El Bulli

[Louis VI the Fat]

No, this thread is not about American foreign policy in Latin America.


El Bulli is, quite simply, the world's best restaurant. Unfortunately, also the most exclusive. Only one in 400 people trying to book a table can be accomodated each year. I have never eaten there, and can not die peacefully until I have.

El Bulli's new dish for this season? Tomato cookies. If that sounds unimaginative, know that its chef Ferran Adrià is, in the hierarchy of the universe, second only to God, although he beats him for sheer creative genius. He is the spiritual leader of molecular cuisine. (Oh! What divine blessings EU funds bring the world! ).

Molecular cuisine has done to gastronomy what Derrida and Heidegger have done to philosophy. It destructs the elements of food - ingredient, preparation, harmony - and from this, it constructs them again into a new state of being. Deconstructed, nothing is what it appears to be anymore. Or, everything has never been what it appeared to be. The result is sensational. Artistry and inventiveness; adventure and even a good deal of humour reign supreme.
The brains and origin of the movement lay in France, in the nineties. Two of the founding members, chemist Hervé This and chef Pierre Gagnaire set out to re-unify the holy trinity of gastronomy: La cuisine: c'est de l'amour, de l'art, de la technique. But the heart of the movement resides in Spain. As with architecture and cinema, Spain rules gastronomy with an iron fist, before which all resistance stands powerless. Making France and Italy very nervous indeed.

The typical superstar chef operates a restaurant in Paris. Then another one in Monaco. Next, London, New York, Tokyo and Dubai.
But Ferran Adrià, grandmaster of molecular cuisine? He opened a chain of...fast food restaurants.
Amusingly and apropriately named 'Fast Good', its aim is to prepare five euro burgers with all the care, inventiveness and quality of a three star restaurant.

Criticism that's leveled at Molecular cooking: superficiality, a continuation of nouvelle cuisine through different means, estheticism, the thought that 'le beau, c'est le bon'.
My take: a miraculous alchemic transmutation of substances that has changed the way we think about food forever. The redemption of stale haute cuisine. It's mode of expression is a stream of frivolous beau gestes, superficial instead of profound. Quite correct. But the profound belongs to the local cuisines, timeless and unchanging. Inventiveness and artistry for artistry's sake are the modes of expression of unapologetic brilliance.

I must eat at El Bulli, and will try again this October - the only time they take reservations.
Any other desperates out there? Has anybody been lucky enough to eat there? (perhaps our Irish man of taste and leisure?)

[PanzerJaeger]

You reek of France Louis..

Good luck getting in the door. Maybe its about getting in with the right people first?

[KukriKhan]

Do they have take-out?

[Fragony]

My take: a miraculous alchemic transmutation of substances that has changed the way we think about food forever. The redemption of stale haute cuisine. It's mode of expression is a stream of frivolous beau gestes, superficial instead of profound. Quite correct. But the profound belongs to the local cuisines, timeless and unchanging. Inventiveness and artistry for artistry's sake are the modes of expression of unapologetic brilliance.

But never been there huh, yep Luigi is most definatily french, maybe you should review novels

[FactionHeir]

So uh how much have you been paid to post this?

I read about molecular cuisine a year or so back. Looked fancy, but rather disgusting to me.

[drone]

Stay away from their soylent green dish. It's tasty, but you pay for it in the bathroom.

[KukriKhan]

Louis, you know I love you, man. But how is El Bulli "World Politics", and not a frontroom subject?

[Strike For The South]

Overpriced

[Reverend Joe]

Sounds like a load of crap to me. Good food is good food. You don't need to be a molecular scientist to whip up a good meal. I mean, sure, you might know exactly how this and that should be cooked, and how to make it taste exactly one way, but when a burger joint down the street is making kickass burgers for $5 apiece, what's the point? I mean, why have steak when you can have cheeseburger?

Overpriced

Indeed. I find "El Bulli" to me an appropriate name.

[Louis VI the Fat]

But how is El Bulli "World Politics"

Hah! I'll answer this with a counter question: In what way do twenty threads filled with 'you guys suck, our side is right!' resemble debates about World Politics?

And, eh, I had to advertise my goods and once in here people will soon enough discover it isn't about politics at all but then it'll be too late and they've fallen for the trap and

and not a frontroom subject?

Erm...I...I...I kinda forgot this place had a frontroom section.

What can I say? I like the gutter. This dark, smoke-filled backroom, cesspool of intolerance and bitter bickering.


Maybe a food thread belongs in the Kingdom of Peas indeed. Feel free to move it.

[Fragony]

screen=+wine

[KukriKhan]

Hah! I'll answer this with a counter question: In what way do twenty threads filled with 'you guys suck, our side is right!' resemble debates about World Politics?

Touche', as they say in parts of Texas.

We'll see if the Kingdom of Peas 'n Luff has an opinion.

[Hosakawa Tito]

What's on the menu? Do they have tube steaks and curly fries? How bout hushpuppies? Man, I could go for a big plate of hushpuppies with catfish nuggets and slaw.

[Ferret]

Pfft Ferran Adrià is nothing compared to Gordon Ramsay, and I have eaten at his place

(Well only the boxwood café as that's the only one I'm old enough to go in, but if that's a café then I'm the King of England)

[Louis VI the Fat]

But never been there huh, yep Luigi is most definatily french, maybe you should review novels

Oops. My admiration was for the cooking style, of which El Bulli is the pinnacle. You can molecular cook at home.

The Science of Deliciousness

Molecular cuisine is the end product of molecular gastronomy, a term coined in the 1980s by Herve This, a French scientist, and Nicholas Kurti, a former professor of physics at England’s Oxford University. Working out of a laboratory in Paris, the two men broke foods down into their most basic components – molecules – to find scientific answers to age-old culinary mysteries: Why do some foods combine well, while others don’t? How would you give ice cream a tobacco flavor? And, perhaps most importantly, how do our brains interpret the signals from all our senses to tell us the “flavor” of food?

Their work, quite naturally, involved close cooperation with several leading chefs, and it wasn’t long before the odd bit of molecular cuisine began popping up on the menus of famous European restaurants. A watershed moment came in 1999, when Heston Blumenthal, chef at the Fat Duck restaurant at Bray-on-Thames in England, shocked the dining world with his fusion of white chocolate and caviar, a combination whose success was explained by the surprisingly similar chemical compositions of the two foods.

But molecular gastronomy is much more than just the combining of unlikely foods – it is also intricately tied to the human body and its five senses. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the ice cream experiment, often cited by chef and researcher Paul Barham: while a spoonful of ice cream will taste good under normal conditions, closing your eyes and eating the same spoonful while fondling a piece of velvet cloth will make it taste much creamier. Rub your hand over a piece of sandpaper, and the ice cream acquires a gritty texture, as if the sand has transferred itself to your mouth! (Try this at home – it works!) According to Barham, our brain seems to have the power to transform texture into taste – a true alchemy of the senses.


Flavor of the Month?

Using molecular gastronomy, chefs are able to do the seemingly unthinkable – create non-sweet sugar, substitute sauces with foams, and produce leathery sheets of milk. The idea seems to be catching on, too – besides Blumenthal, such notable chefs as Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Roasa, Spain and Frenchman Pierre Gagnaire in Paris have made molecular cuisine their calling card, and a molecular menu can be found at elite restaurants all over the world. But what does that mean for the future? Are we on our way to a world where even McDonald’s will offer a molecular menu, or is molecular cuisine, like so many culinary trends before it, a fad that will disappear just as quickly as it came?

“Whether it’s a trend or not is probably the wrong question to ask,” says Komm. “The knowledge is out there, and more is being added everyday. It’s a tool that helps you do your job better, and a chef would have to be crazy not to use it.”

[Louis VI the Fat]

Pfft Ferran Adrià is nothing compared to Gordon Ramsay

Much as it pains me to admit it, Ramsay is a tremendous restaurant organiser. There's no arguing the quality of his places. He suffers from the syndrome the 'star restaurant in London, then a similar one in New York, and then another in Paris, etcetera'. (Though the last one was cut to pieces in the reviews. Jealousy? Pride? Too irritated at a Brit coming over and showing Paris how it's done? Maybe...)

Ramsay's great. But where is his sense of adventure? He's got his gazillions already.

What's on the menu? Do they have tube steaks and curly fries? How bout hushpuppies? Man, I could go for a big plate of hushpuppies with catfish nuggets and slaw.

Menu? That's old cuisine.

You eat what they serve. El Bulli serves its dishes in three 'acts'. About 30 or so dishes in total, served in a perfectly choreographed ballet.
Items can be anything from rabbit ears to milk skin to freeze dried foie gras to cherry with beef to peas that miraculously melt on your tongue.
The result: 'It took us six hours to go through the entire meal -- from 8pm to 2am -- but we were in such a state of elation that it was hard to tell if it had been two minutes or two days since we had first sat down.'

I remember reading about El Bulli four or five years ago in the French newspaper Le Monde. I remember the yearning, and I remember the pang that followed closely: considering the small number of guests that the restaurant could accommodate each season, the dream seemed out of reach. But a few years later, I learned from a well-informed friend that getting a reservation was a bit like playing the lottery: the odds were low, but it didn't cost much to try (see below).

And so I played, I won, and this is how Maxence and I found ourselves flying to Barcelona last weekend with three of our friends. My state of mind was a mix of excitement and circumspection: few restaurants have gotten as much press as this one, and I knew that the actual experience could fall short of my expectations. Fortunately, there was no need to brace myself for disappointment. The evening that we spent at El Bulli was every bit as extraordinary, surreal, and more important, joyful, as I'd hoped it to be.

We arrived at the restaurant in early evening, after a short curvy ride up and down the mountain road that leads to Cala Montjoi, and offers a striking view out to sea. A tiny parking lot, a small (and a bit scruffy) beach, a handsome tiled-roof house -- we walked up the stairs and were greeted by the staff, who gave us a short tour of the kitchen and led us to our table by the window, nicely isolated from the rest of the room: the arrival of each dish offers a bit of a dramatic thrill, so we were happy not to get any spoilers from the other tables.

The tasting menu, which changes slightly every day, unfolds in three acts and thirty-five dishes: small snacks that you eat with your fingers, larger-sized tapas to be eaten with a fork and spoon (no knife, ever), and desserts. It is a fast-paced dining rollercoaster, with explosive flavors and textural surprises that await you at every turn -- it is thus a good idea to take a break on the terrace every now and then. Each dish, or group of dishes, is brought to the table by a small squadron of waiters dressed in black, and while you are busy taking pictures of the new UFO that has just landed, the head waiter explains what it is (in our case, in excellent French), and how to eat it: start with this end or that, gobble it up in just one bite, or hurry before it melts.

There were recurring themes within the meal -- seaweed, seeds, Parmesan, Thai flavors, clementine, peach, the cotton candy texture, and Adrià's famous esferificación technique, in which liquids are trapped in a thin alginate casing that bursts open on your tongue. Not everything was successful, and not everything sent shivers of pure pleasure down your spine: some of the flavors were quite strong, and it took stamina to take them all in with fresh taste buds. But every single item managed to amaze and entertain, making the whole experience quite dazzling, both on an intellectual and sensory level.

And now, for your entertainment, let me offer a photographic account of the menu we were served (those with asterisks are the ones I enjoyed the most):

Link [click on link for menu and photographs]

[Hosakawa Tito]

Wow, an impressive place. I guess the only question would be

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Do they offer financing?

Hope you win the lottery Louis and score a reservation. Then we would like a detailed report on your experience.

[Reverend Joe]

Dude, just reading about that molecular cooking makes me want to live in a shack in the woods far, far away from civilization, subsisting on squirrel fricassee and magic mushrooms.

Edit: and Tito had a good idea with the fried catfish with hushies and slaw. Or better yet, pulled pork bbq with hushies, slaw and beer... God, I'm so hungry now... how come city people don't know no good cookin'?!

[Ramses II CP]

Haute cuisine so closely resembles haute fashion that it is difficult for a lay person to find the connection between it and food. Just as no one wears those clothes, no one eats that stuff; it is designed solely to create a sort of mass hysteria among the few devotees willing to dedicate their time and finances to it such that they can convince themselves they've not exceeded the bounds of taste, but merely come forcefully up against their upper crust.

As clothes protect the body so food sustains it, and all the purpose and meaning we imbue those with beyond that essential truth is nothing more than fluff to be filtered off of substance. If it tastes good, eat it. If it's comfortable, wear it. All else is the realm of PT Barnum and his pals.

Really though, there are worse fetishes. I suspect there may be more delight in the chase than in the catch, though the greatest enjoyment of all would, of course, be the bragging afterward. Such is the nature of haute anything. Even so, good luck Louis.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I'm sad to say that Tribesman is away at present, Louis, but maybe I will do as a stand-in?

No, I have not eaten at El Bulli. You revolutionary types don't respect old money anymore so breezing in and having a flunky throw a prole onto the streets to provide me with a table doesn't work any more.

Nonetheless, I doubt if I would grace their establishment. I am not an aficionado of molecular cuisine. I have eaten Mr Blumenthal's offerings, and was not impressed.

Frankly, old fruit, if one can't shoot it, one shouldn't eat it.

[InsaneApache]

What are his chips like?

As for Heston, well with a name like that you just know he's never lived in a council house.

[Fragony]

I kinda have a hard time imagining tribes as a fine cuisine apreciation-tiger. All this sounds very interesting though, if they open up one in Amsterdam I really have to try it. It's got an air of gimmickry if you ask me but don't knock it until you tried. It sure is more hardcore then the fusion-cooking that is currently ze hype here.

[KukriKhan]

Looking at El Bulli's history page, I'm sure I'd have enjoyed the place in the 70's: spend the day snorkling/scuba-diving, maybe snag a lobster. Then take that catch to the thatch-roofed El Bulli, enjoy a couple Spanish brewski's or vino's whilst mamma-san tossed your treasure on the barbie.

A weekend to remember fondly, I'm sure.

[King Henry V]

Bah, these new-fangled cooking methods really don't have much appeal. All these little slices of this on a tiny bed of that, drizzled with a mousse of whatchyoumacallit are merely the preserve of badly-shaven, slovenly-dressed types who pretend that they have some sort of sixth sense and see what others do not. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with old Escoffier, and a delicious timbale de ris de veau à la toulaisane.