In 1962, Joan Casas got Barcelona’s Kikiriki rotisserie clucking in Hostafrancs. Now in 2021, his grandson Marc Martínez Casas launched his own version in Born: Rooster & Bubbles, shifting 15,000 rotisserie chickens annually. This June, Marc opened a second spot in Eixample. It’s essentially the same business his grandparents Joan and Maria Recasens ran, but Marc’s pushing a fresh take.
Marc’s father, Asensio Rafael Martínez, was La Pobla de Montornès mayor and worked in the poultry farm business. Meanwhile, Joan Casas travelled to Berlin where he fell for a pork knuckle rotisserie. Back in sleepy 1960s Barcelona, he contacted hospitality machinery companies to see if they could build a gas-powered version. Joan Casas arguably kicked off the modern era of rotisserie chicken in the city.
The English brand name wraps up two items: the winged star and the bubble. Besides rotating birds, Kikiriki also popped corks for cava in pompadour glasses. Marc studied marketing and did a business management masters in San Francisco, where he worked as a cooking teacher and private chef.
The machine is French, a Rotisol. The chicken is groc català, about one kilo, seasoned with salt and pepper, with cooking time of roughly an hour and fifteen minutes. What matters most is it arrives maximum 24 hours after slaughter, 36 at most. Joan Casas died in 1971 aged just 36. Grandmother Maria was left widowed at 27 with four children.
Nearly a decade after opening the first Kikiriki, they were about to launch in Madrid, but it never happened. From Joan to Marc, it’s the same concept seen through different generations’ eyes.
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