Ferran Adria: Day at elBulli

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Want to play voyeur at elBulli? Want to understand the choices and ideas behind the use of liquid nitrogen frozen coconut flowers (pp. 98-99) and dehydrated hibiscus infusion (pp. 196-197)? Can't get a reservation at elBulli (join the other 1, 992,000 who also miss out each year), but you'd settle for a memento of what you might have enjoyed? Then Ferran Adria's A Day at elBulli: An insight into the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adria (Phaidon 2008) written with Juli Soler and Albert Adria with photographs by Maribel Ruiz de Erenchun, is for you. The book is a photographic journey through one day at the restaurant, from pages of photographs of the seaside (presumably in the morning) to Adria himself walking up to the door of the waiting restaurant, to the cleaning crew and the darkened restaurant. Would it have made more sense to make a film about elBulli that would capture the excitement, energy and inventiveness at work? How many cameras would one need? How many days would be filmed, cobbled together, in order to give the sense of one day? That would have been a different project, which might have shown less than this book, since A Day at elBulli actually is limited to one single day. Even so, the smell, the taste of elBulli would be no more available on film then in a book of photographs (and text). In the begining of the book is a list of when the photographs were taken (p. 5). There are also inserted texts on everything from The Stages of Developing a Dish (p. 64) to The History of elBulli (p. 184) and A Guest's Path Through the Restaurant (p. 312). The essays and the photographic story address everything but what one would expect in a cookbook, namely, the actual recipes. (The recipes from the day's dishes are, in fact, included in the book (pp. 345-377) along with beautiful photographs of each dish.) Adria already wrote a cookbook – this is what he left out about the actual place: elBulli. This is the restaurant book that shows how a restaurant works, its rhythm and ritual. Innovation without reason can be confused with meaninglessness. The captions explain, to some extent, why foams, liquid nitrogen frozen ingredients, and jelly are created. There are practical pages of the weekly menu, order sheets, lists of dishes from the cold section and those served by the kitchen, that add to our understanding of the real operations of the kitchen (pp. 120-123). Any young person contemplating a serious career in restaurant kitchens would find these documents and photographs interesting and instructive. Would it not be amazing to have A Day at Fernand Point's La Pyramide, or Georges Auguste Escoffier's restaurant at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, or other great restaurants of the past? For that reason, this is a valuable book, a portrait of an important chef and his work. Previous articles: [Cookbook reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef