Quotes of the Day
This past weekend, a handful of the world's best chefs, including Rene Redzepi, Joan Roca and Grant Achatz, gathered in the speckled morning sunlight of Spain's Cala Montjoi to commemorate a passing. It should have been a sad occasion. But the man who had brought them all together emphasized that there was no death, only transformation. "My brother Albert said we had to kill the monster," said Ferran Adrià. "But I said, No, we have to tame it."
The monster to which Adrià referred is elBulli, the restaurant that he and his brother — along with, over the past 25 years, roughly 2,000 other chefs, cooks, waiters and captains — have made the most acclaimed and influential of our time. As anyone even mildly interested in food knows by now, elBulli served its last meal as a restaurant on July 30. But for the journalists who came from around the world for that morning's press conference, as well as for the close friends and longtime patrons lucky enough to dine that night, the occasion felt like anything but a wake.
Admittedly, some of the chefs were in a reflective mood. Massimo Bottura of Modena's Osteria Francescana remembered the long hours he put in as an apprentice in 1999. "We would start at 8:30 in the morning and work straight until 1:30 a.m.," he said. "But I never got tired, because the commitment to the group was so strong." Recalling the impact of his own apprenticeship, Redzepi, whose Copenhagen restaurant Noma is currently ranked first in the world, observed, "The courage and freedom to do what we do in Noma came from here. I thank elBulli for helping free my imagination."
But any pensiveness dissolved in the face of the 90-lb. (40 kg) meringue bulldog (the restaurant's emblem) that master pastry chef Christian Escribà had made for the occasion, adorning its neck with a sugar-paste collar that hid appropriately culinary references like oysters and fried eggs. As Adrià took congratulatory calls from admirers like French master chef Michel Guerard, his front-of-house staff — dressed in T-shirts bearing the words "The Last Waltz" — passed celebratory glasses of cava. They were aided by minibar chef José Andrés' three young daughters, who did a stellar job serving air baguettes and brie-stuffed blini.
The festive air could be attributed in part to the knowledge that in 2014, elBulli will reopen as a foundation dedicated to culinary creativity. Blueprints for the new center, which will be located on the same site as the restaurant, were on display at the press conference. They depicted a spectacular new structure with archives and an audiovisual room as well as spaces dedicated to more esoteric things like an "empathic tree experience." Construction on the center is scheduled to begin in January 2012.
For Adrià, the foundation — that "taming" of which he spoke — represents an opportunity to free himself and his staff from the obligations and drudgery that accompany the running of a high-end restaurant. Now they will be able to devote themselves to what they do best, which is create. "I'm not nostalgic at all," he told TIME. "In fact, I'm happier than ever. It's almost as if we're going back to our origins in 1993, '94, '95, when we were just boiling over with new ideas. Now we have the chance to make elBulli into something new every day."
But the happiness also stemmed from the knowledge of what had been accomplished. elBulli was born as a beachside snack bar in the 1960s, though by the time Adrià joined it in 1983, it had become a respectable restaurant specializing in French nouvelle cuisine. About a decade later, Adrià, having risen quickly through the kitchen's ranks, began the radical experiments that would transform not only his own menu but also the face of haute cuisine. Among the general public he is perhaps most famous for the new techniques, like liquid nitrogen and foam, that he applied to cuisine. But among chefs his supreme accomplishment was more philosophical. By interrogating fine dining's assumptions — does soup have to be liquid? Does dessert have to be sweet? — Adrià opened the way for food as a form of artistic expression.
That path won elBulli a slew of accolades (in addition to earning three Michelin stars, the restaurant would be named best in the world an unprecedented five times) and turned its 8,000 reservations into a prize for which a million people competed each year. It also, on occasion, earned scorn from critics who lambasted elBulli for what they perceived as its excess, its elitism, its use of chemicals and its unwillingness to serve what they considered "real" food. Especially in the past few months, as news about Adrià became an almost daily media feature and numerous journalists, bloggers and ordinary foodies took to publishing accounts of their meals (Slate dubbed the genre IAAEB: "I Ate At El Bulli"), a backlash began to form.
But on the last night, all that was forgotten. The kitchen was a scene of barely controlled chaos, as the normal staff of 45 was joined by the dozen or so illustrious alumni present at the morning press conference. Together they turned out a 50-course menu that included many of elBulli's greatest hits, such as a hot-and-cold Gin Fizz and a floral paper made from pressed cotton candy, along with one infamously reviled dish called Smoke Foam. The last taste of the night was Adrià's take on a Peach Melba, a recipe invented by Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern restaurant cuisine, who was born in 1846. That just happens to be the number of dishes that Adrià and his chefs have invented since they began experimenting with cuisine.
As the final serving went out and the kitchen exploded with cheers, Adrià fiercely embraced each member of his permanent staff. Many of them have worked at elBulli for well over a decade, and most of them will continue on — after a brief vacation — at the foundation. That night, the wives and children of men who started at elBulli when they were in their teens joined the 35 young apprentices who had just finished up six months or a year of hard labor in a joyous outdoor party. Juli Soler, the restaurant's co-owner and the man who originally hired Adrià, was there blasting the Rolling Stones and encouraging everyone to dance. There would be cake and cocktails, and Adrià himself dressed in board shorts, encouraging everyone to run down to the beach for a dip. The party lasted nearly until dawn.
Amid the revelry, a few partygoers couldn't help but feel nostalgic. Andoni Luis Aduriz, who worked at elBulli for two years in the 1990s before starting his own highly acclaimed restaurant, Mugaritz, was melancholy as he sipped a gin and tonic. "This place was so important to who I became as a chef and as a person," he admitted. "It's hard to let it go."
His words offered a poignant reminder that for all the singularity of Adrià's vision and accomplishment, elBulli was also and always a family. Like other restaurants, it was subject to both cohesion and rivalry, complaints and praise, and many of its most illustrious members flew far from the nest. But together, they managed to take a beachfront grill shack on a hidden cay in northeastern Spain and turn it, for a moment, into the center of the culinary world.
- Lisa Abend / Cala Montjoi