On December 20, 2009 It will Close ElBulli Restaurante until 2010

The business of the Bulli 41 plates later

This has been published 08-12-09, for Marta Fernández of the newspaper Expansion

 On December 20, the best restaurant of the world will lower the curtain of the period 2009. It is the first year that the Bulli, considered to be the establishment world leader according to the classification of the British magazine Restaurant, has served autumn plates, after changing his six months of activity to the period from June until December (instead of April to October, dates that were operating until 2008).

From the Bulli workshop in Barcelona, Ferran Adrià, maker, cook and co-owner of this restaurant (together with his associate Juli Soler), and his team of confidence (headed by Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch) dedicate the rest of the year to investigating concerning new products and skills to create the menu of every exercise.

«The change of period gave us more margin this year and we could be employed at the workshop eight months, instead of six. To see how we organize ourselves this year,», points Adrià. The 1 of the dawn is and Ferran Adrià sits down in the table of the kitchen of the Bulli to reflect on this period and his future agenda.

«I am the cook of the world that more time I am in the restaurant», there autopresents before himself the chef, who assures to have stayed away only one day since on June 16 it started the period 2009 of elBulli.

In his corner of Cove Montjoi (Gerona), Adrià works between 12 and 18 hours a day. Two changes In 2009, the Bulli has suffered two revolutions: one, the change of period and the consequent premiere of autumn plates; and, two, the march a few months ago of Albert Adrià. Key piece in the creative work of the universe I Boiled in the last decade, the Ferran younger brother chose for a change of third to center on his bar of covers, Inopia, in Barcelona.

After the union with Hesperia, "if Gabriele Burgio continues in NH in 2010, I will continue like adviser" For Adrià, nevertheless, the key it is in 2012.

Till then, it has agreed with his associate, Juli Soler, and his team to support the Bulli in his current format. What will happen? Perhaps, the Bulli, on whose future closing has been speculated up to the satiety, is renewed. «The model can be reinvented, but there is nothing determined», points Adrià at EXPANSION.

And one throws himself to do cabbalas. «There can come one day in which we could only open 2 months a year because we need ten to investigate». To support economically the current Bulli, with the research work that is realized in and lBulli workshop, slope between 300.000 and 400.000 euros a year. But the restaurant in itself is not profitable. For the time being, the Bulli keeps on working like a quasiperfect machine.

With a team of 42 persons in kitchen (if the room is included, more than 70; in the brigade, there are 12 women), the Bulli submits his team to an almost military discipline. Every midday, Adrià, Castro and Xatruch inspect the team to revise the day that waits for them. Immediately afterwards, it starts the cleanliness of the kitchen and the arrangements for the dinner. The establishment has a room with capacity for approximately 50 persons (according to the messmates who occupy every table). Under a format with the only night service, 8.000 persons happen every year for elBulli, opposite to several thousands of requests of table, which are not even already organized by a waiting-list, anything that in the restaurant it is considered "ingestionable".

Everything matters: the movements in the room, the cleanliness in the kitchen, the synchronization between chefs and bartenders so that every plate comes perfectly to the table, and the sequence of the menu.

Key aspects in any restaurant that in the Bulli they transform into an obsession for the perfection with a clear stamp Adrià.

Ingredients At a price for 230 euros, elBulli it serves a menu tasting closed (that adapts himself, nevertheless, to tastes and allergies of the messmate), composed by approximately 41 plates (number that can change).

 In this price there are included neither VAT, nor drinks, a concept that this year has reinforced with the design of an available virtual letter of wines in his web. Re-interpreted traditional flavors, rereading of skills, piquant touches, eaten in the shape of cookies or the farewell to the silverware and the predominance of the picoteo with the fingers (baptized tendency as finger food) are some of the ingredients of the period 2009 of elBulli.

Nothing of deconstructions, sfericaciones, froth or airs, skills and already mythical makings created by Adrià in the last years but already almost prohibited in the current vocabulary of the Bulli, for be considering to be overcome. Symptoms of creative depletion?

 «In the menu of this year, there are between 15 and 20 new skills and we have gone so far as to do up to 130 different plates, although every day only 40 make use», it justifies Adrià. «In the last three years, there have been the only things, which in some cases are derivations and, in others, makings or new skills». Behind every plate, they hide months of incubating ideas, investigating making ways, providers rake, to test new products and to recreate recipes or cultural customs of Japan, Italy or China.

«If a plate does not contribute anything new, straight it is not done», sums up Adrià. «Nowadays, the creative demand is much stronger».

The client Pero: is all this exposition understood by the lucky client who achieves a reservation in the Bulli? Or does unnoticed similar creative and intellectual effort happen? «The client does not understand many of our plates and we can only explain them to him to a certain extent. But a clear symptom if there are new things or not, is to know if the messmate knows or not a flavor or a product», he argues Adriá. The menu is delivered to the client on having finished the dinner, unless he asks for it before starting to continue in real-time the endless plates list. To every step, the room service explains the plate and, often, his ingredients.

For 2010, the same dates of the period are supported. Until June, Adrià and his team will be employed at the Bulli workshop. But the chef has a tight agenda, in which, for example, it will have to clear if there is supported his agreement (almost the only one that he has left personally in the managerial ambience) with NH Hotels, after the integration of the chain with Hesperia (advised by Santi Santamaria).

«This year, I am going to continue; if Gabriele Burgio continues in 2010, I will continue because my commitment is with him», pronounces himself Adrià. In his plans, reality includes the impulse to the Research center and Formation of Tourism of Esade and a made sleep: in the last trimester of 2010, there will give the first course of his Foundation Alice and the University of Harvard, «the first fruit of this historical agreement».