El Bulli 2003-2004

I had to do a impromptu product presentation at work today, so I thought I just share the highlight of my effort.

El Bulli 2003-2004
By Ferran Adrià Acosta and Juli Soler
List Price: USD 350.00
ISBN: 0061146684

The highlight of my presentation is El Bulli 2003-2004. It is presented as a lavish art catalogue, with lovely food photography and covers every culinary creation, with technical explanations served at the legendary El Bulli restaurant.

Background: El Bulli (Catalan for "bulldog") the restaurant is located on an isolated beach on Spain's Catalan coast of Costa Brava, near the town of Rosas. It's a little inconvenient to reach there, but fame of the restaurant is such that it has become a pilgrimage for food lovers.

El Bulli is only open from April to September. Chef Ferran Adrià spends the rest of the year perfecting his art -- he travels to enhance his knowledge, experiments with different techniques and devises new recipes in his workshop, stocked full of books on cooking. You have to give it to this man for his intensity and dedication to the culinary arts.

El bulli is famous for their 30-course menu, but the emphasis is on texture, colour and flavour. One course can be barely more than a morsel served on a spoon - but the complex flavour is guaranteed to explore in your mouth. Hmmm.

Reservation is absolutely necessary and reservation only opens from mid-October. You can contact them with the date you wish for your reservation –- but it’s more likely they tell you when you should show up, and you plan your trip around it. Reservation by email or fax ONLY. No phone. Email bulli@elbulli.com or fax 972150717 -- Spain's country code is 34 -- if you want to try.

According to Moveable Feast on how to get a reservation at El Bulli:

"Albert Adria said this past year they had over 400,000 requests - that's 100,000 more than last year. And yes, still only 8,000 available seats."

To just pile on the laurels: El Bulli is awarded 3 Michelin stars (highest possible honour from Michelin) and is regarded as one of the best restaurants in the Western world.

Every year The Restaurant Magazine draws up a list of the top fifty restaurants in the world, as voted by its writers and critics. El Bulli had already been named top restaurant in 2002. But there was a change in 2006. For the first time, the list was drawn up by over 500 critics, chefs and gourmets from all over the world, which gave it much greater prestige than in previous years. This sizable select jury named El Bulli as the top restaurant.

Blogger Pim has uploaded some pictures from El Bulli on Flickr. Click here to see the slideshow.

Time magazine once did a profile on Ferran Adrià as one of the next wave of innovators in the culinary arts.

Visit http://www.elbulli.com/