"elBulli" news and stories

Ferran Adrià is possibly the most famous chef in the world. His restaurant El Bulli, in Spain's Catalonia, accepts six thousand lucky diners a year. A million are turned away annually, and there is a six-year waiting list. The list is going to get a little longer because Adrià announced that he plans to close El Bulli for two years at the end of the 2011 season, and is turning the restaurant into a kitchen laboratory. He's been called the father of foam, and of deconstructive cooking. Oh, and a genius. He's also been labeled a mad scientist who concocts food from chemicals and air. Adrià was recently in New York, and Slashfood sat down for a talk with the Catalan master.

What does deconstructionism mean?
FA: It's one of the styles we've done in the past 25 years. But in the past few years we've hardly done any deconstruction. We started it in '94, we started a new discourse, a new language which people didn't understand, to try and establish some kind of umbilical cord with people in a very unconscious way. The deconstruction style was born, for example, when I created savory ice cream. In '94 it was quite strange, quite unusual to have curry ice cream. So I was creating a dish that had no references; people had nothing they could relate it to. When I made chicken curry I would bring a dish which had curry ice cream, chicken stock, coconut milk. They looked at it and didn't recognize it, and when I told them it was chicken curry they thought I was mad. But when you ate it you would establish the references. I like to make an analogy to Japanese food. If you've never been to Japan and then you go to the most authentic Japanese restaurant, it's a new language -- you will not understand most of the things you will eat, and it seems quite strange. This is what happens at El Bulli, deconstruction helped to establish these links and references.

Spanish Chef Ferran Adrià told Slashfood that he will be showing plans, photos and details of the much-anticipated "reinvention" of his legendary restaurant El Bulli at a press conference in New York City in March 2011.

Adrià said he has signed a deal with the multinational telecommunications company Telefónica to become a brand ambassador, and that he is working on details of the New York announcement with the company.

During an interview October 13 at the Hotel Eventi's Bar Basque after a screening of the documentary "A Day at El Bulli," he did share a few details about the major changes coming El Bulli, the restaurant in Roses, Spain which receives two million reservation requests a year for just a few thousand places.

The new El Bulli will be more like an educational foundation than a restaurant. "There will be no reservations," Adrià said through his friend and interprereter Chef José Andrés. "And everything will change every month."

What it won't be is limited to the cuisine that made it famous, Adrià's mind-bending innovations with molecular gastronomy. "It is going to be a bigger place, but a completely new philosophy. The main mission of the foundation will be to create, and where everything they create, they will be able to share through [the] internet everyday, with everyone around the world," Andrés explained.

At El Bulli, Spanish chef Ferran Adrià became known for his chemistry-aided feats of culinary daring, creating dishes such as frozen foie-gras noodles, Parmesan "snow" and meat foam.

But lately, Adrià has undertaken his most challenging project to date: creating a Spanish beer that actually tastes good.

While Spain may excel at soccer, it lags behind in brewing: The lion's share of Spanish beers are light, easy-drinking lagers, the sort of hot-day brews that we buy in a 30-pack and bring to a backyard BBQ. Thirst-quenching quantity, not quality. In other words, beers that didn't do justice to Adrià's jaw-dropping foods.

To rectify the situation, Adrià and El Bulli sommeliers, along with Spanish brewers Damm, devised Inedit as an ideal dinner-table drink. Brewed with a blend of malt and wheat, Inedit is flavored with licorice, orange peel and coriander, which is the normal ingredient bill for a Belgian witbier. Furthermore, Inedit's profile -- faint fruit flavor, yeasty bouquet, subtle sweetness -- is surprisingly standard fare. Is it as paradigm-shifting as Adrià's eats? Not even close. It's drinkable, sure, but not worth a double-digit price tag -- or a seat at dinner.

Frankly, Adrià, after creating frozen chocolate air, I expect a bit more innovation. For that, I guess I must rely on American brewers like Dogfish Head.

While Catalan chef Ferran Adria will be shuttering his world-famous El Bulli restaurant for the 2012 and 2013 seasons, the father of avant garde cooking denied reports the restaurant was closing for good, the Associated Press reported.

Adria denies a report in the New York Times that he was closing El Bulli permanently and replacing it with an academy for advanced culinary study.

El Bulli, about two hours north of Barcelona, is considered by many to be the world's best restaurant. However, even for the best, the restaurant business can be tough.

The Times reported the restaurant, known for its creative approach to molecular gastronomy with creations like Parmesan ice cream sandwiches, was losing half a million Euros a year.

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.