Can Roca still offers an a la carte menu as well as a large and small tasting menu; we opted for the large tasting menu (Feast menu priced at €145) since eating here was the sole purpose of our journey. We opted for the paired wines which seemed pretty reasonable at €65. 

However, before we had even decided on the feast menu, a collection of 'snack' dishes (their term) arrive. Many of them were remarkable masterpieces in their own right and we show them in full below before moving on to the main menu items.

Having eaten at Noma where our first course was already waiting for us in a vase of twigs on the table, we're little surprised when they bring to the table a Bonsai tree though we're hoping we're not going to have to eat the whole thing. No. Hanging from the branches are caramelised olives which are absolutely superb. I've never really been a fan of olives finding them often too sour. I probably have to amend that now and say that I'm not a fan of the poor quality olives that are more prevalently served in the UK; the olives here though were just fantastic with the quality shining through. Furthermore, the caramelisation provided both a satisfying textural crunch and a balancing sweetness making this a great tasting as well as a visually playful start.

One tip though, in your excitement, don't forget to remove the steel hanging hook or you could get a bit more crunch than you bargained for.

The next snack follows the cocktail theme: forget champagne truffles, here we have a Bellini bombon. Brought to the table on ice, pop the whole thing in your mouth and the thinnest of milk chocolate layers gives way to flood your mouth with Bellini. The only real shame of this dish was that they only served us one each! Could happily eat a mountain of these.

Two snacks are then brought to the table at the same time, 'chips and chicken cracker' and 'Anchovy bones'. We started with the chicken chips which were so thin they were barely there. Cleverly done but the taste was mild and we moved on with little comment between us. The anchovy bones though were a different matter.

The anchovy bones also came with seaweed and both were done in tempura. Packed full of umami flavours, super light and crisp, a taste of the sea too with the saltiness and seaweed, the sea connection is further emphasised through the clever presentation on netting and wood making the provenance unmistakable.  

The tapas continued with a truffle brioche and a escudella which we're told is a typical Catalan soup and is translated on the menu we later receive as pot au feu broth. The truffle brioche, to be eaten in one, presented an intense truffle hit while the escudella offered a comforting rich and meaty broth.

The final two snacks came out together. On the spoons is a smoked herring and caviar omelette, and the small wooden serving trays is a pigeon parfait. The herring omelette was fantastic, bursting in the mouth to releasing caviar so that the whole omelette emulated a piece of caviar in itself. The pigeon parfait (also described by the waiters as pigeon bombons with sherry wine) was also delicious. 

With the snacks now having come to an end, we already knew that this would be a special meal.  

Part 3: the menu