75 replies to this topic

[PhilD]

Picked up from Andy Hayler - El Bulli to close permanently

[jeroen_kb]

that makes me even more nervous about my one not yet responded to by el bulli reservation email.

[cachan]

How comes a wildly-oversubscribed restaurant loses 500,000 euros a year ? It should be able to charge enough to make a healthy profit, no ? Why does it not open for more months each year so that more money comes in and takes in into profit ? What is it about the dynamics of running a restaurant am I missing here which explains the losses ?

[KD1191]

My understanding is that the restaurant isn't meant to make a profit. The real money is in his speaking engagements and book deals. The restaurant is part PR machine and part gallery. "[T]he dynamics of running a restaurant" don't enter into the conversation for El Bulli. Surely he could charge more and stay open year round, but that assumes his goal is to maximize the profit from the restaurant. Staying open year round (or, at all, I guess, given his announcement that the restaurant is closing for good) wouldn't allow him the time/energy to innovate and teach in the way or to the level he wants.

Edited by KD1191, 13 February 2010 - 04:19 PM.

[jeroen_kb]

So now the latest is that it won't be closing for good:

According to an article in Spanish newspaper El Universo, Ferran Adria will not in fact be closing El Bulli, as The New York Times reported last week. Adria plans to stick with the 2012-2014 break he announced at last months Madrid Fusion; back to business after that. Optimists who hope to land a reservation someway, somehow in the next couple of years can breathe easy.

http://www.elunivers...ml?p=1354&m=719

[Jamsie]

How comes a wildly-oversubscribed restaurant loses 500,000 euros a year ? It should be able to charge enough to make a healthy profit, no ? Why does it not open for more months each year so that more money comes in and takes in into profit ? What is it about the dynamics of running a restaurant am I missing here which explains the losses ?

Because they don't try to get every penny out of the customer.

They could charge far more but they choose not to.


The prices the set aren't so high that they exclude all but the richest.


And they choose to spend more time developing, experimenting and coming up with new things than turning out the food, so it's only open 6 months a year. It's a choice.



When i went a few years ago it was €150/£100 for the 27 odd courses which compares very favourably with London, they filled my cava about 6 times and charged me once, and they wine they recommended from that region was €30

It was brilliant




i've read this email back and realised what a pretentious gimp i sound for which i apologise.

[mothersruin]

So has *anyone* got a successful reservation for 2010 yet??

[jeroen_kb]

No, still waiting with one unanswered email........

Hoping that all the no emails have been sent and that they're now doing the planning.

[Salty]

I'm in the same boat - waiting with everything crossed!

BTW, Jamsie, I didn't think your post made you sound like a pretentious gimp - does that make me a pretentious gimp too!

[Jamsie]

BTW, Jamsie, I didn't think your post made you sound like a pretentious gimp - does that make me a pretentious gimp too!

Sorry to be the one to break it to you

[mothersruin]

Bumping this up - any successful reservations yet??

[KennethT]

Just got my reservation confirmation today!!!

[pkeibel]

so what was your secret to securing the resy?

[KennethT]

I have no idea... I didn't send in multiple requests - only 1 email saying that we'd be in the area for a few days near the beginning of their season, but that if those days weren't available we would make a special trip at any time during the year... other than that, I did not mention any special occasions or anything... I sent in my request on the 2nd of January.

[charliezambrano]

I got a reservation at ElBulli finally after 6/7 years of trying ..Table for 2 on November 10th! ....INCREDIBLE

[Gavin Convery]

I am off to the Girona region for holidays this year at the beginning of August. As I don't have a reservation at all, I wondered what people's experiences are of getting last minute cancellation slots as I thought I might try within the 10 day confirmation period of when I will be there or alternatively ringing up on spec once I am in Spain.

Not the end of the world, as I am already booked in for El Celler de Can Roca..... ;-)

Oh, and I have a fussy 7 year old in tow - will they cope with that while serving us the degustacion menu?

[victornet]

I'm pleased to be the first to post on the 2010 season, though I'm going to concentrate on the photos rather than a lot of description. I was really lucky to get in this year. After receiving my annual rejection (with the exception of 2007, which was the greatest meal of my life) my best friend, who has pretty good contacts in the art and to a lesser degree food worlds in Spain, requested a table for the period after a meeting he had in Barcelona the opening week of the season. We were told we were at the top of the list for cancellations, and one came through a week or so later. The VIP nature of the reservation yielded a meal of 40 elements (as opposed to 30 last time) and some special face time with the chef after the meal. Instead of one cocktail-like starter, there were several at the start. Needless to say the meal rocked.

If I were to make a general observation about the differences between the two meals it would be: 1. Last time freeze drying was a dominant technique and this time freezing was. This may have been a result of us getting extra 'frozen' snacks towards the beginning of the meal. 2. The meal was a month later than my 2007 dinner. At that time we had several dishes (peas with artichokes puree and asparagus in different cooking times)that depended on super fresh young spring vegetables which I believe were only briefly on the menu. Those remain special taste memories.

One of the first memorable dishes was 'handkerchief'.

It was sort of a reconfigured corn snack - salty, crunchy, and tasty. We ran into some other El Bulli eaters at Salvador Dali's house museum in Port Lligat the next day and they were still talking about this treat.

'strawberry' was one of the many frozen snacks. Great concentrated strawberry flavor.



One of the highlights was the gorgonzola ball. I read somewhere (probably the 'Food for Thought' book) that a chef who had worked at Moto in Chicago got them excited about creating ballon like dishes in 2008. In this case the sphere was deeply flavorful, reminding me more of a really complex yogurt than gorgonzola.





There is not much I can say about this shrimp dish that will express how flavorful it was. The photo is a bit shaky. My friend had eaten at Extaberri several times during a long stay in Bilbao, frequently extolling the perfect shrimp there. This was probably his favorite dish of the evening.



Freeze drying remained alive and well in the tomato busquit.



Rounding off the 'snack' portion of the meal, after which we went inside and no longer had as much natural light for the photos, was a trio of mimetics peanuts, mandarine seeds, and the central dish which I'm not sure if it was called 'american' (more likely) or 'beetroot and yoghurt meringue' ( which I think I did not photograph, as I'm not partial to beets). I can't sommon up a detailed recollection of it, but it was good. The 'peanuts' were intensely peanutty and soft and gooey if you did not eat them very rapidly - and greatly enjoyed. The mandarine was a perfectly contrasting acidic taste.



Soon after this we went inside for the central portion of the meal, and for red wine drinking. I'll get to that in another post.

[victornet]

Since the earlier report has garnered no feedback, I'll just quickly post more images from the meal for those who might be interested:


flower nectar


tea buscuit


joselito ham and ginger canape


tartar of marrow


Montjoi lentils


prawn two firings


mimetic almond


pinenut shabu-shabu


soya milk with soya


asparagus with miso


miso soup

This brings us into the full-on savory portion of the meal, which I'll post later.

Edited by victornet, 14 July 2010 - 05:43 PM.

[leecotton]

Thanks for posting these, keep them coming! I was lucky enough to go to El Bulli last year, and it's interesting to see that many of your dishes are an evolution of some that I had, e.g. I had a coconut & curry frozen sphere rather than gorgonzola. It'll be interesting to hear your thoughts on these dishes as well!

[KennethT]

Thanks so much for posting these pictures! My wife and I were lucky enough to be there a few weeks ago, and your menu seemed very similar to ours - but we had a lot more "cocktails" in the beginning - about 5 or so, I think... but we didn't get some of the savory courses you had - we didn't get the soya dish, or the asparagus dish. On the previous post, the pink one in the middle was called "American" which I think really should of been "Americano" which is the name of a cocktail made with campari - which is why it was pink, and slightly bitter.

[victornet]

As far as the 'american' name goes, what you say makes sense, I'm just giving the titles from the English menu they gave me at the end, and some of the names are idiosyncratically translated from Catalan.

We also started with a bunch of cocktails. Perhaps because I'm a wine oriented guy (rarely drink anything over 15% alcohol and I'm happier near 13%), these were not my favorite part of the meal, though some were plenty terrific. It just felt like too much alcohol at that point. When I ate at El Bulli in 2007 I believe we had only one cocktail (cosmopolitan-mallow) and it was a killer start to the meal.

Anyway, the first cocktail was the one I really did not like, dry martini. You sprayed it onto your tongue and the overwhelming taste resembled grain alcohol.



The other drinks were sugar cane mojito - caiprinha:



after the strawberry came snow-fizz:



then gin fizz:



This was followed by the Gorgonzola Globe, which kicked the meal into a much higher orbit for me.

[victornet]

In the interest of painting a complete picture, I'll note that I also left out the coconut sponge (photo was totally out of focus) and the cherry umeboshi:

[KennethT]

Thanks so much for posting these! It really brings back memories - I didn't take any pictures, but now I kind of wish I did... luckily for me, many of our dishes were the same, and your pictures look great!

[victornet]

Here come the photos of the final savory courses and the sweets section. By this time we had finished a wonderful bottle of 1989 La Rioja Alta 890 Gran Riserva and were well into what started as a glass of Bodegas Farina Gran Colegiata Campus 2001 but soon became the whole bottle. Which is a partial excuse for the more shaky quality of some of these photos. Of course we also had no natural light coming in through the window by this point.

One of the dishes that was presented as a bit of a challenge in terms of identifying what exactly we were tasting was roses/artichokes:



This was folowed by sea anemone with te:



Then came the delicious eel sandwich:



This was followed by the complex abelone with iberian ham fat:


Then came one of my favorites, a take on a spring roll called suckling pig tail (sorry for the photo quality):



The next dish was something of a repeat from my 2007 meal, "hare juise with apple jelly-cru with black currant marinated", which was simply called "hare juise" last time. Anyway, the meaty flavor of the jelly was as rich and satisfying as a steak at Peter Lugers.



We began to depart the weight of the savory section with a return to the frozen theme of the snacks in parmesan frozen-air with museli:



This was followed by pond and puff pastry of pineapple:





We knew the end was approaching with the passion fruit marshmallow, the stupendous chocolate handkerchief, and so-called shellfish:







We then moved back outside to the porch and leisurely enjoyed the morphings:



As full as I was, I managed to taste each of these incredible morsels. We drove back to Roses floating in air, and enjoyed our cigars on the patio of the hotel, trying to extend the experience forever.

Edited by victornet, 18 July 2010 - 06:39 PM.

[KennethT]

hey Victornet, thanks so much for posting these photos - it was the best meal of my life, and certainly the most memorable, but now, with your photos, it's even easier to remember a lot of the details.

Do you mind if I post a couple of the photos on another forum, specifically the Cooking Issues forum? We've been having a discussion about the clear 'potato paper' that held the thai salad and pine-nut shabu shabu... Thanks!

[victornet]

Be my guest and post them anywhere.

[victornet]

The funny thing about the pine nut shabu-shabu is that there was another component not in the photo that we were told to finish the dish with - sort of a pine leaf (I know leaf is not exactly right) - and it was by far the best part of the dish. The progression of little envelopes was a little precious and did not have the flavor payoff of the dish's closing note.

[KennethT]

I agree with you completely - we thought the contents of the envelopes were very subtle... BUT - I think the concept of using them as a delivery device for things is genius...

[AlexForbes]

First of all, let me just say a HUGE thank you to Victornet, I know how much work it is to upload photos of long dinners, dish-by-dish!

Victornet, these are so useful, thanks for posting!

As for El Bulli, guess what.... I got a reservation!!! U-huuuuuuu!

So I'm flying from Montreal to eat there in September, w a fellow foodie and now we're trying to figure out where to spend the night.

I did read LesleyC's recommendation:

If you haven't already made arrangements, I would thoroughly recommend staying in Cadaqués rather than Roses. Cadaqués for us last year was a delightful small town, full of character, while Roses looked like the worst of the Costa Brava as seen on various TV programmes. The Hotel Playa Sol, while basic, was very comfortable and has a lovely pool area - make sure you ask for a room with balcony on the beach side. The local taxi knows how to find El Bulli and will be waiting for you at the end of your meal if required. You could drive yourself, but the road is ... interesting. Cadaqués is only 5km or so from where Salvador Dali used to live, and there are a number of other Dali sites to visit around the area if you're so inclined.

BUT..... I'm thinking this is too far from Roses. And, frankly, I'm not going there to hang out and enjoy the scenery, I just want a comfortable enough little hotel as close as possible to El BUlli and rafa's.

Suggestions?

[KennethT]

My wife and I stayed at the Vistabella, technically in Roses, but not in town proper - it's on a bluff overlooking the sea... we had a beautiful view from our room.... and it was about 2 minutes from the road that leads to El Bulli - probably as close as you can get. It was a little more challenging to get to Rafa's, though really not a big deal. And the front desk has maps with everything labeled on it - so they're set up and ready.