End of the Road for El Bulli?
World’s number one chef closes restaurant
El Bulli, the gastronomic holy grail for gourmets around the globe is to close for two years after its founder and chef supremo Ferran Adria announced that he’d had enough.
Long hours and the pressure of being renowned as the world’s best has taken its toll on the Spanish chef and he joins other notable high profile chefs who have hung up their michelin starred aprons for pastures more relaxed. Marco Pierre White, Alain Senderens, Joel Robuchon amongst others al turned their back on the red guide citing the pressure to be more than it was worth.
The problem as I see it is how Adria could be expected to continually come up with new, mind and pallette blowing dishes after all of these years. He has been so far ahead of the game for so long that the well had to run dry at some point. He claims that he will return after a break but will he want to?
Could this spell the begining of the end for molecular gastronomy? Like nouvelle cuisine will a new decade mark a new food trend? Whatever happens the pilgramage to El Bulli will soon be no longer.
Miles,
I read this and could see his point - the amount of work and pressure etc.
I’d also bet that he doesn’t end up making the kind of money he ought to.
I don’t say he doesn’t make money just that in most professions those at the very top earn a fortune and I suspect he may be at a point were he thinks I don’t need this any more and I can make just as much without killing myself
Best
Rod
January 27, 2010 @ 6:35 pm
Rod,
You’re probably right, he’s in his fifties and working fifteen hours per day…can’t carry on like that.
Miles
January 27, 2010 @ 8:05 pm
Adria has got something else up his sleeve. . .
Creative people need breaks to nurture new ideas. (He’s only 45 - Rod)
That said, I’m not sure I’m sorry to see the end of this trend. Frankly, I think it is already dying a slow death and Adria is bailing early.
As a scientist, I feel a bit uneasy when non-scientists adopt scientific ideas. Frankly, there is usually a lot of misunderstanding.
There is nothing wrong with a discipline being considered an “art”. Arts have a great deal of knowledge and experience needed to execute them as well. Returning to the art of cooking wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing at least in my mind.
I think MG has been a useful step - but it time to give feeling and intuition and experience a say again and put the analytical approach aside - at least for the moment.
L
January 28, 2010 @ 1:30 am
Laura,
A great comment, I think you make some very valid comments. If you look at what he has created along with a handful of others than it is quite something. If on the other you look at menus created by less reknowned exponents then something of a monster seems to have been created.
I get brochures sent to me offering to supply me all kinds of gums, powders, stabilisers etc but I. like 99% of all of chefs have no understanding of these chemicals whatsoever. I don’t think it’s enough to know that ‘this will make a hot jelly’ for example.
I come across a lot of young chefs who are hell bent on this type of ‘food’….my argument to them is that they should look far closer at the natural foods around them and understand that before trying to be a bit part scientist.
I am sure when Adria see’s these poor imitations he must cringe.
Miles
January 28, 2010 @ 7:25 am
Miles,
I don’t buy it….. why would you close a restaurant that’s raking in the money just because you might be fed up with the menu. Surely the business man in him would say someone else can run it while I take two years off and rethink the direction? Maybe it’s not making any money and Adria’s spin-off products aren’t enough to keep it going?
The sort of highly skilled workforce necessary can’t be easy to find and perhaps they are no longer willing to work free of charge as some were reputedly.
I may never get the chance to sample his amazing MG menu in such a glamorous setting
Wonder what he’ll tackle next?
Cid
January 28, 2010 @ 2:56 pm
Cid
I think he’s burnt out. Maybe he’s questioning the point of it all. Don’t we all now and then?
Miles
January 28, 2010 @ 9:02 pm