Rocambolesc ice-cream parlour wins a Best Bar in Europe prize of 2013

Its scheme by interior designer Sandra Tarruella – inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – wowed the judges.

The Rocambolesc ice-cream parlour, owned by the brothers Roca in Girona, has scooped a Best Bar in Europe award in the UK’s prestigious Restaurant & Bar Design Awards of 2013, which were recently presented in London. Over 670 projects from 60 countries were submitted for the judges’ consideration. In the case of Rocambolesc, it was the originality and imaginative aesthetic of its design which won the judges over.

 
The idea for the ice-cream parlour sprang from the desire of Jordi Roca, one of the brothers, to create a new space in their iconic, three Michelin-starred restaurant Celler de Can Roca, in Gerona, Catalonia, where people can experience its mouthwatering desserts. This year the eaterie was named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine. The new ice-cream parlour also took inspiration from the dessert trolley at Celler de Can Roca. Roca enlisted Barcelona-based interior designer Sandra Tarruella to create the ice-cream parlour’s decor, which is inspired by the fantastical world of Roald Dahl’s story Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and by Tim Burton’s 2005 movie adaptation of it as well as by the comic strips of Professor Franz of Copenhagen. The ice-cream shop’s facade recalls old-fashioned ice-cream parlours while also evoking the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory story. The interior immerses the visitor in a similar realm of fantasy.

 
Its furniture and fittings, from the ice-cream counter to the bench with bicycle wheels – reminiscent of the small carts used to sell ice-cream wheeled around streets in a bygone age – were designed by Andreu Carulla. On the main wall is an ice cream-making machine that, combining the movement of machinery, lights and sound, is activated when the person serving ice-cream receives an order. On a side wall is a huge dispenser of ice-cream tubs made of vertical slats of oak that echo the interior of Celler de Can Roca as well as an arrangement of tubes that zip around the space, providing dispensers for bags, small spoons and napkins. There’s also a huge mirror featuring manually operated signs which make the space feel  even more dreamlike and surreal.

The award given to Rocambolesc constitutes another recognition of Spanish interior design – and follows hot on the heels of the same award given last year to Estudio Nómada’s design for the restaurant A Cantina.