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Simon, perhaps you want to take a look to this thread, which lots of directions of interesting food addresses in Madrid. In the center, if by that we understand the surroundings of Puerta del Sol, there's a good selection of culinary books at the La Casa del Libro in the Gran Vía.

I think I'll be more than happy to lose this particular duel. Provided that I survive, of course. My seconds will contact yours. Let's hope the restaurant is still there after the duel.

According to chef Abraham García, from Viridiana, that's precisely one of the reasons. The second major factor would be the fewer relative amount of waste produced by the cleaning process when you handle the larger specimens. So, yes, it all comes down to the return which can get the restaurant from shaving truffles of different sizes. After all, we all prefer to have these nice slices of truffle with almost no surface crust rather than small chunks of truffle with a lot of the outside hard crust, don't we? Particularly, when we're dealing with tuber melanosporum or aestivium. ¡Feliz Año, guys!

Ginger chef, I have a different view on the order in the list vserna gave. Were it not for a visit I made to La Broche earlier this month, I would also have had something to say about including La Broche in that pack. In my three of four visits to Coque, I've always asked for the longest tasting menu, and I always left the dining room thinking that next time I should order a la carte. Last time, back in late October/early November, the meal really saw quite a few of the dishes go by before starting to take off. In all these visits, I've left sensing a great potential in the kitchen with a few examples of what i can achieve when this potential fully develops. IMHO, it hasn't done it yet. Keep in mind that La Broche and Sant Celoni are two completely different animals regarding their cuisines. Perhaps not as different as they would have been when Arola opened his restaurant (were Sant Celoni opened back then), since I believe that Arola's style is not following Adrià's principles today as much as it did in the past. Still, you'll find a more classical approach at Sant Celoni than at La Broche. When inspired, Juan Pablo Felipe, at El Chaflán, is also able to deliver an excellent meal. Víctor, would you put Asia Gallery (which I haven't visited yet) above Kabuki?

Come on, Víctor! After all, is December 28 . Everyone should try one of those polvorones today.

Among that vast collection, we probably should pay some attention to polvorones, already mentioned by butterfly. Those who haven't smashed a polvorón in their palm to try to infuse some solidness to the otherwise dusty like cake (that's the root of its name, pólvora or powder, which comes from polvo, the Spanish term for dust) made of flour, fat, sugar and cinnamon, don't know what Christmas in Spain are. And those who haven't been challenged to say "Pamplona" or "Zaragoza" while eating a polvorón don't know how life is in Spain .

Agreed. As much as I love morels (colmenillas in Spanish), I love St. George's mushroom (perretxicos), the less subtle agaric (níscalos) which are great stewed with potatoes and peppers or with butifarra, the Catalonian fresh sausage. But who would refuse the Emperor among the mushrooms, the mushroom of the Caesars (amanita Caesarea), simply served in a carpaccio with a hint of extra virgin olive oil and Maldon salt? Not I, certainly . . .

There's a store in Barcelona's airport completely devoted to chocolate, which looked very promising last time I took a look (I didn't buy anything though). Its name, escapes me. Any idea?

Let me add a few more comments. My primary goal above was to thank Chef Adrià for his time and effort on this project. It's hard to imagine how busy he is even in the off season. elBulli's Taller is an incredible hive of activity with many parallel activities at once. Despite the pull on his attention from all this activity, he locked himself in the conference room, devoting several hours to answering the questions. Thus I felt a great need to express my thanks to him and his team. On the eGullet side, it has been a team effort. Many people have participated in making this forum a success. Víctor de la Serna (vserna), a well known food writer in Spain, editor of one of the largest newspapers in the country, El Mundo and a member, personally interceded with Juli Soler on our behalf. Many members of the eGullet Society staff and management team added their contributions mostly behind the scenes. At risk of forgetting some names, these come immediately to my mind: Richard Kilgore, Bux, Andy Lynes, Brooks Hamaker, Jason and Rachel Perlow, Robert Brown, Fat Guy, . . . So don't let yourself be fooled by the tip of the iceberg.

It's been a pleasure and an honor to have Ferran Adrià with us answering the questions asked by eGullet Society members. From the beginning, we've found a warm welcome from everyone on the elBulli team regarding this initiative. In the afternoon of the most important day of the Q&A, at elBulli's Taller, chef Adrià was hosting a foreign film crew engaged in shooting some videos, This was followed by a large group of cooks from the UK who were visiting the premises, plus phone calls and the development of new dishes. Amidst this continuous flow of activities, Ferran locked himself for several hours in the conference room at the former chapel to answer the questions you submitted. In his own words, this is the room to which they retreat "when everything else has failed" and they need to figure out a solution. We weren't in that critical situation the other day but surely the quiet environment helped in the achievement of the final result. I'd like to thank also Albert Adrià, who dropped by while the Q&A was proceeding and spontaneously joined Ferra in contributing with his view on the question at hand. Aintzane, Ferran's assistant, asked me not to disclose her surname. I will respect her desire, but I must say here that all this wouldn't have existed without her help throughout the process. Some months have passed since we first talked, back in early August, but the result has definetely been worth the wait. Please join me in thanking Ferran Adrià for the time and effort he devoted to spend some time with us. We'll make sure your words reach his eyes.

Let me share with you the dialog which developed at this point between Ferran and his brother who dropped by the Taller's Chapel (the former chapel now used as a conference room), around the lack of fear to change and the speed of change: Albert The foams, ten years ago, took four years to spread. Now the propagation is almost immediate. Ferran The gastronomical summits of Madrid and San Sebastián have changed everything. Albert Before, there was a kind of fear. Not now, it’s almost the opposite. The risk here is to leave some things in the way. We’re moving so fast, that some things don’t settle down. For instance, we made very few hot gelatins last year. Ferran That’s what happens when you have 40 concepts to develop. Albert True, but something that clearly fit, a dish with hot gelatin, you look back and realize how few you’ve done. Ferran The issue here is who do you work for: For the three thousands cooks in the world who are in the know? For the thousands of people who don’t know what are you talking about when you say hot gelatine? Or for the one thousand like some members of the eGullet Society, who are aware of everything? Who do we work for? At elBulli, the answer is that we work for ourselves. Next year, we’ll search for balance. We’ll squeeze everything we’ve done: hot gelatins, spherification, airs. Note: Albert Adrià, among other responsibilities, is the manager of elBulli’s lab, the Taller.

Timing, flexibility, appreciation, persistance. All in all, no matter how exhaustive and thorough is the process followed by Luis García, he can't possibly spend too much time looking at each specific request. If as a working hypothesis we assume that he receives just a 20% of the 500,000 requests they get for the season in the first two months (October and November), he would have to process around 5 requests per minute doing nothing else but this eight hours a day, five days a week in those two months. Revallo asked about this in the eG Forums Q&A with Ferran Adria.

Vedat, indeed your report is a great one! Glad you were able to find the woodcock (becada or sorda).I've got to go there early next year and visit Fagollaga, Etxeberri and Mugaritz. Undoubtedly, my own preconceptions are the only thing to blame, but I would have thought that Fagollaga would have had the edge over Etxeberri at least on creativity. Regarding the lamb issue, this is what vserna said in the Unfashionable mecca, Zero atmosphere, great roast lamb thread:

I agree with you, Edsel. It doesn't look like a mindless process to me either. Showing appreciation and flexibility seem to increase your chances of getting a reservation at El Bulli. Of course, doing it at the right moment is a key factor.

Ingredients at El Taller, Ferran Adria's Laboratory in Barcelona Photo: Francesc Guillamet © As Ferran Adrià is unique among chefs, this eG Forums Q&A with him is going to be unique. I will be traveling to meet with Chef Adrià in his laboratory, El Taller, located in Barcelona. This is a rare opportunity to get first-hand knowledge about Ferran Adrià, his ground-breaking cuisine, and the techniques and principles that support it. We encourage our members to take full advantage of it and post their questions for him. How this eG Forums Q&A will be conducted Our goal is to get the most from the limited time we're going to have with Ferran Adrià, so we want to choose questions about a range of topics and to avoid repetitive questions. Consequently, the Q&A will be moderated and I will draw on selected questions from those submitted by members previously during the week. I will translate questions from English to Spanish for Chef Adrià and then translate the answers from Spanish to English and post them in the Q&A. Please remember that this eG Forums Q&A is moderated, so your question may not appear when you submit it. Given the unique situation, followup questions by members may be impractical. In addition, members should be aware that it is unlikely that there will be time for Ferran to answer all questions submitted. The eG Forums Q&A with Ferran Adrià officially opens on Wenesday, December 15th, but you may begin posting your questions now. A View of El Taller Francesc Guillamet ©

eGullet Q&A with Ferran Adria, December 15-17, 2004 This eG Forums Q&A officially opens on December 15th, but you may begin posting your questions now. Please click here to go directly to the eG Forums Q&A with Ferran Adria for more information before posting. Ferran Adria in the El Bulli Kitchen Photo: Francesc Guillamet © Most of the members of the eGullet Society will be familiar with the works of Ferran Adria. Considered by many the most influential chef in the world, the traces of his work at El Bulli can be found in menus and restaurants located thousands of miles away from his restaurant in a Mediterranean cove. His approach to cooking has changed the way we perceive contemporary gastronomy: from the conception of the individual dishes to establishing an independent creativity department; from the creation of sophisticated techniques which result in new and unique textures to the redefinition of what a tasting menu and dining is. The eG Forums are the leading independent repository of information about Ferran Adria, so we invite those who would like to get a better understanding of his works to take a look at: The Cabinet of Dr. Adria Eight at El Bulli Twenty-seven Small Courses of Ferran Adria El Bulli, Soler and Adria in Context (excerpt from the book Text and Pretext in Textures) El Bulli web site To view some video clips of the upcoming television program "Decoding Ferran Adria", starring eGullet Society member and food television personality Tony Bourdain, please be sure to visit the Zero Point Zero website: Decoding Ferran Adria El Bulli in Roses on the Mediterranean Photo: Francesc Guillamet © About Ferran Adria and El Bulli Adria's legendary El Bulli restaurant has been awarded three stars in the Michelin guide for the past nine years. It originally opened in 1967, as a casual eatery for divers, but was transformed into a temple of contemporary gastronomy thanks to Adria's driving force. In 1998, the great Joel Robuchon said, "There are chefs who characterize their era, but they are few and far between. There was of course Fredy Girardet, Alain Chapel and some others. Today, I have the feeling that Ferran Adria of the restaurant El Bulli at Roses in Spain has the makings of such a kind." In August 2003, Arthur Lubow wrote in the New York Times, "Ferran Adria's restaurant El Bulli in the Catalan seaside town of Roses, a two-hour drive north of Barcelona, is a gastronome's once-before-you-die mecca. It's not merely the three Michelin stars (although only three other Spanish restaurants boast that distinction) or the top rating in Spain's most influential food guide. The accolades from other cooks are amazing." Juli Soler and Ferran Adria Photo: Francesc Guillamet © Adria was born in 1962 in Santa Eulalia, a neighborhood in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, near Barcelona. Twenty years later, he took charge of a kitchen for the first time: while doing his military service, he was part of the kitchen staff of a high-ranking general. In 1983 he staged for one month at El Bulli, where he returned in 1984 as chef de partie. In 1986 he became the chef at El Bulli. He and his partner Juli Soler bought the restaurant in 1990. Today, El Bulli is probably the most difficult place in the world to get a table. The restaurant is open six months a year, serves only dinner, and has a capacity of sixty seats. The 8,000 seats available for the entire 2005 season are already sold out; half a million requests for reservations will go unfulfilled. Adria has produced several books, including the three volume series El Bulli 1983-2002, Los secretos de El Bulli, and El Bulli, El Sabor del Mediterraneo.

eG Forums Q&A with Ferran Adria, December 15-17, 2004 The Q&A forum officially opens on December 15th, but we will begin accepting questions on Monday, December 13th. Please read this before posting. Ferran Adria in the El Bulli Kitchen Photo: Francesc Guillamet © Most of the members of the eGullet Society will be familiar with the works of Ferran Adria. Considered by many the most influential chef in the world, the traces of his work at El Bulli can be found in menus and restaurants located thousands of miles away from his restaurant in a Mediterranean cove. His approach to cooking has changed the way we perceive contemporary gastronomy: from the conception of the individual dishes to establishing an independent creativity department; from the creation of sophisticated techniques which result in new and unique textures to the redefinition of what a tasting menu and dining is. The eG Forums are the leading independent repository of information about Ferran Adria, so we invite those who would like to get a better understanding of his works to take a look at: The Cabinet of Dr. Adria Eight at El Bulli Twenty-seven Small Courses of Ferran Adria El Bulli, Soler and Adria in Context (excerpt from the book Text and Pretext in Textures) El Bulli web site To view some video clips of the upcoming television program "Decoding Ferran Adria", starring eGullet Society member and food television personality Tony Bourdain, please be sure to visit the Zero Point Zero website: Decoding Ferran Adria El Bulli in Roses on the Mediterranean Photo: Francesc Guillamet © About Ferran Adria and El Bulli Adria's legendary El Bulli restaurant has been awarded three stars in the Michelin guide for the past nine years. It originally opened in 1967, as a casual eatery for divers, but was transformed into a temple of contemporary gastronomy thanks to Adria's driving force. In 1998, the great Joel Robuchon said, "There are chefs who characterize their era, but they are few and far between. There was of course Fredy Girardet, Alain Chapel and some others. Today, I have the feeling that Ferran Adria of the restaurant El Bulli at Roses in Spain has the makings of such a kind." In August 2003, Arthur Lubow wrote in the New York Times, "Ferran Adria's restaurant El Bulli in the Catalan seaside town of Roses, a two-hour drive north of Barcelona, is a gastronome's once-before-you-die mecca. It's not merely the three Michelin stars (although only three other Spanish restaurants boast that distinction) or the top rating in Spain's most influential food guide. The accolades from other cooks are amazing." Juli Soler and Ferran Adria Photo: Francesc Guillamet © Adria was born in 1962 in Santa Eulalia, a neighborhood in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, near Barcelona. Twenty years later, he took charge of a kitchen for the first time: while doing his military service, he was part of the kitchen staff of a high-ranking general. In 1983 he staged for one month at El Bulli, where he returned in 1984 as chef de partie. In 1986 he became the chef at El Bulli. He and his partner Juli Soler bought the restaurant in 1990. Today, El Bulli is probably the most difficult place in the world to get a table. The restaurant is open six months a year, serves only dinner, and has a capacity of sixty seats. The 8,000 seats available for the entire 2005 season are already sold out; half a million requests for reservations will go unfulfilled. Adria has produced several books, including the three volume series El Bulli 1983-2002, Los secretos de El Bulli, and El Bulli, El Sabor del Mediterraneo.

Thanks for the clarification, Miguel. Good. It seems that your information pretty much coincides with the rough estimate I made based on data from the DGPA. PS: Everytime that we discuss figures and statistics, the sentence "according to the statistics, the statistics lie" comes to my mind.

That's the case, albiston, at least in Spain. You can buy it presoaked, which I wouldn't recommend except for very specific preparations and you can buy different cuts and qualities of cod, also from different countries, which will result in different prices depending on the factors combination.

Can we all at least agree on some basic principles? a) The terms Cod fish, bacalao and bacalhau, in Spain and Portugal refer to dried cod fish. We always add the "fresh" adjective to refer to bacalao fresco, so if this is not present, the adjective dried is implicit. b) The equivalence between cod fish (dried) and fresh cod fish: the 3 to 1 ratio comes from the increase in weight that dried cod fish experiences in the desalting process, where you soak it in water for a number of hours. c) The matter under discussion is cod fish and other fishes consumption in Portugal and Spain. We can use all the sources we want which are relevant to the subject. That said, I'd like to read what you have to write about the figures I posted from the DGPA, Miguel. I confess that it surprised me the 50% of frozen fish. And let's avoid running in circles.

a) In Spain, as in Portugal I believe, the working assumption when talking about bacalao is that is salted / dried cod fish. The term skrei is more or less commonly used in restaurants and some fish stalls to refer to the fresh fish. b) According to the issue issue 61 of DataPescas, from the Portuguese Direcção-Geral das Pescas e Aquicultura (DGPA) Portuguese Direcção-Geral das Pescas e Aquicultura (DGPA), page 11 BALANÇA COMERCIAL DOS PRODUTOS DA PESCA: About 50% of the fish consumed in Portugal from January to May 2004 is frozen. About 30% of the fish consumed in Portugal from January to May 2004 is salted/dried or smoked. This is without any multiplying factor applied to the figure, as far as I can tell. I assume that the period can be extrapolated, that the balance between imports and exports reflects Portuguese consumption and that the largest part of the salted/dried/smoked fish indeed corresponds to bacalhau. I've tried to find some specific data by species, but the Portuguese INE documents I found don't include data for cod fish since they just account for fresh / frozen / refrigerated captures.

Just for the record: I saw today at El Corte Inglés níscalos (lactarius deliciosus) at the astonishing price of 60€/kg. A couple of months ago, they were sold at 30€/kg at Gold Gourmet and that seemed a relatively high price too! I guess it's just an indication of how bad the mushroom season is being this year and the shortage of supply for the most popular mushrooms as the níscalos. Other type of mushrooms, much more delicate, were sold at less than half the price of níscalos.

My mind is trying to put things together and reach some understanding because the "El Bulli's greatest dishes" and SnackMar/Las Golondrinas seem a paradox. Perhaps my mermory is failing here, but if I remember well what I saw across Rafa's, that place doesn't look like the best place to open a restaurant including elBulli's dishes. Can you tell us a bit more, Louisa? Now that I think of it, perhaps elBulli doesn't look like the place to serve elBulli's dishes either . . .

It looks like the first wave of becadas is arriving to Madrid's restaurants: El Cenador de Salvador and Viridiana, are offering becadas this week. I'll try to find out where they come from. According to Iñaki Camba, it's pretty soon to have becada which have been hunted in Spain. On the other hand, Santiago, the owner of Can Bech in Fontanillas, told me last summer that they use to have becada as soon as the end of October / early November. vmilor, did you finally have the chance to enjoy them while you were in Donosti?

Many interesting arguments have appeared in this thread. I doubt that I can address all of them in an organized manner, but here goes my try. With all the possible caveats, given that I haven't had a meal at Mugaritz yet, I should venture that probably Aduriz's, to some extent, starts from more "radical" theoretical basis than that of Adrià: "I have a very personal vision of contemporary cuisine. To me, ingredients are nothing but tools and I care very little whether to enhance them or not. I make the statement that a preparation can be loaded with inedible elements which are as important as the edible. To me, wild herbs ar not only an ideal representation of nature, but also an icon of values like devotion, attention, contemplation, commitment..." (from Vino + Gastronomía, issue 203). Whether that holds to be true or not, I'll leave it to those who have actually visited Mugaritz. Adrià and pristine ingredients go hand with hand, I'd say. A different matter is the complex techniques that he applies to them. From my limited experience at elBulli, many of the dishes, rated just paying attention to the taste variable, would get a 10 over 10. In those dishes, I didn't perceive that the ingredients were tortured or deprived of their original characteristics. On the contrary, to me, it's hard to imagine any chef in the world, even some I personally know and who are opposed to Adrià's cuisine, that wouldn't be proud of signing those dishes. To mention a couple of them from the last season, the oysters with Jabugo fat oyster soup and pistachio sauce or the Ajoblanco 2004. That said, there are other dishes that using the taste criteria say very little to the diner. In the last season, these were mainly located at the very beginning of the meal, which gained weight as it progressed. To finish, I'd like to address lxt's sand-castle metaphor. Dishes change, but techniques remain. And evolve. I think that Adrià uses dishes to refine techniques. Someone equipped with the two elBulli books published so far and some time (a scarce resource, I know) could do the research to trace the techniques used by Adrià and his team year in, year out. PS: Coming back to the original title of the thread and its intention to make some educated guess about the upcoming menu for next year, let me say that you all have the unique opportunity to personally ask Adrià himself in a couple of weeks. We expect to have a Q&A with Ferrán Adrià scheduled by mid December. Make sure to enjoy it!