El Bulli in Films&Cook

How many times do we combine movies and food in our everyday life? This time in Barcelona they undertook the task of combining cinema and cooking, that is, films on culinary theme followed by workshops, discussions or degustation. This led to the launch of the first Films&Cook festival that lasted from March 10^th till March 13^th.

Here are some shots from the last Sunday’s ‘Midday Pack’ which included the documentary “El Bulli: Cooking in Progress”, about the world-famous Catalan restaurant and the interview/discussion with its undoubtedly most creative chef, Ferran Adriá.

Later in his interview, Ferran Adriá mentioned, he was happy that the film came out and people can get rid of the wrong ideas about “El Bulli” and get a real insight into into its work. Breaking the allure of mystery around it, the documentary showed that, in synthesis, “El Bulli” is a product of immense, non-stop, scrupulous research. As Adriá pointed out in his interview to “Esquire”, ‘there are trillions of different possibilities of combinations in food. Where will you start? That's what we think of as the mental palette.’

It gets even trickier since each year the restaurant is literally reborn with a totally new menu of about 35 little masterpieces. For this reason, it’s open only half of the year, while the rest of time Adriá and his ‘disciples’ spend in his ‘culinary lab’ in Barcelona elaborating the new menu by investigating, experimenting, trying out and carefully filing all the obtained info. The chef himself noted, “Cuando empezamos, no tenemos ni puñetera idea de lo que vamos a hacer” (“When we start we don’t have a damn bit of idea of what we are going to do”). That’s I guess the biggest fun and, certainly, the biggest stress of it. It amazing how they manage to face the challenge every year with smashing success.

Ferran Adriá, the man that ‘hates monotony’, turned the visit of a restaurant into a whole self-sufficient experience, not just a nice accompaniment of a business negotiation. He wants you to concentrate completely of the process, appreciating food combinations, different textures, flavors, and even temperatures.

His cuisine is not meant just to be good, “paella es buena” (“paella is good”), says Adria, but “El Bulli” is meant “to surprise and provoke”. And it really does.

http://www.elbulli.com/catalogo/index.php?lang=en