The restaurant in Cardona where every dish hides a family story that spans generations.

Antonia isn't a professional chef, but cooking has always been her calling. She learned by instinct, watching her mother move among the pots and pans. Even today, so many years later, she remembers the aroma of the stews that filled the house and the almost choreographed hustle and bustle of cooking for seven children. La Vuelta del Rector is, at its core, a living tribute to Grandma Ignacia, Antonia's mother. Each dish holds a piece of her memory, as if tasting them allows you to glimpse, for a moment, that family kitchen where it all began.

Antonia's path to the kitchen took shape at La Borrasca, a small tapas bar in Cardona that soon became too small. It was her daughter Noelia who encouraged her to take the next step: to open a new place, expand the menu, grow… And so, fifteen years ago, La Volta del Rector was born. Located on Carrer de les Flors, opposite Plaça de la Fira, its name pays homage to one of the most emblematic landmarks of the medieval town: the Volta de la Rectoria, the archway that connects the building to the Gothic church of Sant Miquel. Antonia describes her cuisine as that of slow-cooked stews, simmering gently, requiring hours and patience at the stove, those slow-cooked sofritos that cannot be rushed. That's why she and her team start early, at eight in the morning. In the kitchen, she works with her son Nacho; in the dining room are her daughter Noelia, her daughter-in-law, and often her husband, Ramón. "He has an endless supply of words," Antonia says, laughing. "He loves to chat and make recommendations." A recipe from 1714

It is Ramón who convinces us to start with the fried eggs with potatoes, chorizo, and, of course, Mallorcan sobrasada. "My mother, Grandma Ignacia, used to make them for my six siblings and me," she recalls. "The potatoes would always be confit, very cooked, and she'd even break the eggs. We do it the same way here." Then come the first courses: shepherd's soup with shredded butifarra sausage, saffron milk cap mushrooms, and chanterelle mushrooms, and black peas with black butifarra sausage and confit bacon. A bottle of Furvus, a Montsant from the Domènech vineyards, helps us digest it all.

Next come the hearty stews, true house specialties: beef tripe with capipota (a type of pig's head), slightly spicy; The mutton, a lamb prepared according to a 1714 recipe – “we fry it with butter, lots of garlic, bay leaf, and spices” – and the braised pig's snout with black trumpet mushrooms. “Just like my mother used to make it: first grilled to remove the hairs, then thoroughly cleaned, and finally pan-fried, with a simmering stew of cognac, beer, and chocolate, simmering all morning.” The dessert: cheesecake with fig jam and rice pudding once again pay homage to Grandma Ignacia. “She used to make the rice pudding with leftover milk from the cows. I add a little cream.”

On the menu cover is a photograph of Grandma Ignacia and a phrase that sums up the essence of the restaurant: “We cook as our mother taught us: authenticity and love for every recipe.” And so, La Volta del Rector becomes more than just a restaurant. When you sit down and taste Grandma Ignacia's eggs, stews, or invisible rice pudding, you understand that Antonia doesn't just cook: she weaves, every day, a bridge of love that spans generations.