The Legacy of elBulli
A world tour of creativity...part 1 of 2.
People, I love the Chef’s List for so many reasons—it gives me an opportunity to share with you places that are so important to me, and to highlight the work of people who have been a huge influence on my life and my own work. As you know, most of the time we visit other cities, but today I want to take you around the world…because I want to talk about one place that has inspired hundreds of amazing chefs who have all gone on to amaze the palates of thousands of people like you and me: I am talking about elBulli, and the Bullinianos, the alumni of the incredible restaurant. And because this place has such an amazing legacy, this will be part one of a two-part post—you’ll be learning about more Bullinianos next week.
You may have heard about elBulli, and of course I talk about it in my show—maybe you have even been there!
But just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, the elBulli with three Michelin stars that was considered one of the greatest restaurants in all of the world started out as a dream and a plot of land in Roses, a tiny town about two hours north of Barcelona, up the Costa Brava and just south of the border with France.
The restaurant was originally created as a resort and chiringuito (a casual bar on the beach) by a German-Swiss couple, Hans and Marketa Schilling, who moved to Spain as refugees after World War II. They named it elBulli after their French bulldogs, and opened it 1964. In the early 70s, they hired a French chef, who helped them earn their first Michelin star. In 1984 my future friend Ferran Adrià joined the kitchen team, and by 1987 he was in charge (he got his second star in 1987, and his third in 1997). His brother Albert joined in 1985 as a pastry chef.
Which is where I come into the picture, people! Ferran, Albert, and I have more than three decades of history. I worked at elBulli for three seasons in the late 1980s, and while I worked there, I also lived there, above the restaurant (I like to call it my other military service, after my days in the Spanish Navy) before I left to move to New York.
Of course, Ferran and Albert are some of my best friends (and business partners! We are all partners at Mercado Little Spain in New York), but they are also geniuses who inspired a “big bang” of creativity in the culinary world. There is no way to describe briefly what they did over the course of that restaurant—especially the incredibly creative period of the 1990s—in terms of pure culinary innovation. There are books and movies and now a museum dedicated to those stories, which if you’re interested, I highly recommend you pursuing on your own!
One of the most amazing things they did, though, was to make sure their discoveries were available to everyone—they wanted to spread the word, not keep what they were doing to themselves. It was the definition of “open source.” They published every single one of their dishes in books—huge volumes cataloguing every innovation that happened in that kitchen. Me and many other chefs around the world have these books bookmarked, dog-eared, and written-in, with so many moments of exploration and enlightenment happening in their pages. Ferran would also attend conferences, he would give lectures, he spoke at Harvard with me—always with the intention of sharing his huge amount of knowledge with the rest of the world. He is maybe the least selfish chef in the history of the world!
Over the years, the concept of elBulli evolved beyond the four walls of the restaurant. There was an atelier, for research; a catering company; commercial projects; and more. The restaurant was open six months out of the year, and only about 8,000 diners would get to enjoy it every season (but it received about 2,000,000 requests for reservations each year!). It ultimately closed in 2011, but when Ferran and the elBulli team closed the doors of the restaurant, they opened the elBulli Foundation, which is dedicated to the legacy of elBulli and its contributions to the world of food. And just last year, they reopened the restaurant as elBulli1846, a museum where you can see the space as it once existed, overlooking beautiful Cala Montjoi.
Cooking of course is art, and what Ferran did at elBulli is nothing short of genius. He is one of the few chefs in the world—in history—who can be considered a true pioneer of this art form. Many people might wonder why it is worth spending so much money on something that only lasts for a little while…you’re literally making the thing that you’re spending money on disappear! But you are also absorbing a piece of history, and becoming a part of a community that has come together over revolutionary ideas. elBulli itself may be gone, but its impact will live forever in the legacies of the Bullinianos…those who trained there, worked there, and went on to create their own masterpieces. The people you read about here are only a few of the hundreds who shared in the journey of elBulli, but they all represent Ferran’s original vision, and continue to grow the amazing web of culinary creativity.
Did you ever visit elBulli…or have you experienced one of these other restaurants? What did you enjoy the most?
So, here are the Bullinianos…part 1!