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News & ArtsSunday, June 19, 2011
Chow El Bulli's Last Supper
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 3:54 PM
Here's the Guardian on the 50-course farewell "flavour theatre" that was El Bulli's final night... and here's the short version from my friend M., who was there:
51 courses. shitloads of champagne. heather graham onboard. lots of french dudes from the LVMH world saying... "vair eez hezzair? did you meet hezzair?" total hysteria. but ferran was a badass... felt incredibly lucky to be there.
Photos here... The first dozen courses:
beetroot and yoghurt meringue
tomato cookie
air baguette
mojito - caipirinha sugar cane
mojito and apple baguette
gin fizz
spherical olives
mimetic peanuts
pistachio ravioli
parmesan cheese "porra"
parmesan cheese "macaron"
gorgonzola balloon
olive oil chip
flowers paper
golden egg
steamed shrimps with tea
roses with ham wonton and melon water
ham and ginger canape
Japanese ravioli
soy matches
nori ravioli with lemon
asparagus with miso
tiramisu
oysters and bone marrow tartar
parmesan frozen air with muesli
carbonara tagliatelle
caviar cream with hazelnut caviar
pine nuts shabu shabu
"perrechico" cake
polenta gnocchi with coffee, safran, skin milk and capers
tender almonds perfumed with truffle
barnacle with caviar
two cooking prawns
lulo "ceviche" and mollusk
clam "ceviche"
Oaxaca "taco"
"gazpacho" and "ajo blanco"
peas 2011
sea cucumber
Shanghai lobster
hare fritter
game meat cappuccino
blackberry risotto with game meat sauce
hare ravioli with bolognese and blood
pond
yoghurt blini
"coca de vidre" — crystal cake
mini donuts
apple rose
box
1
And this is what's wrong with restaurants today. "spherical olives", "frozen air", "box", what the shit is this?
2
@1, whatever you think of this, it most certainly is not "what's wrong with restaurants today". There's only one restaurant in the world that serves this -- El Bulli. Which is now closed. Crazy? Sure. Something you'd eat every day? No. Inspired genius? Yes.
3
@1
With 51 courses, I think you'll be fine if one or two or a dozen or half of them are "fanciful."
With 51 courses, I think you'll be fine if one or two or a dozen or half of them are "fanciful."
6
@1: Fnarf is right—El Bulli was singular in the universe, and "what the shit is this" is molecular gastronomy (or "cocina de vanguardia," the cuisine of the vanguard, as El Bulli's chef prefers). Here's more, along with an interesting discussion of what might happen in Spanish cuisine post-El Bulli.
7
Isn't it marvelous? Yet I couldn't help admiring Harper's marking the month the restaurant was to close by hiring Will Self to take the piss out of it, in the guise of reviewing some new cookbooks (including Nathan Myhrvold's five-volume series on this type of cooking, which he happily spent $10 million to make):
the ways in which these foods are eaten continue to be an enactment of class identity, with the vast majority buying cheap, eating poorly, and getting fatter, while an etiolated minority prate about gastronomy.and
I’m with Robert Hughes, the art critic, who, when in 2007 Adrià was invited to contribute to Documenta 12, the prestigious international art show, as an artist, said: “Both Adrià’s participation and contribution seem ridiculous to me. Food is food.” Indeed, so it is, and no amount of foaming, gelling, sousing in liquid nitrogen, whirling in centrifuges, deconstructing, or poaching for long periods in plastic bags (sous-vide cooking) can transform it into art.and, if that weren't enough
At El Bulli, Ferran Adrià and his staff devised every multicourse menu around the foibles of his clientele, and this is probably one of the reasons it became so feted, for modernist cuisine takes its real character from another surrealistic aspect of contemporary life in the ever-fattening West: orthorexia, that quasi-pathology afflicting oversated diners who seek to provoke hunger in themselves—and concomitantly thin down—by cultivating mysterious intolerances to this or that staple.http://harpers.org/archive/2011/07/00835…
8
Molecular gastronomy makes perfect sense in a culture where the vast majority of people eat mostly engineered foods of one kind or another. He's just doing what McDonald's does except with artistic and culinary motives rather than marketing and cost reduction as motives.
9
@2, @6
While I would agree that El Bulli was the first of its kind, and by all reports the best, it is no longer unique.
In fact, if I'm not mistaken, one of the reasons El Bulli is closing is to quit while it's still ahead of Alinea, minibar, Moto, Schwa, and wd-50 in the US, and another dozen or two worldwide.
The fact that Seattle is crammed with Alice Waters acolytes and Thomas Keller imitators, instead of chefs who like to mess around with lab equipment and industrial food additives, doesn't mean there's no-one else doing what Adrià started.
While I would agree that El Bulli was the first of its kind, and by all reports the best, it is no longer unique.
In fact, if I'm not mistaken, one of the reasons El Bulli is closing is to quit while it's still ahead of Alinea, minibar, Moto, Schwa, and wd-50 in the US, and another dozen or two worldwide.
The fact that Seattle is crammed with Alice Waters acolytes and Thomas Keller imitators, instead of chefs who like to mess around with lab equipment and industrial food additives, doesn't mean there's no-one else doing what Adrià started.
10
I agree that El Bulli was the first and probably the best restaurant of its kind, but even in spain i feel there are places to rival it. I actually preferred Arzak in San Sebastian to El Bulli for example (saved up for a year for that vacation), but that may have been personal preference or what happened to be on the tasting menus at the time. That said, molecular gastronomy is losing some holy ground in El Bulli, and i'm sorry to see it go! Boy would i have loved to be at that meal!
12
Thank you for this post, Bethany. And for the follow up links! The only sour note for me is Heather Graham's unremarked-on anorexia. "While the rest of us gorge on octopus, Iberico ham and vintage fizz, she is saved from starvation by a strawberry kebab." Yikes.
13
On my way down on I-5 I heard a story about how there's been a lot of demand destruction for eating in restaurants. The "marketing consultants' types who used to splurge started to pick up the frying pan once their 7 figure fees plunged. Unlike other retail products which have been creeping back with 1 to 3 percent growth, eating at restaurants has not.
It is now actually cool to use that extra space in your apartment known as a kitchenette.
14
To be accurate, el Bullì isn't the only place to get a lot of the items on that menu. While Ferran Adrià has closed it (it's turning into a museum/cooking school thingy for the time being) his brother Albert continues to work the same magic in more accessible venues.
For years he ran Inopia, a tapas bar in the center of Barcelona, where things like the "air baguette" were introduced. He recently closed Inopia to open two new places with his brother Ferran, both right around the corner from Inopia: 41º (cocktail bar) and Tickets (tapas) serve a number of the "greatest hits" from el Bullì in fairly-affordable, tapas-sized portions. It's still difficult to get into either of these places, though nowhere near as hard as with the restaurant. Both take reservations online and I have managed to score tables a few weeks out at both without too much effort.
It's also worth pointing out that the menu above is a clunky literal translation to English and misses most of the humor and plays on words that belong there.
For years he ran Inopia, a tapas bar in the center of Barcelona, where things like the "air baguette" were introduced. He recently closed Inopia to open two new places with his brother Ferran, both right around the corner from Inopia: 41º (cocktail bar) and Tickets (tapas) serve a number of the "greatest hits" from el Bullì in fairly-affordable, tapas-sized portions. It's still difficult to get into either of these places, though nowhere near as hard as with the restaurant. Both take reservations online and I have managed to score tables a few weeks out at both without too much effort.
It's also worth pointing out that the menu above is a clunky literal translation to English and misses most of the humor and plays on words that belong there.
15
Did any women work at El Bulli? All I see in those pictures are men. I find it fascinating that something that has historically been the domain of women in the home is the domain of men in public.
16
@15
That's one of the "we don't talk about that" truths of the restaurant business; by a wide margin, the cooks are male, and the "kitchen culture" is, well, rather disgustingly anti-female.
But then, another "we don't talk about that" truth in the industry is that the cooks earn a hell of a lot less than the servers, who are female by a substantial majority.
Oh, and we also don't talk about the fact that only cooks get elevated to celebrity status, via TV or books... at a rate that makes pro sports seem like a good career wager, yes... but sure, it does tilt the average restaurant income back a bit.
So yes, professional restaurant cooks are overwhelmingly male, and that has been the case since the dawn of time— or at least since the dawn of the businesses we today call "restaurants." Which was only about 100 years ago, give or take, and allowing for the time it took to evolve Escoffier's brigade system into standalone "restaurants."
That's one of the "we don't talk about that" truths of the restaurant business; by a wide margin, the cooks are male, and the "kitchen culture" is, well, rather disgustingly anti-female.
But then, another "we don't talk about that" truth in the industry is that the cooks earn a hell of a lot less than the servers, who are female by a substantial majority.
Oh, and we also don't talk about the fact that only cooks get elevated to celebrity status, via TV or books... at a rate that makes pro sports seem like a good career wager, yes... but sure, it does tilt the average restaurant income back a bit.
So yes, professional restaurant cooks are overwhelmingly male, and that has been the case since the dawn of time— or at least since the dawn of the businesses we today call "restaurants." Which was only about 100 years ago, give or take, and allowing for the time it took to evolve Escoffier's brigade system into standalone "restaurants."
17
@7: Thanks for the link, will read that Harper's piece. The element of privilege does seem absurdly highlighted when you're looking at (poorly translated or not) "air baguette" and "mimetic peanuts" (let them eat air and mime!)...
Of course El Bulli isn't/wasn't the only place doing molecular gastronomy (or "the cuisine of the vanguard" or whatever you want to call it), but chef Ferran Adria is widely regarded as the source of and force behind the movement. I think it's great for him to move on (and into a nonprofit, open-source mode) instead of soldiering on at El Bulli forever. Here's a little more about that and about what the restaurant scene in Spain may be post-El Bulli (sounds pretty great).
Of course El Bulli isn't/wasn't the only place doing molecular gastronomy (or "the cuisine of the vanguard" or whatever you want to call it), but chef Ferran Adria is widely regarded as the source of and force behind the movement. I think it's great for him to move on (and into a nonprofit, open-source mode) instead of soldiering on at El Bulli forever. Here's a little more about that and about what the restaurant scene in Spain may be post-El Bulli (sounds pretty great).
18
Nice try, but this was nowhere near El Bulli's "final night" -- which in fact happened last night, July 30, with no Heather Graham and with a very different menu.
19
Nice try, but this was nowhere near El Bulli's "last supper". That took place last night, July 30th, with no Heather Graham and with a very different menu than is here described -- including lièvre à la royale and peach Melba!
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