The textured vegetable stew, which for Ferran Adrià was the “beginning of a revolution”, returns to the kitchen of elBulli but only to be contemplated, because the considered most influential restaurant in the world returns on June 17 transformed into a museum for “eat knowledge”.
It will open three months a year -this first season until September 16- and will have capacity for 200 daily visitors who will only be able to drink water and coffee. “I go to a Norman Foster exhibition and I don’t ask him to build me a house. A team of more than 40 people would have to be assembled and now it is impossible on a functional level,” Adrià justifies himself.
In exchange, he offers them all his knowledge and that collected by elBullifoundation and laBullipedia in a 3,000-square-meter space in Cala Montjoi (Roses, Girona) that includes the mythical restaurant, where 69 artistic, conceptual and audiovisual installations are distributed to understand “how the the paradigm of world gastronomy”.
That is elBulli1846, a figure that refers to the elaborations served in the restaurant closed in 2011 to “reinvent itself”. Adrià walks through it with the satisfaction of someone who knows what was contributed from here: “This project is important so that people don’t forget it.”
There is no hint of vanity behind it, but rather one of the principles that he instilled in elBulli: sharing knowledge through papers, books, conferences, interviews… Thanks to this spirit, the spherifications for which they “wanted to kill” are today “a toy” and utensils such as baby bottles, siphons, pipettes or plating tongs swarm even in homes, perhaps unaware of their origin.
These and other priceless contributions that made Spain the promoter of the new world cuisine -there is a sculptural tribute to the more than 2,500 ‘bullinianos’ who worked on it- are traveled through spaces full of Adrianian questions and the splendor of a kitchen that sought both the break with the established and that “the diner was happy”, he assures EFE.
To the first handwritten contract of the late Juli Soler, co-artificer of elBulli and who embarked a little convinced and “pipiolo” Ferran Adrià at the age of 22, there are videos such as that of a frenetic service in the restaurant and reliable reproductions of iconic dishes such as the alphabet soup, the white bean foam with sea urchins, the marrow with caviar or the salty tomato granita with fresh oregano and manjar blanco.
With them they created trends, but elBulli was also the first restaurant with three Michelin stars to remove the menu and impose the tasting menu, advocated ‘snacks’ and eating with your hands, deconstructed traditional recipes, incorporated an artist into his team to design the kitchenware, dialogued with other disciplines, created the first research workshop and installed the “open source” to “share knowledge”.
Behind each service there was “more than five hours standing” and many more research that deserved worldwide recognition, much of it coming from outside the gastronomic field, which elBulli1846 proudly displays.
Also tableware and utensils, media covers in which he starred, recipes, sketches of dishes, evolution of the menus, and milestones such as the first participation of a cook in an art fair -“Documenta (2007) was my most important experience outside of gastronomy”, he acknowledges – which involves a tour of about two and a half hours with an audio guide in several languages.
“There are two types of visit: that of those who have been in the dining room of elBullirestaurante and will be moved because memories will come back to them, and that of people who have never been there, who will experience it in a different way, very beautiful and special”, he assures .
Tickets will be available this Monday at elbullifoundation.com, the website of the family foundation that he created after the closure of elBulli and that thanks to his financial contributions and the “angels” Telefónica, CaixaBank, Lavazza and Grifols has allowed him to develop, among other projects , this elBulli1846 with an investment of eleven million euros.
After this museum there is a long fight and a final understanding with ecologists and neighbors for being located in the Cap de Creus Natural Park, in addition to a pandemic that contributed to the delay of the plans, although nothing stopped Adrià’s efforts to expose data ” essential for anyone who wants to work in the kitchen”, but also for those who want to enjoy it and learn the ins and outs of what was considered the Best Restaurant in the World for four years.
The museum has parking, although it has a dissuasive price that encourages people to use their own bus service from Roses, to “reduce the impact of mobility” and “give life” to the town, says Lluís García, general director of the elBullifoundation board of trustees. , established in 2013 to “safeguard the legacy of elBulli, share its experience in management and innovation and generate quality content for gastronomic restoration”.
Adrià, the dishwasher who wanted to be a footballer and ended up being the most influential cook in the world, considers “a circle closed” with the inauguration of the museum, to which he will dedicate two years, combining it with the activities of the foundation. “I have to consider what I will do in 2025,” he admits.
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