I stumbled across this site - detailing pictures and descriptions of… well… it’s not food. Edible art, perhaps?
I can’t decide whether to love it for being inventive, or hate it for being so damn pretentious.
Surely this sort of thing would get old really quickly.
Well, Molecular Gastronomy is considered kind of last year at this point.
It’s not really meant to be pretentious as much as it is exuberantly geeky. Adria is playing with very idea of food, flavour and fine dining in a gleefully experimental way.
By all accounts from folks who have eaten there, the food tastes wonderful, so at least they remain somewhat focused on the ultimate priorities.
I think of it this way: if you are looking for interpretations of at-least-somewhat-familiar foods - ones that you may have a chance of replicating at home - well, this ain’t your place.
However, if you are looking for a unique, I-don’t-CARE-to-try-it-at-home, foodie-nutso, over-the-top culinary experience, then enjoy!
Just don’t confuse the two.
El Bulli is widely considered to be the best restaurant in the world, if that makes any difference. It’s something like a 6 year wait for reservations.
But you’re right in considering it edible art, not food. Ferran Adria never set out to do basic food; his goal is to explore the outer edges of cuisine. He puts it something like this:“Someone invented the omelet. Someone invented vinegarette. I don’t see why we can’t continue to invent new techniques.”
Personally, I think it’s good to have a few places out there pushing the limits. Sure, it’s not the stuff you’d want to eat every day, but I sure would kill for a reservation (and a plane ticket!)
I’m trying to work out whether it does. The emperor’s new clothes were also considered the finest in the land. What I’ve been trying to work out is whether there’s any substance to this phenomenon, or if it’s all pretentious posturing, by all parties involved.
In my opinion (which I know you take to heart above all else 
) he’s been at it long enough that if it was just posturing it would have run its course long ago.
Of course, it’s not like I’ve been there or anything. But if the doper community really needs this question answered I’d be happy to go as an ambassador. Start passing the hat around.
Why wait six years to be served that? The food and eating instructions tell me a person with excessive compulsive order is the chef.
If you want to learn more, I can highly recommend the DVD Decoding Ferran Adria, hosted by Anthony Bourdain.
It’s pretty neat to see the lab, and Bourdain isn’t one to pull punches if he thinks anything is crap. He’s a believer.
Wot’s iz name, Gordon Ramsey, filmed a Spanish Special culminating in a visit to el bulli. It was one of his sundry shows, he and some chums and other chefs went on a drunken Debauche de Hispaniola (I think there was a wedding in there somewhere.).
It had some good footage of el bulli as well. The “laborotorio” is pretty cool.
I think he is a chef with vision. I wouldn’t turn down a chance to intern there, let alone eat there.
Some of the food looks and sounds interesting, but I must say… “Parmesan marshmallows.” Ick. That’s just not right.
Really, I do value your opinion on the matter. I’ve been able to dismiss certain prominent works of art as wank in the past and move on without so much as a ripple in my conscience - with this, I can’t.
I mean, on the face of it, I’m greatly impressed by the imagination of some of it, then I’m just annoyed by the fact that it keeps on doing the same thing for ever - I was tired of the ideas and presentation before scrolling to the bottom of the page I linked, but still I can’t dismiss it. So there must be something there.
Well, there’s only one way to calm your mind on this issue. Surely someone here on the Dope can figure out how to get us reservations, so we can report back with personal experience.
Bourdain likes to pretend he’s Billy Badass, but no way does he have the balls to call out the most famous chef in the world if he’s thinks he’s full of shit.
If you’re talking about pure fame, he practically built his career on calling out the most famous chefs in the world, particularly Emeril Lagasse. (He did sit down for a meal with Emeril in the New Orleans episode of No Reservations, and had lots of good things to say. “Don’t worry,” he said, “Rachael Ray still sucks.”)
Of course, there’s a difference between the most famous chef in the world and the most respected, and Adria is definitely the latter. Still, I don’t think Bourdain would hold back if he truly thought it was all BS.
The stuff done by Adria and Achatz and their followers is the equivalent of the most out there and “unwearable” haute coture you see on the runways, or the really bizarre concept cars you see in car magazines. It’s all about exploring ideas. It is, to put it mildly, not for everybody.
See, I think lots of that stuff looks yummy, not just pretty. Unusual? Hell, yeah! But tasty and interesting - I think I might even try my own version of Parmesan Marshmallows, just for shits ‘n’ giggles.
I *like *the idea of instructions, as well. Take that Popcorn Poof thing - sounds like instructions were needed - try to cut it, and you’d deflate it on the plate - too soon for your tongue to appreciate it. I’ve had far less “pretentious” food which ought to have come with an instruction manual. Just this week I had a too-spicy Northern Thai soup at a highly rated (but cheap) restaurant. Sort of a curry/coconut milk/chicken/noodle thing (but not Tom Kha Gai). Only when my table mate, experimenting with the same dish, suggested I try squeezing a lime wedge into it did it turn from oddly bland but too spicy into sublime (heh) and the perfect level of spice.
To me, nothing can be pretentious in a vacuum. It’s pretentious only when its adherents think their favorite is the only true, right way, and that all other forms are lesser. I don’t see that going on here, although I know nothing about the chef, maybe he’s guilty of that in other works.
I grew up with fancy food, and am of the opinion that it’s Emperor’s New Clothes for the most part.
That’s not to say that people who are in to it aren’t detecting something. It is high quality food, which can be appreciated as such. It is served in restaurants with high quality service and atmosphere.
The thing about quality, is that the food needs to be bland for you to be able to detect the core ingredients. Spice and strong flavorings were invented to cover poor quality food. So if you really appreciate high quality food items just for themselves, you might like such food.
Personally, I think that there’s a reason why in modern day the most popular foods have lots of salt, spice, and sugar, and that’s because it’s been proven in a laboratory that this is what people find to be the tastiest, and big business is willing to bring this to us for low prices. If it had found that we like high quality, bland food, that’s what Kraft would be selling us.
So what you are buying is quality food and presentation not flavor.
Presentation, I’ll go with. I think that this is something they really try to do something fancy with, which can be appreciated. But personally, I think it’d be cheaper to have some Indian food and then go to a museum. Then you get both worlds.
That the quality of food is high, and the technique to make it high as well, I’ll also agree. The problem is, can anyone actually tell? From what I know, the answer is no. Maybe there’s some small group of people who could tell a difference between different levels of quality of food, but most people aren’t them–and particularly not most of the clientelle of places like this.
But, if people feel like paying for it anyways…
I heartily disagree with this statement. I’ve been to plenty of high-falutin’ restaurants in my time, and I don’t care how good the food quality, presentation, and service (which you don’t mention, but it equally important) is - if the food doesn’t impress with its flavor, I’d be willing to bet the restaurant won’t be around very long.
He insults pussies (Emeril and Flay) and women (Rachel Ray)- he doesn’t touch any of the manly chefs. And whenever one of his fellow he-man chefs tells him to back off Flay or Emeril cause they know them or whatever, he does. Trust me, I’ve seen all of his episodes mutiple times. He acts like he’s this bad ass rebel with the Ramones T-shirts and the skull with the knife logo, yet he’s gets all maudlin when talking about the Beirut bombing he was a mile away from, and holds onto the midriff of the guy driving him around Vietnam on a moped going 10 mph…
The flavor of food has been progressively blander the higher the price of any restaurant I’ve ever been to. My truffles with pink sauce could just as easily have been daikon with pink-tinted alfredo (Louis XV), pizza dough with a miniscule amount of cheese and no sauce had less going for it than focaccia with basil (Wolfgang Pucks), and cooking whole cucumber, carrots, and steak over a fireplace with no salt, pepper or any other spice was about the blandest I’ve ever had (La Chaumière in Nice.)
I’ve eaten at hundreds of the top restaurants in the world. They are never any more flavorful than one another, and yet my parents continue to patronise them. Why? Because my parents like the atmosphere, they like to think that they’re getting something special, and because they truly believe that they are tasting quality.
Me, having grown up a rich kid, where I was just as likely to get Kraft macaroni and cheese on any night as chilled duck slices on a bed of daikon, there has never been any mystique. That’s not a common childhood.
My brother is a chef and loves quality food. Quite possibly, he can tell and enjoy the difference of varying preparations. But he’d agree that you’re getting art. If you want something good and tasty, you’re better off to grab some barbecue.
Seriously? That’s one of your examples? Go to Masa or Gambero Rosso and then get back to us.
Me, I’ve never eaten at El Bulli, but I have eaten at a few of the “molecular” places inspired by Adria’s work. And as with anything else, some of them are great (wd-50), and some of them are overrated (Moto). It really depends on what the chefs are trying to do. Stretch the boundaries and still serve delicious food? Thumbs up. Attract attention, with the food secondary? Thumbs down.