grounds pushed it to the realm of hedonism.
– Guisante del Maresme (baby peas from Maresme), Butifarra de Perol (Catalan pork sausage), fennel textures, ginger air. Baby peas are part of the reason why I love being in Catalonia in early spring. Sweet and vegetal green caviar.
– Sheep cheese fonduta made from milk from their neighbor Mas Farró, roasted pumpkin, More black truffle. Rich, silky, and probably with a very high fat content fonduta. Usually, the fonduta plays the supporting role to the tuffle’s main act. This time, the fonduta itself was so good the roles were, in my mind, switched.
– Game risotto. Such intensity and glossiness. Heavily caramelized onions and tomato probably formed the base.
– Queen of game birds, hunted from just ‘over there’. I am not naming the actual ingredient because of reasons. Breast was juicy, metallic and grassy. Leg had a very interesting almost marine-like umami. Intriguing.