Ferran Adria and Juli Soler’s el Bulli Restaurant is like Hailey’s Comet—it appears only in certain periods of time. The acclaimed “world’s best restaurant” will be M-I-A for two years, with sporadic months of absence in between. Why is this, you may ask? It’s all in the name of research.
The El Bulli team made very clear their plans for the next decade in a press release dated January 26. They will be open this year from June 15 to December 20, and El Bulli’s 2011 schedule will be released in September 2010. They will then drop off the radar for 2012 and 2013, even though 2012 is their anniversary year. The scheduled downtime will be entirely devoted to thinking, planning and preparing the new format for subsequent years.
The two-year food bout will allow elBulli to have two creative centers: el Bullitaller, currently located on Portaferrissa Street in Barcelona, and el Bulli restaurant itself in Cala Montjoi.
The famed resto will open again come 2014, constantly challenging the possibilities of the concept of a restaurant, whereby research will hold top priority over production. This also means each season will be different in terms of opening dates and times, going beyond the pursuit of innovation that el Bulli has been undertaking ever since the decision was made, among other things, to open only for 6 months, offer only one sitting per day and cancel the standard menu.
The el Bulli team will be compiling the 30 years of technique and history, get this, in an encyclopedia. While Adria has released few books about his work, we may in fact get the first complete bible of avant garde cooking from Adria. The foodie gods have answered our prayers!
Talk about exclusivity. Better yet, talk about planning ahead. It seems to have paid off for el Bulli.
