The Roca brothers are coming to Hong Kong: Jordi Roca’s luxury Spanish chocolate brand Casa Cacao is popping up at Harbour City just in time for Valentine’s Day and Lunar New Year
Foodies in Hong Kong, brace yourselves: the world-renowned Roca brothers are debuting in the city on January 31. More precisely, Jordi Roca’s recently opened Casa Cacao, a luxury Spanish chocolate brand owned by the famed El Celler de Can Roca, will be popping up at Cupping Room Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui.
The pop-up will offer a delightful range of indulgent chocolates following the brand’s bean-to-bar concept, and will make perfect gifts for Valentine’s Day or Lunar New Year. Even the person who has everything will appreciate a present of one-of-a-kind chocolates.
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Jordi realised his dream of operating a chocolate-making workshop last year in Girona, Spain, near to where their famous restaurant El Celler de Can Roca is located. The idea came about when the Roca brothers – Joan, Josep and Jordi – set themselves a challenge to make their own chocolate for their restaurant. It obviously went well, as Jordi now has his chocolate factory, shop and cafe in the nearby Hotel Casa Cacao run by Anna Payet, wife of his older brother Joan.
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The bean-to-bar philosophy echoes the farm-to-table movement. Chef Roca and his team source selected cocoa beans from South American countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, as well as India.
The beans are sorted by hand, roasted, cracked and winnowed before they are combined with organic cane sugar, cocoa butter and cow’s milk powder. Finally, the mixture is processed into perfectly smooth chocolate bars. It takes a minimum of 48 hours to make them.
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The process is also sustainable with minimal wastage. Once the beans are cracked, the discarded shells are inventively transformed into cacao paper that is used to wrap the chocolate bars.
Chef Jordi says, “We are happy to make this pop-up in Hong Kong and we hope it will be the first of many to introduce our chocolate to such a sensitive and demanding audience.”
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Jordi won World’s Best Pastry Chef in The World’s 50 Best Awards in 2014. El Celler de Can Roca, meanwhile, was voted The World’s Best Restaurant in 2013 and 2015 and won the Ferrari Trento Art of Hospitality Award in 2017.
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Hotel Casa Cacao, located next to the famed El Celler de Can Roca restaurant in Girona and run by Joan Roca’s wife, Anna Payet, is a chocolate factory, shop, cafe and hotel in one – and it employs a bean-to-bar concept, the chocolate version of farm-to-table