From that day in April 2004 when Romain Fornell opened Caelis in the old Ritz (today El Palace Barcelona that houses the Amar restaurant), this chef born in Toulouse remembers above all a mixture of feelings: “Panic and the desire to take on the world in equal parts”. He had arrived in Barcelona with the endorsement of the first Michelin star that he obtained in France at the age of 22; He had been in charge of the kitchen at the Barcelona-based La Maison du Languedoc Roussillon and managed to be entrusted with the restaurant with the hotel’s languishing pastel blue walls, called Diana, which he was willing to completely turn around.
He had the complicity of the businessman José Gaspart and his family – “with José we had traveled a lot together, we knew what we liked and we became friends for life.” Before lighting the stove of the first Caelis he would issue a challenge: if he got a star within three years, he would become a partner. He did it in half the time. That young Frenchman, a staunch admirer and over the years a friend of the great Alain Ducasse, in love with Barcelona, ??fulfilled his dream of captaining one of the most attractive hotel restaurants in the city. A house that, like the late Drolma and Moo -and later Lasarte, La Enoteca, Moments, and others- would contribute to demonstrating that hotel cuisine and haute cuisine were not antagonistic concepts.
The change of hands of the hotel ended up involving the transfer of Caelis in 2017 to its current location, at the Hotel Ohla Barcelona (Via Laietana, 49). When asked if they were bad times, the answer is firm: “There have been no bad times in the history of this restaurant,” says Fornell, who assures that the change brought a new opportunity that he continues to be grateful for today. Now, he explains, they want to celebrate in style that they are about to celebrate 20 years since that day in April 2004. To do so, they have closed for a month, and while the hotel continued operating, Dani Isern’s team of architects has directed a successful renovation, which has not affected the spectacular bar (copied at the time from César Ramírez’s in the United States) although the adjacent space dedicated to starters, desserts and pastries has been changed.
In addition to that bar where it is a privilege to eat while watching the team of the head chef, the Asturian José González Iglesias, work, it has gained a small dining room that complements the main one and a new private room.
The menu formula at 60 euros is one of the keys to success at midday. And they will soon launch a special menu for that twentieth anniversary that will include some of the few dishes they have served since the beginning, such as the vichyssoise with caviar, presented on a base of ice that once impressed the customers of the first Caelis or the lobster and celery macaroni, the first sea and mountain prepared by this chef who immediately became fascinated with this daring and brilliant combination of Catalan cuisine.
Fornell recently found at a French antiques market a flambadou, the rudimentary iron contraption that his father placed over the flames to prepare lamb, introducing flambéing fat over the meat. Like a child with new shoes, he uses it for one of his new dishes, based on teardrop peas and red mullet, which he flambes with Iberian fat. In recent years he has opened several restaurants (this week the Azul Rooftop Barceloneta season starts with a party), he will soon open a tapas place in the center of Paris; he just published ¡Salsa! (Planeta Gastro), prefaced by his friend Albert Adrià and assures that despite this growing work as a businessman he continues to love his job and feels happy in the kitchen. He spreads enthusiasm when he explains that he has just created a cold puff-waffle that he has topped with seafood, in which he sees new possibilities; when he carefully places on the counter the press that once belonged to Santi Santamaria and with which he prepares a succulent blood pigeon; When he sees Eddy Arteagas, his pastry chef, holding a classic soufflé, worthy of an anniversary.
