Some of the places I love to eat in Barcelona
Hint: some of them are run by alums of El Bulli – the legendary Bullinianos
It’s been a little more than a decade since El Bulli, one of the most creative restaurants the world has ever seen, closed its doors. Under brothers Ferran and Albert Adrià, the small restaurant outside Roses in Catalunya – two hours up the coast from Barcelona – pushed the boundaries of avant-garde cooking, developing brand new techniques and ways of thinking about food. It also inspired a generation of creative talent around the world…including me! I was lucky enough to work for Ferran many, many years ago as one of my very first jobs, years before El Bulli was named the best restaurant in the world (which it was named five times!)
El Bulli is actually going to be reopening soon as a museum, recreating the restaurant and kitchen and laying the foundation for a center for culinary creativity. While filming in Spain last spring, I actually barged in for an early look…I will describe that in a future post, so stay tuned!
But being in Roses again got me thinking about how the food of El Bulli lives on through the cooking of the talented chefs who passed through the kitchen, the ones who absorbed its extraordinary ways of thinking, creating, and cooking.
Of course, if you’re in Washington DC, you can come to minibar! But if you’re lucky enough to be in Catalunya, there are several Adrià alumni — we sometimes call ourselves los Bullinianos — who are keeping the spirit alive and developing a new generation of creative cooking.