As CODA Dessert Dining continues its tenth anniversary celebrations, chef René Frank is preparing to welcome one of pastry’s most imaginative figures to Berlin. On 30 May, Frank will host Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca for an exclusive one-day collaboration spanning both lunch and dinner service.
The event follows CODA’s anniversary opening in February, when Frank joined forces with three Michelin-starred chef Tohru Nakamura for a four-hands dinner that set the tone for the restaurant’s celebratory year. This next chapter brings a distinctly Catalonian perspective to Berlin, uniting two chefs whose influence on contemporary pastry has reshaped expectations of what dessert can be.
Both Frank and Roca have been named World’s Best Pastry Chef by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and have also received the Best Pastry Award from The Best Chef Awards. Yet despite the shared accolades, their work approaches pastry from strikingly different directions.
Roca, the youngest of the three brothers behind El Celler de Can Roca, is known for desserts that lean into storytelling, memory and illusion. Across the Girona restaurant’s history, his creations have drawn inspiration from perfume compositions, childhood recollections and even the movement of a Lionel Messi run on goal. His technical repertoire is equally inventive, ranging from delicate caramel sculptures filled with mousse to desserts that blur the line between food and performance.
Frank’s philosophy at CODA, meanwhile, has long challenged the conventions of dessert dining altogether. Since opening the restaurant in Berlin, he has built menus around fermentation, savoury depth and ingredient-led precision, removing white sugar and wheat flour entirely from the equation. Vegetables, acidity and umami are treated with the same importance traditionally reserved for sweetness, creating a style of pastry that feels more aligned with contemporary fine dining than classic pâtisserie.
Bringing the two chefs together promises an experience shaped as much by contrast as by common ground. While their aesthetics and techniques differ, both share a determination to move beyond traditional culinary boundaries, using pastry as a medium for emotion, creativity and technical expression.
The collaborative lunch and dinner will be offered at €680 per person, including a Champagne aperitif and full beverage pairing. For Berlin’s dining scene, it marks one of the year’s most anticipated culinary events — a rare meeting between two chefs who continue to redefine the possibilities of modern dessert.
To find out more about the collaboration and book, visit CODA’s website, Instagram profile or Facebook page…
Images © Claudia Goedke