Sandra Tarruella explains that she can no longer do without spending a few days every week in the country house in Empordà, which she has shared with her partner, Juan Rovira, for years. She just now she just updated the interior. An intervention that has given the living room wide views of the garden, with redistribution and a new large window. “Here we enjoy nature a lot, especially after the pandemic,” says the interior designer. This place is also the meeting point with their adult children—the family sets up a table for twelve in no time—and where they like to receive friends.
The garden of the house is a delicious orchard, and his favorite place. A perimeter walk offers, when the time comes (today it is palo santos and strawberry trees), walnuts, hazelnuts, pears, figs, loquats, cherries, grapes... The day Tarruella opens the door of his Empordà house, on the outskirts, to us of a small medieval town, it has just rained and the greens look bright. The porch that festoons the house provides that attractive space, always well ventilated but sheltered. Next is the pergola, from which now hang the green pods of the wisteria that in spring will burst into clusters of lilac flowers. “First they will turn velvet brown,” says Tarruella, with a well-trained eye for textures and tones. His Brittany spaniel, Ron, rests on the porch couch.
With the recent update of the interior, the designer has brightened all the rooms with continuous sand-toned mineral lime flooring and walls painted in off-white. In this setting of neutral warmth and high ceilings with skylights and expansive overhead lighting, your tastes and choices comfortably overlap: aged woods of varied origin, contemporary and antique hand-woven wool rugs, iron in subtle profiles, dark dyed leather. .. Materials, microstructures and tones related to the most natural.
Also here the design of the sixties and seventies appears, which has always accompanied him: from the lamps of Miguel Milá to the Italians Castiglioni. His maternal grandfather was already a design enthusiast, without being a member of the guild. His attraction to the artisanal and primitive takes shape in unique ceramics and wooden pieces. Africa is among his predilections. He has just returned from the Okavango Delta in Botswana from a trip with his family. One of the untouched places on the planet. “There is no light other than natural light. Not a sound that does not come from animals,” she comments in admiration.
His office occupies a central space in the house, bathed in light thanks to a large skylight. As a desk he has chosen a vivid wooden table that belonged to his uncle Rudolf Grewe, a prominent gastronomy specialist, translator of the Llibre de Sent Soví, the first known cookbook of Catalan cuisine and one of the oldest in Europe. “I like the memory of objects,” she says.
In the life of Sandra Tarruella many episodes take place around a table and near the kitchen. Her first project, after completing her studies as an interior designer, was in 1984. Her mother, María Rosa Esteva, and her brother Tomás Tarruella—founders of Grupo Tragaluz of restaurants—were then undertaking her first project, El Mordisco. , and she took care of the interior. “Actually, the whole family started working together. One of the things they asked me was that everyone could go to eat, even people alone, but not feel alone,” she remembers.
Thus he devised a layout that revolved around a community table. And around her the protagonists of the Barcelona design boom of the eighties became regular diners: Fernando Amat, Mariscal, Pepe Cortés... From that date until today, Tarruella has designed more than 150 interiors. Much of it, projects for restaurants and hotels. Among his clients are great chefs such as the Roca brothers, Nando Jubany, Paco Pérez or Carlos Abellán. And powerful restaurant groups: Saona, Cañadío or the Turris bakeries.
“They have specialized me,” Tarruella says smiling. Its elegant and authentic style seduces the community. A timelessness that does not lose relevance. Interiors that, when they point to the sophisticated or the Mediterranean, always do so by avoiding the artificial and fake scenography. “We want to provide a point of non-false credibility,” she says. In the design process he likes to first order, then be able to “disorder”. Collaboration with artisans is another of his strengths. Like the ceramists of La Bisbal or the basket makers and makers of microarchitectures from plant fibers of El Pont de Querós, in the Empordà.
In their studio they draw many of the furniture that dresses each project. Perhaps it is the gueridón, the assistant waiter in the room, one of those who represents him the most. He has designed them in wood, plated iron, covered with tiles, enamelled, lacquered, stone for outdoors... They are essential to have the entire service at hand. Although she also uses them to zone the dining room, protect areas, and facilitate various ways of seating depending on diners and circumstances. And in short, organize a flexible space in which everyone can find their favorite corner. Her prolific career has made her an expert in the art of aesthetics. But also in something less obvious at first glance: how to circulate to serve in a restaurant so that everything works impeccably.
Two large tables are also the protagonists of the splendid kitchen-dining room of the Empordà house. Here Tarruella awaits with a generous breakfast, from a top hotel, to start the day. Ron, the interior designer's dog, approaches the table friendly, well fed, well behaved.
