We are by your side.
The experience grants us with the power to advise you; having come a long way gives us the ability to do so; the knowledge obtained from the daily observation makes us able to help you achieve everything you need. This is why we dare to present your event, your party, your celebration just the way you imagined it. We are with you to make the ideal dream come true.
Encarna Tirado
Encarna has been part of the team of El Celler de Can Roca since its origins in 1986. First in the dining room of the restaurant, complementing Josep and with the dessert’s cart, and from 1994 and on managing the banquets and the catering services. First in La Torre de Can Roca and since 2007 in Mas Marroch. Besides these spaces she also manages singular events in other spaces.
"The banquets have helped El Celler de Can Roca be where it is now"
Encarna Tirado, responsible for the banquets space of El Celler.
Decisive. She has been part of the team of El Celler de Can Roca since its beginnings and currently she manages one of the planets of its universe: the Mas Marroch Space. She can’t stop herself from saying that the family spirit is what has brought the restaurant to the top.
Have the banquets been key to maintain the cuisine of El Celler?
Yes, they have been a great economic help. One thing makes the other. The banquets have helped El Celler de Can Roca be where it is now. Holding weddings and offering catering services have favoured the expenses made in the restaurant, where most of the times the menus don’t compensate with the cost of the plate, handmade and blown exclusively, for example. The income from the banquets are a source of financial support.
Diversifying the Roca brand has been key then. Is it a planned business or a spontaneous one?
Everything just sort of came out. We would have never thought about opening an ice-cream store like Rocambolesc. It has been convenient because everyone has gone their way and everyone has their own space. I am with the catering service, Anna, Joan’s wife, the new Casa Cacao hotel, and Ale, Jordi’s wife, works in the Rocambolesc.
You have never stopped being in the frontline.
For starters, the hospitality sector is very demanding and if the people who come to work can share this effort with you, they find it less tedious if you are also doing it, right? And it may work quite well because many workers have left and they always come back. It is a family.
And when you reach the top, what do you do?
Stay there and try to deal with it. It is difficult not to make mistakes. Everyone wants to talk, everyone wants to call, everyone wants a table… There is a moment when you can’t handle it anymore. I can’t take bookings anymore, that is why we have three people at the reception desk.
When you started, could you foresee that it would be so big?
We have always been eager. And most importantly the Roca parents, instead of thinking that it was the little boys’ whim, trusted and believed in their sons when they were a little more than twenty years old and decided to take the bull by the horns and carry on with the business.
When does your relationship with Can Roca starts?
I started in El Celler a year later after its opening, in 1987. By then I was working in Can Roca, the same restaurant where I used to go on Sundays with my family when I was young. We would have an aperitif and have the typical calamari. As a waitress I would help Josep and Joan when it was busy in the dining room, but at that time it wasn’t always busy. It was fun back then, there wasn't any fuss. It was difficult to get customers.
But Joan and Josep’s eagerness was contagious…
It is very nice because everyone in Taialà or Germans Sàbat has an anecdote in El Celler.
When did you start managing the catering service and the banquets?
We purchased La Torre, a 100 meters away from the first restaurant, with the purpose of moving El Celler there. But it took us more than 10 years to do so because it was an important expense. So in 1995 we decided to hold weddings there. Transporting that transgressor and already popular cuisine that those boys of Girona would make had a big impact. I felt very comfortable and the Roca gave me a lot of freedom, they let me do my thing.
I guess your wedding must have been very different from the current ones.
Completely! I simply gave the list of guests, now it is a full form. But I always tell the bride and the groom that there is something they can be sure of: if they come get us is because of the trust. And they must know we are the first who want their day to be perfect.
