Ca l’Enric

Ca l'Enric is a family restaurant with a Michelin star on the Camprodon road in La Vall de Bianya, just north of Olot in the Garrotxa. The siblings Jordi, Isabel and Joan Juncà run it.

Since 1882 the Juncà family has cooked in this house, which began as a roadside inn on the way into the valley. Joan's sons, Martí and Adrià, now count themselves as its fifth generation. In 2002 the Michelin Guide recognized the way the family had updated the cooking it had always served. Jordi leads the kitchen with Isabel; his first dish was a salad for one of the regulars of the family restaurant. He names Paul Bocuse as an idol and Magnus Nilsson as a chef he would like to cook with, since both build their menus on local produce and the seasons. The family also runs l'Hostal and a new breakfast bar, La Gracieta, set on the site where the siblings' parents once kept a bar.

The old inn now has a contemporary look inside. The menus take their names from the place, among them Discovering the Valley and Memories in Evolution, and change with the seasons. Wild mushrooms, truffle, game, eel and river trout from the area run through them. Truffle is the ingredient Jordi says he would be, and it is one of those the kitchen uses most. That loyalty to one valley gives the cooking a strong sense of place, closer to a family table than to a showcase of technique.

Woodcock is the bird the kitchen treats with most respect, served with a salmís sauce of its innards, foie and cognac. Morels come stuffed and paired with peas, and a sweet butifarra is cooked with apple. The macaroni follows the recipe of both grandmothers. Herbs grown around the house appear in the Sotabosc menu, built on veal and wild mushrooms. The family plans to build a new Ca l'Enric higher up the mountain, while keeping the old house, which they say holds the family's legacy.