Joan Roca y Anna Payet

Chef and businesswoman at El Celler de Can Roca*** (Girona)

They met in 1989 when Joan went to give a lecture at the university where Anna was studying Tourism. Since then their careerscannot be understood as separate entities.

Although he underwent academic training at the Girona Catering School, his culinary vocation began to take shape at Can Roca, the family restaurant run by his parents. He grew up there and had his first contact with the cooking of his mother, Montserrat Fontané. In 1986 he set up El Celler de Can Roca with brother Josep in a building close to the family bar. Since then, his life and work is history.

Joan's cooking is free cuisine which sublimates and respects genuine taste with the application of precise technique. His contributions to controlled low-temperature vacuum cooking have probably transformed the perception of the immediate cuisine of the 21st century.

Joan has been declared the world's best chef twice in The Best Chef Awards, Best Chef of the Year by Spain's Royal Gastronomy Academy, and El Celler has been declared the world's best restaurant twice (2013 and 2015) by The World's 50 Best Restaurants. Leyenda ad eternum.

Anna Payet, his wife, has been at his side since the beginning. Tourism Officer and lecturer at the Girona School of Catering and Tourism and at the University of Girona, she joined the El Celler team "to see more of Joan", first of all managing the restaurant's events and now heading up the Casa Cacao project initiated with Jordi Roca in Girona.