Photo: loremipsum, Flickr
ElBulli groupies will have to wait until 2014 to get their fill of sea-urchin foam.
Ferran Adrià announced Tuesday that he will be closing his mecca of molecular gastronomy in Roses, on the northeastern coast of Spain, for all of 2012 and 2013.
"No meals will be served in elBulli in 2012 and 2013," Adrià said. "But elBulli is not closing down. These are not two years on sabbatical. I need time to decide how 2014 is going to be. We want the year 2014 to stand out and I know that when I return it will not be the same.
"With a format like the current one, it is impossible to keep creating," Adrià told reporters at Madrid Fusion, Spain's annual culinary conference. "In 2014, we will serve food somehow. I don't know if it will be for one guest or 1,000."
"Restaurant Magazine" has crowned elBulli five times as the "World's Best Restaurant." The restaurant also holds three-Michelin stars.
While reservation requests for 2010 are no longer being accepted, information regarding reservations in 2011 will be posted in December. The restaurant is only open six months (June to December in 2010) -- Adrià and his staff spend the other half of the year developing recipes and new techniques in the restaurant's Barcelona laboratory.
For Ferran Adrià's complete action plan for the years 2010 through 2020, read the official elBulli press release.
[via AFP]
1-28-2010 @11:29AM gobo said... Well, given that El Bulli is consistently voted the best restaurant in the world, and this is a blog about food and restaurants, I think a lot of people who read this blog care, Will.
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1-28-2010 @12:11PM Stam said... I read, and I don't care.
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1-28-2010 @12:28PM Glenn said... I wouldn't care if they didn't ever open, never mind 2014!
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1-28-2010 @4:33PM Trowgo said... lol, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this news, really calling this news is stupid.
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1-28-2010 @2:21PM Arlette said... You better tell Anthony Bourdain. He loves this place.
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1-28-2010 @2:54PM JB said... I'd rather have a pastrami and half done pickles from Canters. ElBulli is one of those restaurants that foodies will say "I LOVED IT" even when it is very bad. Charlie Trotters is another. I recently went there and they are a weak shadow of what they used to be in the 90's. For example they had several foams with some dishes that were just plain awful. I'm sure the foodies are still saying CT is the best.
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1-28-2010 @5:05PM sindbad said... you hit it on the head my friend. charlie trotter is way over rated and el bulli is all that's bad in the culinary world. if ferran is such a genuis then why does he need to close for 6 months to come up with new ideas. i would think a genius can create on the fly like the rest of us poor smucks. gail green once wrote an article in the n.y. times that said she had 24 courses half of which failed and out of the other 12 i think she said she like maybe 6 of them. well that doesn't sound like a genius to me. that doesn't even sound like a half decent cook. another article that was in wine spectator years ago quotes his former right hand man saying that young spanish cooks try so hard to copy the foams and the other digusting sounding food that they don't know how to make a perfect national dish called torte rustica. its all hype with no substance and he makes a mint doing it.
1-28-2010 @3:32PM Catmoves said... I agree with Will.
Any "famous" restaurant that serves sea urchins should be closed. Permanently!
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1-28-2010 @3:35PM King David said... So, there's always McDonalds.
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1-28-2010 @4:14PM David S. said... So why is he closing his restaurant for four years if business is so good? It will probably become a Wendy's or Burger King -- I hear the folks in Spain want these.
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1-28-2010 @4:35PM gary said... I've been a chef for almost 30 years and have a nice resume. This announcement of closure is not newsworthy unless your planning on eating there....who cares!?! Best restaurant in the world is extremely subjective on many levels.
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1-28-2010 @4:47PM Chef Alfred Schrader said... Even if they are closed, that doesn't mean that I can't prepare a dish for you.
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1-28-2010 @6:44PM Chrissy Yunho♥ said... LOL! Wow, I don't plan on visiting Spain and spending and arm and a leg on a steamed sea urchin with flavored foam and probably sprinkles of fancy leaves that I've never seen before.............so I don't really care. ((^_^))
But I guess if you like the place then it matters but for the majority in the world...........it doesn't =(
But eveyone has their cares and don't cares so I can't say much, only for myself.
At first when I saw "closing resturant until 2014" I thought they was probably talking about the Golden Corral or something shocking like McDonalds.
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1-28-2010 @8:13PM Chad said... You know, whether you pay $200 for a meal or $1...it all ends up in the same place a few hours later anyway.
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1-28-2010 @7:22PM Kate said... What amazes me is what passes for food at these restaurants. We ate at an expensive restaurant and all we got were a few nibbles of food laid out "decoratively" on our plate with fancy sauce swirled around the food. We were so hungry when we left, we went to a Chinese restaurant down the street and ate again for under $20.00 (we were full and had leftovers even!). That fancy dinner cost us $150.00! What a waste of money. And the chocolate cake they served us was so awful we couldn't eat it. My home baked cake out of a box is 1,000 times better. Fancy restaurants are like high fashion clothing designers.... you pay a whole lot for nothing!
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1-28-2010 @7:23PM Bogey said... Never heard of the place. Is it in BFE?
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1-28-2010 @7:24PM Bogey said... who cares!
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1-28-2010 @7:35PM Gobo said... So let me get this straight folks. You're reading a food blog, and you've either never heard of the world's greatest restaurant or you don't care that it's closing for two years to retool. Ferran Adria's food is massively influential worldwide and has invented whole new ideas in cuisine.
Are you people that ignorant, or are you just trolls?
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1-28-2010 @7:51PM adgirl said... Amen, Gobo! Amen!
1-29-2010 @8:18AM LinC said... I am neither a troll nor stupid. I read this list for interesting food news. An article about some hip restaurant in Spain that is closing is NOT news. Foam is passe and Ferran Adrià knows it. Real food is in. (Thank goodness!) I'll bet he never reopens. Better to go out on a high and retire with his winnings.