El_Bulli

El Bulli El Bulli is a Michelin 3-star restaurant near the town of Roses, Catalonia, Spain, run by chef Ferran Adrià. The restaurant has a limited season: the 2010 season ran from June 15 to December 20. Bookings for the next year are taken on a single day after the closing of the current season. It accommodates only 8,000 diners a season, but gets more than two million requests. The average cost of a meal is $250. As of April 2008, the restaurant employed 42 chefs. El Bulli is a holy mecca for food lovers. The 35-course menu is a grand experience of tastes, textures, and wonder. An architect of molecular gastronomy, Adrià's creations are designed to surprise and enchant his guests. Molecular gastronomy seeks to investigate and explain the chemical reasons behind the transformation of ingredients, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of the ingredients as it changes and interacts with other foods. The "haute-cuisine" is made to look and taste interesting. Adrià takes classic dishes and deconstructs them, disregarding familiar contexts in an effort to form new ones. His tortilla de patata, which in every other Spanish restaurant is a potato and onion omelet, is served in a martini glass and is liquid and foam. You are handed a spoon and told to dip it all the way to the bottom with each bite. You plunge through a white potato foam into a soft pudding of egg and caramelized onion. In his chicken curry, the curry is the solid, the chicken is liquid. His cooking follows no patterns. Ferran Adrià arrived at El Bulli in 1983. At first he was imitating the French cuisine but had dramatically changed his approach after visiting a symposium in Nice in 1987. There, a young chef asked the famous Jacques Maximin, a leader of Nouvelle cuisine, “What is creativity in cooking'” The reply was that “Creativity means never imitating”. This became a professional credo for Adrià who has a taken it as a rule in his laboratory/kitchen. I searched for restaurants in Nashville that served food like El Bulli and I did not have any luck finding another one in our area. The food of El Bulli seems to be traditional Spain dishes, but made in surprising ways. I believe I would love to eat at El Bulli because I like the idea of an experience, not just eating my meal. The Global Education Center in Nashville offers a way to get involved and experience other cultures. They have art shows, drummers, multicultural parties, and workshops that offer dance lessons in salsa, hip hop, and Polynesian styles. Bibliography ".: ElBulli - Informar :." .: ElBulli :. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. . "El Bulli Restaurant, Roses, Spain." The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. . Global Education Center Nashville. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. . Malone, Noreen. "El Bulli to Close in 2011, but Food Writers Can't Stop Bragging about Eating at Ferran Adria's Restaurant. - By Noreen Malone." Slate Magazine. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. .