The Restaurant That Changed 'Culinary Mankind', According To José Andrés
Everyone's heard something referred to as the best thing since sliced bread. It makes sense that the seemingly simple notion of carving a freshly baked loaf into individual sections would still be touted as an incredible innovation. According to NPR, humans have been baking bread for thousands of years — no one had the bright idea to slice it up until 1928 (via Gold Medal Bakery).
However, slicing bread is not the be-all and end-all of food innovation. Every once and a while, a restaurant comes around that changes the culinary game. The New York Times, discussing Yale professor Tom Freedman's book "Ten Restaurants That Changed America," says that Howard Johnson's sparked the rise of the American chain restaurant. At the same time, Harlem staple Sylvia's invigorated the soul food movement. On a more global scale, celebrity chef José Andrés thinks that a particular Spanish eatery should be credited with revolutionizing modern cuisine.
José Andrés' history with elBulli
In an interview with Condé Nast Traveler, celebrity chef José Andrés expresses his view that the Spanish restaurant elBulli: "It was the most revolutionary restaurant in the last 30 years of culinary mankind." It makes sense that he would hold the restaurant in such high regard — it was in the kitchens of elBulli, under the tutelage of chef Ferran Adrià, where Andrés began to hone his culinary skills, per the official José Andrés website. In the same Condé Nast Traveler interview, Andrés' daughter Calota recalls visiting elBulli as a small child, on the last day it was still open, and drawing ire from her father for making what he perceived to be an excessively watery aioli, though Ferran Adrià disagreed.
During the 27 years that Ferran Adrià was chopping it up on the culinary scene with elBulli, the restaurant earned The World's Best Restaurant award from The World's 50 Best Restaurants an unparalleled five times. Unfortunately, in 2011, the Roses, Spain spot shut its doors.
The gastronomic innovation of elBulli
But how exactly did elBulli change the culinary world? According to The Wall Street Journal, elBulli was renowned for its avant-garde cuisine. Ferran Adrià was a master of deconstructed cuisine and is also credited with inventing edible foam.
The World's 50 Best Restaurants compiled a list that highlighted a dozen of elBulli's best dishes. It includes the first-ever foam, a white bean froth delicately placed atop a sea urchin, Adrià's deconstructed take on lobster gazpacho, a panache of vegetables that had each been transformed into uniquely textured gels, a caramelized quail egg, and El plato de las especias — or the spice dish — an apple jelly infused with twelve distinct spices meant to add an intellectual element to elBulli diners' experiences. In 2003, elBulli created the spherified olive, a stabilized liquid clump that contains all of an olive's flavor in its fluid body. It is regarded as one of the most iconic dishes in molecular gastronomy.
After El Bulli closed in 2011, the elBulli foundation, which seeks to educate the public on the field of gastronomy, was founded (via the BBC).