How to reference UITableViewController from a UITableViewCell class?

I wouldn’t create this kind of dependency between the cell and the view controller – that makes the architecture more intricate and the cell not reusable.

I suggest you to use the delegation pattern, which may sound a little complicated – although you’re already using (UITableViewDelegate is a typical example):

• create a protocol MyCellProtocol with one method didTapCell, accepting a UITableViewCell and/or some custom data you want to pass to the view controller
• create a public delegate property in your custom cell: weak var cellDelegate: MyCellProtocol?
• in the didTapXXX handler or didSelectRowAtIndexPath of your cell, call self.cellDelegate?.didTapCell(), passing the expected parameters
• in your view controller, implement the MyCellProtocol
• in cellForRowAtIndexPath of your view controller, when creating/dequeuing the cell, set its cellDelegate property to self

At this point, when a tap is done in your cell, the didTapCell method of the view controller is called, and from there you can do whatever you need to achieve.

The key point is: rather than making the cell handle the cell tap/selection, notify the view controller and let it do the job.