Owner of El Bulli, world's most exclusive restaurant, shuts up shop for two years
In the rarefied world of Spanish alta cocina the rumours had been swirling like a cloud spilling out from one of his laboratories: the godfather of mol- ecular gastronomy needed a break.
Years of dreaming up the likes of gold-tinted caramel of quails’ eggs and a frozen dust of foie gras had taken their toll. Yesterday Ferran Adrià confirmed the fears of gastronomes the world over: El Bulli, perhaps the most exclusive restaurant on the planet, is to close for two years. “No meals will be served in El Bulli in 2012 and 2013,” Adrià told the Madrid Fusion gastronomic conference.
“But El Bulli is not closing down,” he was quick to add. “I need time to decide how 2014 is going to be. We want the year 2014 to stand out. I know that when I return it will not be the same.”
A statement on the restaurant’s website added that “these two years will be devoted to thinking, planning and preparing the new format for subsequent years”.
For anyone who has dreamt of securing a reservation at an establishment crowned the world’s best restaurant five times, it was a huge blow. El Bulli (The Little Bulldog in Catalan), in Roses, near Barcelona, is where Adrià has revolutionised cooking since the late 1990s by using science to produce taste sensations no one had heard of before.
Diners lucky enough to get a table were treated to polenta of powdered Parmesan, truffle cappuccino or liquid ravioli. Adrià used tools more usually employed in DIY — such as screwdrivers — in his cooking and he was unofficially considered the best chef around.
When not cooking, Adrià could be found surrounded by white-jacketed “assistants” in his laboratory in Barcelona, planning the next season’s surprises. Hidden away off La Rambla, in the old town, it is more akin to an orderly chemistry class than a chaotic kitchen.
His recipes have been likened to art and he was even invited recently to try to save the Spanish economy by lecturing business leaders about innovation.
However, Adrià, 47, admitted that he found the 15-hour days that went with being the top chef difficult. The effort needed to keep dreaming up mouthwatering wonders, has, say Spanish culinary insiders, worn him down. “He’s fed up,” said Gaspar Rey, editor of Cocina Futuro (Future Cooking), who knows the chef well. “After 25 years of working so hard he needs to do something else.”
Despite all the accolades, food critics have begun recently to utter the once unthinkable: what Adrià cooks may not be good for you. Jörg Zipprick, a German food writer, and the Spanish chef Santi Santamaría have claimed that ingredients in molecular cooking are filled with gelling agents and laboratory emulsifiers.
It has done little to dent his popularity. El Bulli is already full for this year and while reservations for next year do not begin until December, anyone hoping to get a table needs to write the date in their diary — and be quick off the mark. Usually all places are gone within minutes.
Adrià acknowledged that in closing the restaurant he would lose his three Michelin stars. “I have a lot of respect for the guidebooks, and when you go, you go,” he said.