Ode to El Bulli by Max Jacobson

Ode to El Bulli by Max Jacobson

Seminal Spanish chef Ferran Adria is to the so-called molecular gastronomy movement what St. Peter is to Deadliest Catch. He just announced he would permanently close his fabled El Bulli, in Roses, Spain. The closure will take effect in Dec. 2011.

The decision was made, according to the chef, because the restaurant loses a half million Euros per year, despite the fact there are almost 40 requests per table for each one the restaurant is able to fill.

I dined there in April, 2008, thanks to the good graces of our own chef at Picasso, Julian Serrano. Serrano was a boyhood friend of Juli Soler, Adria’s partner (and the man losing most of the money) in Madrid, and he secured me the reservation, as a favor.

“Max,” he told me, “if you don’t show up, I’ll kill you.” But show up I did with four friends from Hong Kong, who watched with growing curiosity as a litany of 32 dishes, including spheres made from beet juice, jellied hare and grapefruit risotto came to the table, all served with precision and grace by the most elegant team of servers I have ever witnessed.

After dinner, which cost 215 Euros per person (around $300) we toured the kitchen, staffed mostly by young volunteers from around the world.

Adria’s twenty-first century equipment, things such as the Pacojet and the reverse griddle, have revolutionized the food world.

But in the end, a meal at El Bulli, which I regard as having been a great privilege, is-and was-more about intellectual experience than pleasure. The simple joy of eating a crisp apple is far more profound than that of eating an olive-like creation that turns out to be olive juice, suspended by a colloid that renders it a solid until it is put in the mouth.

Adria has spawned an entire generation of chefs; Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck in Bray, England, Grant Achatz of Alinea in the Chicago suburbs, and no less our own Adam Sobel, now at RM Upstairs, which I will describe in the posting immediately following this one. Evolution is inevitable, even in the food world, and there is no stemming the tide of change in terms of how we eat?

Adria plans to open an Academy of Molecular Gastronomy, and keep his workshop in Madrid open, so more alchemy, smoke and mirrors will surface. El Bulli will be missed.

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