Star chef Ferran Adria visited Australian shores recently and, while Western Australia was unable to secure a visit from the great man this time round, he did leave behind his new book, A Day at elBulli, for us to linger over and savour.
Arguably the most celebrated and creative chef on the planet at the moment, Ferran is maestro to one of the most extraordinary restaurants in the world - elBulli. This three Michelin-star eatery is huddled in a secluded bay on the Costa Brava in northern Spain, and opens its doors for dinner for only six months a year. The rest of the time Ferran spends secreted away in a laboratory with his dedicated team, inventing new ways to prepare and serve food, and creating a fresh, innovative menu for the coming year.
The restaurant receives over two million reservation requests each year, and accepts only 8,000 placements. Needless to say, elBulli is a tough nut to crack, and hence the reason for the book.
For the rest of us who will probably never live long enough to enjoy the elBulli experience or even be able to garner a reservation, we are treated instead to a voyeuristic peek inside the restaurant's machinations. The 600-page tome covers just one day, from daybreak at 6:05am to curtains at 2am, and walks the reader through an average elBulli morning (creative food sessions), afternoon (menu and dish preparations) and evening (dinner). It is a visual feast of beautiful imagery, menus and concepts as Ferran, who has been referred to as 'the Salvador Dali of the kitchen', shares a slice of his life.
Much has been made of whether art, cooking or science is at the heart of the elBulli kitchen, and readers can make up their own minds about what it might be. The frigid temperatures of liquid nitrogen in conjunction with traditional heat-cooking methods are used to squeeze every conceivable permutation out of the most humble ingredients. Forget poached, roasted or coddled: there are also the creative methods of deconstruction, minimalism and symbiosis to consider that take cooking as we know it into a whole new stratosphere.
Of course, it is the dishes themselves that will have this book flying off the shelves. Ferran is the godfather of foam, and began his foray into all things molecular by famously blowing up a tomato with a bicycle pump to try and capture its essence (the tomato, not the bicycle pump). Parmesan marshmallow, hibiscus infusions and edible paper are all part of the madness that is elBulli, as is chocolate air, monkfish liver fondue and hazelnut foam.
Willy Wonka would have been so proud.
