For about two decades, Catalan cuisine was defined by the surreal provocations of the cooks at elBulli, a seaside restaurant near the moderately charming town of Roses. With elBulli as their base, Ferran and Albert Adria arguably became the most famous chefs in the world, winning awards and impossible waiting lists until its closure in July, 2011.
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Ferran Adria was the master of culinary deconstruction and the use of foams to enhance flavour. The best way of describing a meal there is that everything is turned on its head, which results in dishes that both excite and puzzle in equal portions.
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My last dinner there comprised 49 plates, including his signature dish of what appear to be olives but in fact are olive oil encased in edible gum.
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And then there were bizarre dishes such as blackberry risotto with hare sauce
or a raw and cooked shrimp served with a paste made from its brains. I’m glad people like Ferran exist but it failed to convey enough pleasure to make it worth the trouble – not helped by the fact that it doesn’t go with any wine except either Cava or Salon 90.
We drank a Romanee St Vivant DRC 96 and a Chablis Grand Cru Billaud-Simon Blanchots 2005 but they couldn’t compete with the jumble of foams, stabilisers and chemicals.
Ferran Adria was the master of culinary deconstruction and the use of foams to enhance flavour. The best way of describing a meal there is that everything is turned on its head, which results in dishes that both excite and puzzle in equal portions.
My last dinner there comprised 49 plates, including his signature dish of what appear to be olives but in fact are olive oil encased in edible gum.
And then there were bizarre dishes such as blackberry risotto with hare sauce
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| A very brainy shrimp |
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| elBulli pudding |
In the past six years since el Bulli’s closure, Ferran Adrià appears to have slightly lost his way. There was talk of an ElBulli Foundation opening two years ago on the original site of elBulli, but so far, it is still pending as protesters objected to its location in the middle of a national park. Then there is a food lab in Barcelona — in association with Dom Pérignon — which is dedicated to “deconstructing the entire process of creativity” or asking philosophical riddles, such as “What is Wine?” And then there is Ferran’s collaboration with Cirque du Soleil in Ibiza, where he is “helping create a restaurant that is not a restaurant.”
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| Tickets |
His younger brother Albert is now the more active restaurateur in the family in Barcelona, 100 miles south west of Roses. His restaurant Tickets, or “elBulli Lite” as some critics describe it, has kept alive the elBulli philosophy, with its numerous small plates of culinary surprises such as grilled watermelon or squid in its ink with almond paste.
Also in Barcelona is Disfrutar, headed by three former elBulli chefs has an equally molecular take on Catalan cuisine. Here you will find the spirit of elBulli with dishes such as crispy egg yolk with mushroom gelatin or a mango sorbet sandwich with cardamom.
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There will always be a role for culinary innovation as practiced and developed by the Adrià brothers, but it seems that Barcelona is slowly defining itself by reinterpretations of its heritage of Mediterranean produce and sauces thickened with pulverized nuts, rather than purely celebrating the avant-garde and boil in the bag techniques.
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This revisiting of classic Catalan cuisine is done in a more populist way by Tribu Woki, a fast-growing group of organic markets and restaurants. Founded in 2008 by Guido Weinberg, 45, a former banker from Argentina, he arrived in Barcelona in 2001 to work for a large restaurant group before branching out on his own. Tribu Woki (which in English means tribe of woks – their first restaurant cooked takeaway food in woks) now has nine restaurants and six markets in Barcelona. “I didn’t come from the restaurant business – my first business was a micro brew beer business in Buenos Aires and before that was a banker. When I made beer 20 years ago it was the same concept as I have with Tribu Woki– the way it used to be done. The Adrià brothers are great, but you need a lot of technique and machinery and we are not looking to do that. For me, if you have really good produce and it is simple, it can’t be beaten.”
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Barraca, Weinberg’s casual seaside eatery in Barcelona, showcases that philosophy. The Andalusian calamari with tartar sauce features meltingly tender squid. And there’s a slight crunch from tiny cubes of cornichons.
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The dark-hued seafood paella initially appears to be overcooked but when you taste it you realized its density comes from being saturated with umami and fresh seafood. “We just thought, ‘Let’s do a simple good restaurant on the beach without thinking about it too much.’ I just wanted good calamari, fish and paella. This should be the norm everywhere, but it isn’t,” says Weinberg.
The dark-hued seafood paella initially appears to be overcooked but when you taste it you realized its density comes from being saturated with umami and fresh seafood. “We just thought, ‘Let’s do a simple good restaurant on the beach without thinking about it too much.’ I just wanted good calamari, fish and paella. This should be the norm everywhere, but it isn’t,” says Weinberg.
This apparent simplicity is not exactly effortless; the supervising chef at Barraca is the highly sophisticated Xavier Pellicer, the most famous Catalan chef you have (probably) never heard of. Pellicer was formerly head chef at AbaC, one of the leading restaurants in Barcelona as well as spending long stints at Can Fabes, just north of Barcelona and the first Catalan restaurant to win three Michelin stars, in 1994.
Pellicer is now chief consultant for Tribu Woki and recently opened a vegetablecentric restaurant for the group called Céleri. Interestingly, tapas is not really a Catalan concept so there aren’t many tapas bars around – people in Barcelona tend to prefer sit down meals, unlike the residents of Seville or San Sebastian.
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| Celeri |
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| Coure starter |
Just along the same street on the opposite side, is Coure, one of the original new wave bistros, which was opened in 2005 by chef Albert Ventura. There’s nothing tricksy about its food, which is moderately priced with an even cheaper bar on the ground floor.
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The veal sweetbreads with gnocchi and black truffles or
the shoulder of lamb with a slice of perfectly seasoned aubergine are both wonderful largely because of the quality of Spanish produce used to make them.
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| Bodega 1900 |
One of the best things about the Barcelona food scene is its embracing of international culinary influences.
Since the closure of elBulli, Albert Adrià has also opened successful restaurants serving Japanese, Peruvian and Mexican-influenced cuisine. Despite this celebration of international cuisine, he has also opened a small Vermuteria, or Vermouth bar, called Bodega 1900, directly opposite Tickets.
Inside Bodega 1900, which I visited recently, are simple marble-topped tables, a tiled floor, old-fashioned postcards tacked to the rafters and Adriàfamily memorabilia. The only gesture towards elBulli — either in the decor or on the menu — is an appetizer of spherical olives, which felt out of place here and like a culinary cliché.
Fortunately, the remainder of the dishes were exquisitely rendered classics such as razor clams in white escabeche sauce,
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green peas in a mushroom broth or
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heart-stoppingly fatty El Remero de Salamanca Iberian ham.
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green peas in a mushroom broth or
heart-stoppingly fatty El Remero de Salamanca Iberian ham.
Equally memorable was rubia gallega— thin slices of cured beef from Galician cattle. Bodega 1900 is not obsessed with only offering Spanish produce — one of the most intriguing yet fulfilling combinations was
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a plate of exquisite French oysters from Marennes Oleron
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juxtaposed with simply grilled foie gras from Chalandray in Western France.
a plate of exquisite French oysters from Marennes Oleron
juxtaposed with simply grilled foie gras from Chalandray in Western France.
Still, the appetite for classical Catalan cuisine is obviously growing. Tribu Woki is opening three more organic markets and another restaurant in the coming year and the focus will remain on high-quality, simple produce and dishes. Guido Weinberg thinks food fashions go in cycles: “It swung too far towards technique and science and now is swinging back towards simplicity and product. This is also my philosophy - I like the idea of bringing things back to basics.”
This story originally appeared in shorter form in Newsweek International
www.newsweek.com/catalonia-cuisine-elbulli-albert-adria-barcelona-448495