Anna Payet: "Our hotel breakfast doesn't waste food because it's not a buffet, and guests feel welcomed."

GironaAnna Payet is the manager of Hotel Casa Cacao, which celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2025. She and her brother-in-law, Jordi Roca, opened the hotel a month before the start of the pandemic and had to remain closed for a year. All of this is now history, as Casa Cacao is a landmark hotel in the city of Girona, attracting visitors from all over the world, especially Americans, Australians, and Northern Europe.

Entering the hotel means passing by Jordi Roca's chocolate workshop, where aromas emanate that invite you to linger for a while by the glass windows to observe the machinery and the handling of the cocoa. (It's prepared with mineral water and gives off the true taste of chocolate without dairy or sugar) and also chocolate-filled chuchos.

The experience at Hotel Casa Cacao is completed with the sleep, with spacious and well-kept rooms, and with the breakfast the following day, which, since this winter, has been the best hotel breakfast in Spain, according to the Madrid Fusion conference. We discuss this award with the director, Anna Payet, one of the women who has helped expand the Roca brand, and also the challenges hotels face with sustainability in food.

I've noticed that the hotel hosts guests of various nationalities, and this must also entail specific dietary requirements...

— We have a wonderful diversity. For example, vegan families often stay here, which is one of the most common dietary requirements. At the hotel, we take note of their requirements right from reception and pass them on to the kitchen and dining room team. We are prepared to accommodate their specific needs.

Breakfast is included in the accommodation rate.

— Yes, because we consider breakfast an essential hotel experience. It's the first meal of the day, very important, and for us, it's the city's calling card and the surrounding area. We work with local suppliers and producers, and we want to convey the city they've come to, the place they're staying, through the dishes we bring to their tables. This theme aligns with Casa Cacao's entire philosophy, because the furniture in the rooms is from Girona—the carpenter, the painters, the sheets... The exception is a few iconic lamps, but the rest is all from local producers. And so we've achieved a very Mediterranean decor, featuring stone, wood, and warm colors.

Let's talk about breakfast.

— With a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a glass of water. Freshly squeezed oranges are the first sign we want to show that quality matters to us. When we're short on time, we switch from orange juice to Empordà apple juice or grapefruit from the Torroella cooperative. Then follow with a porridge with fruit, which in case of intolerance becomes seasonal fruit: now there are red fruits with a coconut yogurt, which is vegan. After the porridge Or the fruit comes from the charcuterie table and the local cheese table. We have absolute respect for both, because we have high-quality producers in the country. We buy our charcuterie at the Mercat del Lleó in Girona. And on the breakfast plate, we serve white broth, black broth, sausage, and Iberian ham, which we slice freshly. The bread is a flatbread with rosemary, because aromatic herbs are also very important to us. The entire breakfast course was designed by Joan Roca together with the kitchen team.

There are also yogurts.

— Yes, from Perelada, and they're made with cow's milk, sheep's milk, and goat's milk. We now also offer coconut milk, which we discovered through a customer who recommended them to us. They're made in Barcelona, and we offer them as a substitute for lactose-based milk.

When the egg arrives, the egg dish exists as a special ceremony. It's a central dish among the charcuterie boards of yesteryear, cereals, and fruit.

— Yes, the Villaroy egg is the hotel's iconic dish. We talked a lot with Joan Roca about eggs in the morning being a very healthy protein, but we didn't want to go with the egg. poachedAs we were testing, we arrived at the Villaroy egg, which is coated in panko bread, so it's crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. It's served with a sauce called Villaroy, which is thicker than béchamel, thickened with cheeses and egg whites. We finish it with seasonal vegetables. Now that it's summer, zucchini. When the season ends, we'll use chanfaina. In the fall, mushrooms. In the winter, truffles. And in the spring, artichokes.

And then we get to the sweet part. The waiters bring small chocolate-filled candies to the table.

— And also the cup of hot chocolate, cold, because it's summer. In winter, it's hot. It's chocolate melted with water, with cacao from Hacienda Victoria in Ecuador, but we change it depending on the cacao source they're working with in the bakery. We also make the filling for the candy ourselves, like the chocolate we're working with at the time. I really like watching the hotel guests, or visitors, as I like to call it, linger in front of the bakery window to watch how they work with the chocolate. It's the connection we want to share: the chocolate, the bakery, with the sweet part of breakfast, because there are the chuchos, but also the chocolates, the macarons, the chocolate bars.

Why did you opt for a set-menu hotel breakfast brought to the table by waiters instead of an all-you-can-eat buffet, as is common, even in five-star hotels?

— First, because I wanted to highlight local cuisine, to put the spotlight on each dish, so we could tell you about each ingredient. That's how I thought we forged our identity and, at the same time, our sincerity. We value food.

Is a tasting menu breakfast like yours more complicated than an all-you-can-eat buffet?

— I think an all-you-can-eat buffet is easier because you can plan ahead, cut everything, put it on the trays, and then people get up. Therefore, there shouldn't be as much service. We have a more complex process. Also, at a breakfast like ours, we don't waste food, we don't generate waste, and the customer also feels supported. We don't have signs on the tables that say "cheese," but rather we have a person who verbally explains each of the cheeses. No matter how much artificial intelligence there is, the embers of a person's words are the highest quality.

But hotels keep their buffets open, even the five-star ones.

— It's changing, especially in the hotels you mention. And it's changing to eliminate food waste. I've been to specialized conferences in Madrid and have seen that this is a trend in hotels. It's a change in mentality, linked to the fight against waste. However, it's true that there are hotels that have no other solution than the buffet, and that's why they maintain it.

What you're saying about waste is because at a buffet people tend to put more on their plates than they actually eat?

— That's right. On the other hand, we can bring them a second plate, or bring them more if they ask. Otherwise, it's just one plate of each preparation. I also believe that awareness about waste starts at home: we should all be aware that we have to put on our plates what we'll eat.

Finally, in addition to breakfast for clients, do you also make other meals?

— We offer all-you-can-eat breakfasts and lunches for everyone starting at 12:45 p.m., with advance reservation, on weekends. We also serve dinners and are now starting cocktails. We also offer space for groups, for business meetings, and we will begin offering chocolate training for our guests. We will offer tastings, for groups of up to eight people, where we will explain the world of cocoa. They can then make their own chocolate. These activities will be new this fall.