Ferran Adrià has completed the transformation from chef to lecturer, or ‘coach’, or whatever. The time he has spent in the United States has served him to become a man who goes out on stage, talks about what he wants, jokes at the right times and challenges the public with sympathy. On Monday he was the protagonist of Tribuna de Girona, which due to the pandemic had not been held for more than a year and a half, with the talk ‘From El Bulli restaurant to elBulli1846‘. Lecturer at the American school, he first allowed a video to be seen on the screen in which cooks from all over the world surrendered to his art, and a second before it ended, he climbed on stage. Dressed in black like Alberto Cortez and disheveled like Albert Einstein, perhaps because it dominates the stage like the first and explains things as incomprehensible as the second.
“El Bulli was, more than a restaurant, a way of life, it is above me and all of us who work in it”
-Really, this man is a bullfighter– A colleague commented to me at the end of the event, visibly satisfied with what he had just seen and heard.
He only needed to go out on the shoulders of a subordinate through the main door, but the one of the CaixaBank auditorium in Girona – where the event was held – is not high enough and he could hit the head on the lintel. One went to the talk really interested, since after hearing a lot of times in a lot of interviews with Ferran Adrià explain what elBulli1846 will be, he still hadn’t gotten anything clear from it. Yes, I know, an innovation center in which some will be able to eat, but as part of a research project in creativity, and where at the same time there will be chefs working together with experts in other disciplines and blah blah blahhh. Distrustful by nature as I am, when I hear that somewhere “some” may enter, I have the feeling that they will be the usual ones, and that of course I am not among them.
On Monday, perhaps in deference to the people of Girona, he was slightly more explicit: elBulli1846 will be a museum. It was not clear what kind of museum – “a physical part and a virtual part, one could be there and think that he was in the Bulli … “- but we are not going to ask that much of him either.
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What people want to hear are anecdotes, such as that he turned down substantial offers from millionaires to go cook at his house.. And above all, to verify that, despite what he modestly states – “I only understand cooking … and sometimes” – the stoves have become too small for him, and he thinks the same about innovation in companies as in football: ” The most important thing, in everything, is talent. What problem does Barça have now? That it has no talent. ” Laughter and applause from the audience. Enough to get out on your shoulders.
The chef cooks the public over low heat so that no one is lost
A.S./Girona
Confident of himself, Ferran Adrià makes the attendees as protagonists as he is
Ferran Adrià has explained on various occasions that the name of elBulli1846 It refers to the year Auguste Escoffier, father of modern cuisine, was born, as well as the number of recipes that were developed at El Bulli. I prefer to think of it as a clear reference to the year in which Dr. William T. Morton performed the first surgical operation under anesthesia in Boston. That fact caused so much admiration and disbelief among those who observed him, like the foam of white beans with hedgehogs among the diners, when he left the kitchen of the restaurant located in Cala Montjoi.
– Does any of you know what the first mission of a restaurant is? – the speaker suddenly asks.
Make the client enjoy, sustainability, creation … A multitude of raised hands are giving answers, like dedicated students.
-None of that: the first mission is to earn money – the professor clarifies – if not, nothing of everything else will be possible.
Then yes, then there are other missions, like seek the limits of the kitchen and diners, or to open new gastronomic paths, which are those that Ferran Adrià remarked that El Bulli had, and that once these were exhausted, they decided to close it. It was July 30, 2011.
And if someone – it happens often – asks you why El Bulli was El Bulli, the answer is clear, and that one does not have anything enigmatic:
-And what do I know, hey.
That nobody gets lost, that Ferran Adrià is launched and bombards the public with questions, bad day to go to the CaixaBank auditorium to take a nap.
“Do you know a Chinese singer?” He asks a lady now, to show that fame is a very relative thing.
And more seriously, it ensures that The main merit of El Bulli was to achieve a paradigm shift in the cuisine of the world. “For 400 years French cuisine dominated the world, for 20 years, each country has recovered its own cuisine by bringing it up to date, and now there are excellent restaurants from Denmark to Peru,” he explains. As much as I repeat often that you do not have a university education, Ferran Adrià is smart, undoubtedly smart. Enough to laugh at himself
-The other day a person told me: I would like to understand what you do.
Educated as he is, he does not use the word snob, but makes it clear that there are, there are, when he indicates that “there are people who, because they go out to dinner at a restaurant twice a week, think they already know how to taste dishes.”
Dealing with private jet billionaires, from countries around the globe, is not easy. As an example, and without specifying whether it is a joke or has ever happened to him, he relates this telephone conversation:
-I want to reserve a table for dinner this week.
-I’m very sorry, we don’t have any free left.
–How much is the restaurant worth?
Reference-www.elperiodico.com