El Bulli--From wonderful to absurd

[Wilfrid]

Lucky Bux.  I wonder if you are in one of the internet cafes from which I accessed eGullet.  I doubt if you are in the one in the murky sidestreet in the Barri Xines.  Perhaps you are in the one just by the old Sant Pi church?  Well, wherever, I wish I was there too.

[Bux]

We're staying north of the Placa de Catalunya and using easyEverthing on Ronda Universitat just off the Placa. Ther also have a branch on the lower Ramblas. However there seem to be quite a few cybercafes around. This is a big student town and a big tourist center.

Ca L'Isidre is an old favorite. It was recommended by the restaurant critic from El Mundo. I think Wifrid has eaten there as well. I recall his writing about it.

Yesterday was a pretty rotten day. Just about everything was closed, although few bars stayed open off the main streets. A few more tried to stay open but were forced to close by strikers. We witnessed one ugly gang who were bent on destruction--and my guess it was for sport not politics. Mobs are generally very ugly and the cops kept their distance. Police behavior was understandable as direct confrontation would only have resulted in more violence and greater vandalism. I wouldn't have minded the shut down of the city, if I could have appreciated it from a cafe. Many restaurants opened in the evening, and we had a very good meal a few blocks from our hotel. We just picked the closest spots with a Michelin listing and checked menus. L'Olive was a very handsomely decorated restaurant with nice, but casual service. Excellent calamar a la plancha--very tender, an interesting salad with pig's feet wafers, a nice arroz caldoso con mariscos and cod with beans. I don´t know why cod tastes better in Spain than in NY or anywhere in France.

All I can say is the mob behavior soured me on Spain a bit--at least until I had the chance to have dinner.

[Wilfrid]

Bad luck with the riots, Bux, but you are making me pine for the Barri Gotic. Pig's feet wafers - yes please.

[Bux]

We're not exactly sure how they arrived at those "wafers." I think they were listed as salad of crusty pig´s feet. Forgive my translations, I´m not so good at Spanish and worse yet at Catalan. My guess is that they made some sort of jelled mold of everything scraped off the bones together with some onions. I´d further guess that this was frozen and sliced very thinly (almost paper thin) and the slices deep fried quickly. Esilda thinks they may have been slowly dried in the oven. In either case they were like (American) chips. The closest taste we can offer as an example might be pork rinds.

L'Olive was actually a fairly upscale place a few blocks northwest of the placa Catalunya. Upscale in decor and ambience. The total cost of dinner ran about $85 with a nice bottle of Albet i Noya bio chardonnay. Portions were rather huge. Wish it was in my neighborhood.

[thefoodhunter]

Bux, If you are stuck in Barcelona check out Chef Sanchez Romera at L'Esguard in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, its worth the trip!!!

[Bux]

L'Esguard is worth the trip or detour from Barcelona. As noted above, we chose to dine there and a few opther places in the area from a base outside Barcelona. I think it can be done either way, especially as it's probably accessible by rail and taxi. I wanted to avoid driving in and out of Barcelona as much as possible.

L'Esguard is one of the better, or more accurately one of the best one star restaurants I've been drawn to. One star restaurants, even (particularly?) in France can be chancy. L'Esguard is one star in the same way that l'Astrance is. Once again, there's a rich cluster of stars in Catalunya and some interesting food. Oddly enough for all my search for interesting food, some of the traditional dishes in unstarred restaurants are formost in my mind upon our return. I don't discount the possibility that the creative meals worked as the perfect foil for the simple ones. Perhaps it's useful for me to start some new threads on this.

[cabrales]

In the July 14, 2002 edition of The Observer, Michael Paterniti sets forth thoughts on El Bulli:

http://www.observer.co.uk/foodmonthly/stor...,753619,00.html

[Steve Klc]

Cab--this is old, it ran in the July 2001 Esquire. The article, along with hundreds of others, is on the el bulli website, so you can see the images which accompanied the piece here:

http://press.elbulli.com/scripts/fitxa.php...?id_article=575

So he's really talking about what he had in the 2000 season, though Brits might think he was talking about the 2001 season.

Here's a good one from Food Arts:

http://press.elbulli.com/scripts/fitxa.php...p?id_article=20

Here's what Phyllis Richman wrote in Gourmet:

http://press.elbulli.com/scripts/fitxa.php...?id_article=204

All with very good pictures.

[Jinmyo]

I really enjoyed that article and had bought the issue of Esquire for it. Thanks for the site, Special K.

[Matthew Grant]

Depite Lizzies disappointing meal, I'm thinking of trying to book for this coming summer. A few pieces of advice please:

1) From what I can work out there is no Carte? If we were to eat on consecutive days would I have different courses all the way through my meal?

2) I speak absolutely no Spanish or Catalan, how will I get on in the restaurant?

3) Never having eaten at a highend restaurant in Spain I'm unsure whether it is appropriate to wear a Jacket and Tie for dinner or will smart casual clothing suffice?

[robert brown]

Matthew, Adria said on Gourmet TV that he could fill the restaurant 40 times over a day. You are best off (if you don't get lucky with an e-mail) phoning the restaurant for a reservation via a cancellation, thus having to be prepared to go on short notice. Phoning on a Sunday afternoon or evening is good, although check to see if they are open on Sundays in spring and September. The chances are also better for you in April, May, and September. (All this told to me by Juli Soler, part-owner of El Bulli).

This past summer, the menu changed a bit from day to day, but that may have been because they were doing their retrospective meals. I believe you would get a lot of dishes the same on two consecutive nights; but there are about 25 dishes to taste. Everyone gets served the same food. Smart casual will do and the staff speaks English.

[Bux]

1) From what I can work out there is no Carte? If we were to eat on consecutive days would I have different courses all the way through my meal?

There was a carte two years ago, but none this past spring. I'm not sure if that's the policy for next year or not. Perhaps this year was special as they were celebrating the 20th anniversay with a retrospective selection of dishes from past years. Nevertheless, I believe a tasting menu is the way to go, especially on a first visit. I suspect you will not have to worry about eating the same meal twice if you should be so lucky as to get reservations on two nights in a row. (On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want to eat at El Bulli two nights in a row, but that's another topic for discussion.) On both of my visits we were accompanied by a friend unable to eat fish or seafood. at both times we informed the restaurant of the fact in advance and each time they were prepared to serve a special tasting menu to him. At last spring's visit, he had eaten there just a week before and he was assured the menu would be totally different when he returned. I don't think you will have a problem, but to err on the side of caution, let them know in advance you would like a different tasting menu each night.

2) I speak absolutely no Spanish or Catalan, how will I get on in the restaurant?

You will have to make do in French or English. Both of these appeared to be languages with which most of the staff had a good degree of flunecy.

3) Never having eaten at a highend restaurant in Spain I'm unsure whether it is appropriate to wear a Jacket and Tie for dinner or will smart casual clothing suffice?

With a straignt face, I could tell you that the Spanish dress more conservatively and wear more gold jewelry than Americans or the French, but Roses is not Madrid and there appears to be no formal dress code. Either jacket and tie or smart casual will be appropriate. In fact, in the warmer months, I've not found a jacket and tie to be required dress in any of the top provincial restaurants in Catalonia. We've been to most of the starred restaurants in the region outside of Barcelona and I only recall El Raco de Can Fabes as being populated mostly by those in jackets and ties.

[baphie]

My experience was that they didn't start taking reservations until February/March. I talked to them on the phone and was told they only handle reservations via fax. I faxed a request at the end of March for an exact date in September and had no trouble getting it. (This was 2001.) A return fax number was also essential.

As a matter of course, a fax is invaluable for procuring European reservations. I have found they respond quicker and better to it than email. Amusingly, for some months after the trip one of the three stars with which I had exchanged email kept sending my virus-laden email.

English works just fine at El Bulli, as mentioned.

The attire is probably a little more relaxed than more three stars across Europe or even in Barcelona itself. I tend to wear a jacket and tie, but decided to opt for jacket and turtleneck at El Bulli which fit in very well.

[Matthew Grant]

Thanks for such prompt replies, I have the opening date for bookings which I'm inclined to keep secret

If anybody would like it PM me.

A further thought, are they any other restaurants of note in the area? I'm undecided whether to base my self in Roses for a coulp eof days or just head straight back to Barcelona.

[blackduff]

Ampurdan is supposed to be quite good. The address is Ctra. Nacional II, Km 763, Figueras Tel. (972) 50 05 62.

I think that this is right in the downtown section of Figueras on the route national which heads towards the French border.

I've never eaten at Ampurdan but it's reportedly good.

Just North of Figueras, about 2 Kms is El Moli but I don't have the exact details (tel. #, etc.) of the restaurant. I've eaten there many times and the food is good and the wine list adequate.

I believe that the Ampurdan is a very Spanish type of food and I know that El Moli is the same.

If you do decide to stay near Rosas, try the local wine "Castillo de Perelada". It's quite nice. Perelada is very near to Rosas and Figueras.

There are also lots of lovely small restuarants which have Catalan food. They're great for a nice leisurely lunch. All you have to do is drive down one of the secondary roads and within a couple of kilometers you'll find a place to stop.

Enjoy yourself.

BlackDuff

[Bux]

I have been to El Bulli in warmer weather and recall taking my jacket off while sitting on the terrace having drinks and hors d'oeuvres at lunch. They no longer serve lunch. In any event, I am sure I did not wear a tie either time. I also distinctly recall seeing some diners in shirt sleeves in the restaurant including one table of men who seemed very well known to the staff. At least in the summer, it is no longer unusual to see men without ties and often without jackets in such French three star restaurants as Michel Bras and Michel Guerard.

Looking at the red Michelin for Spain, I realize there are at least a half dozen starred restaurants in the Catalonian provinces I haven't visited. Four and a half kilometers outside of Roses in the direction of Figueras is La Llar. I have no personal information about the food. Just outside Figueras, which can't be more than a half hour from Roses by car, are Empordà (to the north) and Mas Pau (to the south). (I suspect Empordà is the same place referred to as Ampurdan by BlackDuff. It's possible that one is the Catalan name and the other the Spanish or that one of us has an incorrect spelling.) I've had both places recommended to me for the restaurants and hotel accommodations a few years back, but have never been to either. I've stayed in the Duran, which is right in the heart of the city and a perfectly adequate hotel, if not fancy. Much further away, but still only about 65 kilometers from Roses is the Michelin two star El Celler de Can Roca in the suburbs of Girona. We found this to be an exceptional restaurant and Girona itself is easily worth a day of sightseeing. I am still adjusting my out of date impression of Spain as an old fashioned conservative country stuck in the past with heavy restaurant furniture left over from the filming of El Cid and food to match. It's easy to dismiss El Bulli as the exception, but Can Roca made my head spin. If it were in NYC, Chicago or SF, it would be seen as having a very smart contemporary decor, professional and knowledgeable staff and food worthy of notice. Of course the prices would have to be doubled or more if it were in NYC.

[blackduff]

I don't think that the Emporda is the same place as the Ampurdan. Emporda is a region to the North of Rosas and I think the reference in the Michellin Guide might be for this place.

http://www.castelldemporda.com/

The Ampurdan name signifies a large jar (usually about four feet high) which was used to store olive oil. It's a terra cotta jar with a tapered, pointed base.

I've heard of a good restaurant in Emporda or Empuria Brava but have never gotten a chance to make it there yet. It might be this hotel/restaurant in the link above.

Blackduff

[blackduff]

Here's another site which shows the top restaurants in this region.

http://www.restaurantesselectos.com/esp/li...php?CATEGORY1=1

El Bulli is at the top and some of the others mentioned have been listed too.

El Moli is only given two stars but it's on the list anyway. I don't see any reference to Ampurdan though.

I'm not sure if there is an Enlish language translation on this site. I was looking at the Spanish language version.

Have a look around.

BlackDuff

[Matthew Grant]

El Bulli May 2003

The troublesome booking, the excitement of receiving a confirmed table, the long journey time, the winding road dramatically dropping down to the sea, the tantalising report from Robert and Jonathan and then NOTHING.

Nothing but one BIG disappointment, glancing back at my notes I notice a line that says 'A culinary con'. I can picture now the lack of complete dissatisfaction on my girlfriends face, she tried to hide it but it was no good as I knew that mine was the same. I'm going out on a limb and saying that the food that we were served was not 3 star cooking. It was just ordinary, maybe Adria has lost it and I was unlucky enough not to have eaten there at his prime. This was a meal lacking in substance, real innovation, flavour, in fact, it sucked.

We ate here 14 nights ago and we have picked the meal(and service) apart every night since. Every evening since that meal, just when I think we are going to avoid the subject, one of us had to analyse it just a little more. In the end what we concluded was that it had nothing that was really that exciting, a couple of good dishes, nothing Incredible, some clever little tricks but nothing else.

Margheritas served in pump pots - oh how we laughed, because you know what? It was a Margherita in a pump dispenser, it put so little in your mouth it made you mad. My girlfriend was pumping the dispenser so hard she looked she was obsessive about halitosis!

Tempura Orange - my God it was pieces of orange peel fried in batter

Raspberry Communion discs type thingies - wow they were purple like raspberries and tasted like raspberries - if only the church had thought of that.

Peanut bitter in a tube was served alongside a crisp slice of thin cut bread with peanuts and salt. You squeezed the tube of peanut butter like toothpaste, sprinkled peanuts on it with a little salt and voila, you had a long winded way of making crunchy peanut butter on toast.

The Apple caviar was as previously described, very clever, gelatine balls (presumably) filled with apple flavoured liquid and served in the tin described by Robert and Jonathan.

Mind you these were only some of the appetizers served with the Cava (nice and cheap at 6 Euros a glass), in a minute things would get going.

Next up was the chicken skin, wrapped in a thin bread with Coriander, Orange Flour and lemon. it was very nice but hardly mind blowing. It was arranged in the bread like a samosa.

Trout Roe, hardly a favourite at the best of times but this was cleverly caramelised on the outside to add some crunchy texture.

Then came a dish I was looking forward to, the pea salad with pea ravioli. A small spoon of pea salad with mint followed by a spoon of gelatine filled with a bright green smooth liquid with just a hint of mint. Again very clever but although nice, it wasn't going to change my life, after all it could have been a chilled pea soup with a hint of mint. the gelatine didn't add anything to it except to hold it in a ball.

Chick pea foam with chick pea jelly, again a hint of mint in the yoghurt, something to do with Ying and Yang or Dipsy and La La or something. Note the use of the foam.

Then there was a little Ferran "joke". The "Crepe" filled with milk - actually a bitter leaf surrounding a slightly sweet yoghurt - it was more like a stuffed vine leaf than a crepe. Why did he call it a crepe? It bore no resemblance to crepes whatsoever. Oh how we didn't laugh!

Can you see what's going on here, he has cleverly created a theme through the dishes - mint in the pea, links to mint in the yoghurt, yoghurt links to yoghurt in the crepe etc. etc.

carrot "air" - a bowl of enormous carrot foam with coconut liquid at the bottom (excuse my translations, copies of the menu available if anybody wants) Very nice but I was sick of purees, liquids, foams where was something I could chew?

Pasta Brioche - finally, now we were rocking, this was where things were going to get interesting. Pasta made with the ingredients of Brioche. The sauce was buttery, rich, there was a hint of cinnamon in there somewhere with some citrus and some salt and some sweet and a hint of toffee - this was fantastic.

Chicory with Lemon Puree and Chicory 'air' - Bitter leaves balanced with a citrus puree which I think might have been potato based, served with chicory foam (note the use of foams again and more citrus and more bitter flavours).

I'm writing this reading my notes and I honestly can't remember most of the dishes they were so unmemorable. Any way, I digress, If I can be bored by the meal, so can you:

Vinegar air, artichokes, tangerine - I think this was the whole cooked to a puree artichoke. But to hat end the artichoke heart went to mush while keeping its shape - WOW, incredible, he overcooked an artichoke heart, housewives all over the country do this week in week out. More citrus, more foam, this time vinegar. The trouble was, what was the point, it didn't improve the artichoke heart, turning it into mush.

White Asparagus with toffee sauce, fat White Asparagus spears, half covered in a toffee sauce which balanced out the bitterness, this was served with a...wait for it..........drum roll please.............you guessed it a Ferran Adria foam. This was getting boring. I was concerned before I went that the famous foams would be no more. No fear there, I was so full of air I could have floated away and there was no food of any substance to weight me to the floor.

Salmon with soy foam, white and black sesame seeds. All I've written here was ' excellent ' ,but it couldn't have been that great, I can't remember this at all, maybe I was just having a bout of wishful thinking at the time , or maybe it was just because the rest of the meal was so poor .

On we plodded, Morels with a soy milk cheese and a wafer thin soy crepe joining the morel and the cheese. Very clever that but again to what purpose, a crepe so painfully thin, beefy morels and cheese made from soy milk.

At this point we were so bored that we were happy to be distracted in our meal by Steve Plotnicki who made his way over to say goodnight. A meal of this magnitude should never be interrupted, I wouldn't normally want the rhythm interrupted in anyway but I felt like pleading with him not to leave, I didn't want another ill conceived dish, another foam, another citrus flavour, another vinegar, another milk. I thought about diving at his feet, clinging to his leg and seeing if he could drag me out of there but he left before I had manoeuvred my chair into a position from which to make my lunge.

Sitting at the table during this time was a dish , crab with Iberico ham fat but some full on Asian flavours you must be able to see the clever linking of dishes now.

Another Ferran "joke" lamb with 'false' chips, peanut sauce, soy sauce. Oh boy, you will be killing yourselves when you hear what the 'false' chips were. You could almost tell the difference. He had cleverly created chips by using bean sprouts. Unadorned, uncooked bean sprouts. They tasted unlike chips, they didn't even sound like chips, I guess the joke was the crunch. Once again, uninspired cooking, oriental flavours, soy, peanut blah blah blah. You could open a whole restaurant chain based on 'jokes' like this. "And here sir is you dog poop" except it is actually mash potato. But look at the clever way he has constructed the meal, we've almost rotated full circle and we're back to the peanuts used at the beginning.

Once again we stopped the service (we had just been informed that this was the end of the main dishes and we were moving into the sweet courses now). But I wanted another drink. During the previous 3 hours we had only managed to drink one bottle of wine due to the baffling wine service. It is no exaggeration to say that our wine was poured, quite literally, a sip at a time. It was painful to watch, occasionally, I would finish my sip while he was still pouring Rachel's and he would have to come straight back to me again. At the beginning of the meal we had expressed an interest in drinking a couple of bottles and had been advised that the last few courses may suit a red or a stronger white. There was no way we we're going to finish that wine in time for another bottle at the speed he poured it so after the lamb I asked them to stop bringing dishes for a while and we ordered another bottle of wine over which we drank away our sorrow. Once again he proceeded to pour a sip at a time until finally I plucked up the courage to ask if we could have our glasses filled a little more, he smiled and poured me a double sip. I asked if the wine could be left on the table and was told, very nicely, that this was not allowed. Agggggghhhhhhhhh!

Finally the wine finished we commenced with the sweet part of the meal. First dish - Parmesan Spaghetti which we were advised to suck up in one long piece, after it broke 4 or 5 times I gave up. It tasted of spaghetti , with parmesan. I really don't see the point of making a dish more complicated than it need be. The technique used, whatever it was, did not enhance the dish in any way. and guess what, it was served with more lemon, too much lemon in fact. A bit like the whole meal - a lemon. And why was this served at the sweet stage, the Brioche pasta would have been far more appropriate

Mangostein with wasabi (undetectable) and air of roses. You sure did have to hunt for that hint of rose.

Chocolate flavoured strawberries (my notes aren't very clear here and once again I can't recall the dish) with apple sorbet

Then I got an unexpected surprise, a birthday cake (they must have taken note in my reservation request when I advised that we were celebrating an anniversary ) Beautifully tempered chocolate filled with a sickly peanut type sticky filling. Yuck.

Then one of the stars of the meal. English bread. A light as air frozen Crème Anglais served in a bread tine with a cinnamon and chocolate dusting. the crème Anglais must have been foamed before freezing and the 'bread' melted almost instantly on the tongue. This was fantastic, innovative, tasty and fun.

White chocolate with yoghurt.....and finally a hollow 'baguette' complete with a paper bag to keep it in. A crisp hollow bread flavoured with liquorice that left you feeling like you had been eating cream crackers like drunken teenagers on a bet.

Overall, a tremendous disappointment, The flavours weren't particularly interesting, it all seemed to me to be about technique and that left the meal lacking tremendously. I had read criticisms of 'descending into a world of foams and purees' and previously thought it was jealousy, now I completely agree. Molecular gastronomy and new techniques can be used to good effect but you have to back this up with innovative flavours and taste combinations, this did neither of those, tired old combinations cooked up with new techniques that did nothing to enhance the dishes.

Edit: I fogot to mention the shoddy menus, the failed napkin test and the complete lack of enthusiasm of all the other diners, everybody looked bored, just like I was.

Edited May 31, 2003 by Matthew Grant (log)

[Andy Lynes]

Matthew, that was very interesting indeed. I was getting wound up just reading about the wine service. That is a perplexing policy which must adversly affect their sales apart from hacking off their customers.

Do you think you would have had a different reaction if the meal had been say half as long and with "normal" wine service?

[Tonyfinch]

Oofff! Now that's what I call a damning review. And a darned "good" one as well. I've never been there but it's never held much interest for me. I'm sure I would react like you. I enjoyed The Fat Duck because it was a fun day all round and I entered into the spirit of it, but if you seriously analyzed the food it turns out to be all smoke and mirrors really.

Maybe the trick is not to expect anything other than tricks. It seems that if you go hoping for serious food you're bound to be disappointed.

As for the wine service------KILL KILL KILL!

[Matthew Grant]

Matthew, that was very interesting indeed. I was getting wound up just reading about the wine service. That is a perplexing policy which must adversly affect their sales apart from hacking off their customers.

Do you think you would have had a different reaction if the meal had been say half as long and with "normal" wine service?

Andy, this is something we keep going back to, If the service had been a lot shorter with a few more substantial dishes thrown in it would have been more enjoyable but would not have actually made the food any better. The problems lay with the flavours, there was nothing that great about them.Long dinners have never bothered me as long as I feel I am being entertained by the food. I had a lunch at Ledoyen and a dinner at Michel Bras which both lasted around 3.5 hours but I enojoyed the food so much that I didn't even notice the time.

I had always been adverse to the idea of 'molecular' type gastronomy because I was worried that it was going to be novelty food but was won over by my meal at the Fat duck which used it in a good way, creating amusement in between courses with small innovative and tasty dishes which we would not normally think off (i.e. the mustard ice creamand Gazpacho). After the meal at the Fat Duck I felt compelled to go to El Bulli and was anticipating the meal for an awful long time, the first thing I did when I got there was ask to be show around the kitchen where I met Ferran but due to my non-existant Spanish and Catalan was unable to talk to him. I was glad that he didn't come out of the Kitchen at the end of the meal, I wouldn't have been able to look him in the eye! I can honestly say that this was not what I would consider a 3 star meal, maybe 2 , probably 1, large numbers of courses should not win stars, good food should. Luckily other meals on out trip were more successful and more than made up for the disappointment.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

I'm glad to read this. Not for Adria, who I still hold in high regard, but for the movement itself. The creator has been predictably caged by his concept...or at least it sounds like the night Matthew G. ate there he was. What happens when you can't come up with dishes that fit the surreal criteria anymore? You start doing what my mentor did, bastardize your own concept with hollow mis-representation. There's too much hype and inertia built up surrounding El Bulli to ditch the gimmicks and head back to the classics. Perhaps they just had a bad night, but I'm feeling (not just from this review) we may see a shift pretty soon.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

I was glad that he didn't come out of the Kitchen at the end of the meal, I wouldn't have been able to look him in the eye!

It's a curious thing this.

You've just eaten at at perhaps the only restaurant in the world where the chef is in the enviable position of entirely controlling his diners' experience, and yet you felt he had let you down.

I think it's the opposite, I think he bared his culinary soul to you and you didn't like it. Fair enough, but you have experienced the mysterious outer limits of dining, and that alone makes it worth the trip.

[Chef/Writer Spencer]

I think it's the opposite, I think he bared his culinary soul to you and you didn't like it. Fair enough, but you have experienced the mysterious outer limits of dining, and that alone makes it worth the trip.

Statements like this concern me. Hey you went all the way to Disneyland and all rides were fucked up but you actually made it from Seattle by foot--you should be thankful to pay for the priveledge of being on such hallowed ground. Come on Lord.