- El Bulli has held 3 Michelin Stars since 1997
- It takes reservations for the entire season on one day
- On that one day, it will have over 400 requests for each seating (800,000 requests, 8,000 guests per season
- It is only open for 6 months of the year, the other 6 months the chefs spend in preparation for the coming season
- It employs 42 chefs
- The tasting menus typically are 25-27 courses each
- A meal goes for about 250 euro
- The head chef Ferran Adria is so influential, many prominent chefs take sabbaticals from their own restaurant to learn his techniques
- The deconstructivist style, which many would say has heavily influenced the early incarnation of Molecular Gastronomy, is so sought after by culinary enthusiasts that their cookbooks retail for as much as $350 (yes, that a cool grand for the three books published in English)
I've been in the dark until recently on El Bulli, but looking forward to grabbing a used copy of the 94-97 book in English someday.
In the Top 10, only 2 American restaurants made the grade, both of these owned by Thomas Keller: The French Laundry in Napa, and Per Se in New York. Other notables in the top 10 include Heston Bloomenthal's Fat Duck, and the Chef's Choice for best restaurant Mugaritz where the menu shys away from molecular gastronomy, but yet emphasizes natural preparations informed by scientific methods, and presented as a parody on nouvelle cuisine.
In reading through the list and pondering my recent research into El Bulli, it is apparent that the science of cooking has inextricably rooted itself in the future of haute cuisine. It is equally apparent that there are divergent forces at work to define the future of haute cuisine. Food science and molecular gastronomy seem to have grown of as an unintended consequence of all the processed food innovations that scare many of us (twinkies are not baked by the way, they cook in a chemical bath), the same ones that drive me to cook fresh food for my family using organic and all natural ingredients. But undoubtedly, some of the food chemistry out there has proven useful, and in no way would I say that all food chemistry is bad. As molecular gastronomy deconstructivism in the kitchen has gained steam, so too has the slow food movement. It might seem ironic that these two forces are both gaining momentum at the same time, though I'm not sure there is really philosophic opposition by the leading figures in each movement. From Slate in 2004:
Ironically, such tech-y gastronomy has reached its apogee at the same moment as has its near opposite, the preservationist Slow Food movement, which seeks to preserve the oldest, most traditional methods of cooking. Each culinary movement is reacting to the mass food culture: One rejects industrial food in favor of culinary authenticity; the other uses industrial food techniques to ruffle up the rarified realm of haute cuisine.
Historically the French have had a monopoly on the definition of haute cuisine, as is evident from the Michelin Guide to France, a 2000+ page tome, whereas the culinary epicenter of the US, New York City, garners a mere 469 pages. So what are the French up to amidst the possibly conflicted paths of food science and slow eating? In a recent episode of Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, the New Guarde of France was covered, which featured very sophisticated flavor pairings (likely inspired by food science), simple preparations, fresh off the vine ingredients, and relatively small / healthy portions. The chefs featured on the program echoed the seeming paradox of slow food and food science as dishes displayed accouterments as diverse as green tabasco gelee cubes and fresh picked green zebra heirloom tomatoes. The tabasco gelee came from Chef Inaki Aizpitarte who's Paris Bistro Le Chateubriand incidentally garnered the "Breakthrough Restaurant" award (on the same top 50 list from above).
So where are we going? That's one of those questions like where is music going ... it's artistic, and our ability to describe the present is probably as limited as our ability to predict the future. Why? It's just too complex, anybody at the highest levels likely either has an agenda or a history that influences their view of the problem, and there are obviously a lot of diverse views. What trend can be derived of the simultaneous musical successes of Tiesto, Fifty Cent, Britney Spears, Herbie Hancock, and the White Stripes? Maybe it's that food has become multi-genre, even at the levels of haute cuisine. I'm not a professional chef, food scientist, or nutritional anthropologist. I know there's a lot to learn from the classics, the rebellion from the cuisine classique to cuisine nouvelle, regional traditions, food science, and the bleeding edge of deconstructivism at El Bulli. I'm not sure where we'll end up next, but I'm looking forward to cooking, tasting, and learning from the stops along the way.
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