El Celler de Can Roca: If Perfume Be The Food Of...Er...If Perfume Be The Food!

El Celler de Can Roca 

Owing to the all-consuming nature of work lately, my newspaper reading has been even slower than usual.  At the best of times it can take me a whole week to read the Saturday Times, but sometimes my piecemeal progress with the paper can stretch to a fortnight.   Thus it is that the subject of this post draws on an article in The Times from May 4th about a Spanish restaurant in Girona run by three brothers, which has been named as the best restaurant in the world - El Celler de Can Roca.  As someone who frequently skips lunch in favour of a sort of 'teabrunch' around 4pm, I was alarmed to learn that lunch at El Celler de Can Roca costs a cool 165 euros and consists of no fewer than 21 courses.  And even if I had an appetite to do justice to that number of courses, I would be a bit lairy about some of the dishes on offer.  'A grilled prawn with foam and seawater and sponge cake of plankton' sounds a little ominous, and I wouldn't go a bundle on 'caramelised olives filled with anchovies' hung on a bonsai olive tree, not least because I don't care for olives and anchovies.

Can't be too dwarf enough for me.

But what caught my eye in this extensive and gastrononomically envelope-pushing menu was one of the four desserts.  At least I assume they were all desserts - I am going by the natural break in the text between those four items and 'pigeon with mole poblano sauce and charcoal-grilled strawberries'.  Though with strawberries in there too it really is anyone's guess!.  And hopefully no actual moles, as the poor creatures wouldn't have seen that posthumous pigeon-paring coming, God love 'em.

Yes, the dessert that caught my eye was: 'A fragrance adapted: Shalimar by Guerlain'.

Pardon??  A flurry of googling later, I learnt that the pastry chef, Jordi Roca, has got form for making desserts that conjure up well-known perfumes.  He had a crack at Calvin Klein's Eternity (which wouldn't have been my first pick, I must say), capturing 'the volatile soul of a perfume, deciphering the formula and adapting it to an edible reality'.

Jordi went on to devise a whole slew of desserts based on scents, from houses such as DKNY, Caroline Herrera, Hermès, Lancôme and Bvlgari.  I gather he had a spot of bother replicating Chanel No 5, as well he might really(!), even if he was armed with the culinary equivalent of a gas chromatograph ;-).  Okay, I am being silly - I don't actually know how he went about his fragrance deconstruction.

DKNY perfume dessert - strange but true!

I found this description of a Terre d'Hermes-themed dessert on a Thai gastroblog called Sfreelife:

' Jordi had to distill the earth and pour the clear liquid over the chocolate-orange heavenly combination. The other key elements include patchouli, jasmine, pomelo, shiso and beetroot leaf.'

There's foodie verisimilitude for you...   Jordi's edible perfume creations even include Angel by Thierry Mugler - shudder.  There again, maybe it would be better eaten rather than worn?  And in a nice touch diners are also given a paper cone with the actual perfume sprayed inside to compare against the dessert they are eating.

DKNY perfume sample cones

Then in an intriguing reverse twist, there is also an actual perfume you can buy, inspired by a lemon dessert from the restaurant ie a case of perfume imitating pudding rather than the other way about.  It is called Núvol de Llimona or 'lemon cloud', and the dessert on which it is based is 'Lemon Distillation'.  Bizarre as this may sound - though let's face it, everything about this restaurant is a little left field - the perfume was designed to be sprayed as a mist over diners as they ate the dish.  Now that might be a case of sensory overload, I'm not sure.  Olfactoria recently asked the question about what perfumes you pair with food, but this is taking the notion a step further.

Here is a description from the Roca Perfumes site:

'With the co-operation of perfumer Agustí Vidal, Jordi has captured the essence of the dish, a “lemon muffin soaked in milk”, and has successfully encapsulated its flavour in a bottle of fragrance.

Top notes: bergamot, tangerine
Middle notes: lily of the valley, milk, custard
Base notes: sugar syrup, toasted sugar, musk'

Oh - guess what?  My googling of images uncovered a post by Judith of The Unseen Censer - she has tried the perfume AND met both Jordi and the perfumer in Barcelona!  Seems like Núvol de Llimona gets a thumbs up from her, although she had issues with its longevity.  But she gves props to Jordi and the perfumer for avoiding a 'Lemon Pledge' note - that alone is indeed some feat.

So I have to ask - is there any perfume whose gastronomic interpretation you would like to eat - or any dessert you would like to wear as a perfume?

After all, there are a number of gourmand dessert-y scents around, so the latter route at least is fairly well trodden.

But going back to the Times article that caught me eye, eating Shalimar would be an altogether different matter in my view.  Especially if Jordi managed to replicate the civet...

Finally, here is a photo of the great man himself - a little bit edible himself, you might say.

Jordii Roca: fragrantly - and flagrantly - smooth operator

Photo of El Celler de Can Roca from Wikimedia Commons via e_calamar, photos of bonsai tree, DKNY dessert and perfume cone samples from Flickr Creative Commons via Robert Young, photo of Núvol de Llimona from Fragrantica, photo of Jordi Roca from halfpriceperfumes.co.uk.

Penhaligon's Elixir - Pulpit or Pulling Scent?

The day I was in Zürich on my solo sniffathon, specifically when I was in a branch of Starbucks above a bookshop, peering at the price list to see what exorbitant sums they wanted for a cup of Tazo tea (with milk!), my mobile rang. It was a Swedish friend of mine, who was spending a few days in London and felt an urge to call me from a branch of Penhaligon's to tell me she had just bought a bottle of Elixir.

Well, my first reaction was puzzlement, as I thought I knew the whole line, but Elixir was a new one on me. My friend described the notes to me over the phone, and I have since found the whole list on NSTperfume:

"eucalyptus steam, cardamom, orange blossom, cedar, Turkish rose, jasmine, cinnamon, mace, rosewood, benzoin, tonka bean, vanilla, incense, red sandalwood and guaicum wood."

It sounded like a woody oriental, and is in fact a masculine, which may explain why it wasn't on my radar. The perfumer is Olivia Giacobetti, she of the enviable cheek bones and creator of minimalist ethereal beauties like FM En Passant, Diptyque Philosykos and L'Artisan The pour un Ete. That said, she is also the nose behind Idole Lubin, which is a scent with boozy, spicy heft.

The SA apparently positioned Elixir to my friend as a "pulling scent", and I was very excited about this, as I already consider several woody-incensey orientals to have that important property (important in an altogether theoretical way in my case, you understand): Ormonde Jayne Ta'if, Kenzo Flower Oriental and Tauer's L'Air du Désert Marocain to name three.

So I rang the Penhaligon's mail order line and they kindly sent out a sample of Elixir, plus one each of their new Orange Blossom EDT and Eau de Cologne (which deserve their own review).

On Saturday, to motivate me to double dig the flower beds and de-dandelion the drive, I applied Elixir for the first time. In the opening I got a dusty, spicy note that reminded me very much of SL Femininité du Bois and a little of DSH Nourouz (the scent formerly known as Tamarind Paprika). This quickly morphed into straight up church incense, but a very soft version of same - like DKNY Black Cashmere but less piquant, or like Etro Messe de Minuit, but mercifully devoid of its foetid flagstone note. A bit like Heeley Cardinal even, but without the Lemon Cif riff. And the whole tone of Elixir is even quieter, even more zen-like and meditative than any of those mentioned above.

Today I tried Elixir again. Now it may well be that the perfume was understandably apprehensive about my forthcoming review, for it decided to show me a few more facets this time. Today I get the incense still as the dominant note, but it is partnered with more woody notes and the rose. I would be lying if I said I got any jasmine or orange, mind.

On balance, it is still a little too incense-y, but it is very beautiful in a bone dry, austere, Simeon Stylites kind of a way. Could I pull someone wearing this? Hmm, if I was on one of those retreats where burnt-out business people go to detox, paint, learn reiki, gamelan drums and generally how to be their Best Possible Self, then I would say most certainly.
In Stafford's local nightspots, frequented by gaggles of 20-something girls with exposed midriffs and vertiginous heels, I am not sure it would quite cut the hair gel. Beyonce Heat or Britney's Midnight Fantasy might be nearer the mark.

Me, I will happily continue to wear Elixir whenever I want to escape the hurly burly of the working week. It is a fragrant way to achieve inner calm without having to focus on my core breathing or contort myself into a Downward Facing Dog.