Book Excerpt: Ferran: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food

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Another day, Castro is stirring different thickeners into iced consommé to see which one yields the best texture—traditional sheet gelatin, agar-agar, two kinds of carrageen. "We started with the idea of something Ferran saw in Japan," he explains. "It was a sheet of nori with toro inside, but it evolved into a kind of wonton. We had the idea to put cream whipped with curry powder inside a wonton wrapper made with transparent gelatin." Later, he and one of the other chefs pour gelatin into indentations made in white silicone blocks by different foods—mussels, shrimp, mushrooms, even rabbit brains, one of Ferran's favorite ingredients.

You're working with gelatins today, I say as Adrià walks by.

"No," he replies, "we're working with molds. First the concept, then the flavor."

The most important job of the Taller, he explains, isn't to create new dishes but to develop new ways of making dishes.

Castro later shows me a new version of cabell d'àngel, literally angel's hair, a traditional Catalan confection of candied winter squash used to fill pastries. This one is made not with squash but with gelatin and agar-agar flavored with honey. Adrià brings over a bowl of broth with what appear to be the short Catalan noodles, called fideus; they're actually made out of cheese, he tells me, through a process similar to spherification.

The next day work continues with the silicone molds, this time with forms of peanuts, hazelnuts, almonds, and chestnuts. "First comes the concept," says Castro, echoing Ferran, "like the chassis on a car. Then we build on it."

Ferran comes into the kitchen. "The chefs here are an independent team," he tells me. "This year I'm not here very much. I just come in and taste." His younger brother, Albert, was in charge of the Taller, Ferran says, "but he has pulled away. He has said before that he is leaving to spend more time with his family [he and his live-in girlfriend of 18 years have a 3-year-old son], but he has absolutely quit this time.... " He pauses. "But little by little he is coming back."

Later in the morning Albert comes in. There had been rumors that he'd had some kind of rift with Adrià, though every time I'd seen them together they were engaged—physically close to each other, talking with passion, throwing out ideas, gesturing, smiling. Today, though, he and Adrià start arguing heatedly. Then I realize what they're arguing about is soccer.

"Do you ever think about closing El Bulli?" I ask Adrià one afternoon in mid-2009 as we sit outside in the small garden behind the Taller. "Every day," he replies almost before I've finished the question.

As early as 2004, Adrià told an interviewer that he was considering a one-year sabbatical. In 2006 a story in Nation's Restaurant News stated unequivocally: "This past season was Adrià's last in the kitchen—at least until 2008, when he will decide what to do next." In 2007, Adrià announced that "at the end of 2008, I am leaving my diary empty."

Yet he kept coming back to both the Taller and El Bulli as involved as ever. "The years from 2003 to 2009," he said in 2010, "were just fantastic!"

He also told me, in 2009, that he was taking things year by year. "I want to continue as long as I have the dream and the passion," he said, "but I want to reinvent myself. The 160 or so days that we keep the restaurant open are very hard. There are those who think we're privileged because we open for only six months a year, but when you make creative cuisine, the pressure is very strong. If we didn't do it this way, I could sit on the beach in peace all day and just go to the restaurant every afternoon at six, no problem." At the time, he dropped some hints as to what the future might hold. "The structure of the restaurant continues to change," he said. "It's possible that next year we will be open only three months, but seven days a week. Or maybe we need 10 months of creativity and just two months of restaurant. For me it would be the same. We could also have just one, two, three tables only, and take no reservations at all. We would select the people who would come, gastronomes who appreciate our cooking. It would be only a way to show how we are evolving. This is all just something I'm thinking about. In any case, El Bulli exactly as it is today will not continue for more than two or three more years. We have to always raise the level. There are 50 possibilities."

Adrià added, "Maybe I'll take a sabbatical not just from El Bulli but from everything. El Bulli and I will both be 50, more or less, in 2012. It opened as a minigolf in 1961, but the chiringuito was built and they started serving food in 1962, the year I was born. That would be a good date for me to close the restaurant, but not permanently. I'd like to be able to travel, not for work, maybe to spend six months in Japan and six months in China with my wife. Of course, that's just what I think today. And then sometimes I think 2012 will be the end, period."

Early this year, Adrià made it official: El Bulli would close in May 2011.

That he is shutting down his legendary establishment isn't really a surprise. Ferran himself had admitted frequently that his creative pace was lagging. "Every time, it takes more to innovate," he remarked one day. "Today to create new things takes four times as long as it did 10 years ago." Maybe the rise of El Bulli will turn out to have been like the uncovering of some vast new oil reserves; they'd keep our internal combustion engines going for a few more decades, but ultimately, they were a nonrenewable resource.

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