Hi, everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks,
the show where professional cooks trade stories,
weird opinions, and bad ideas that everybody
likes. My name is Eric. I'm here with Phil. I
wanted to talk about El Bulli, man. What are
your ideas about El Bulli? Do you support the
claim that it's the most influential restaurant
ever? Do you believe that? Do you think that's
truth or not? But before that... You're listening
to Heritage Radio Network. Ever is a big word,
right? Okay, 21st century. I would say so, for
sure. El Bouy has shaped modern gastronomy, especially
in the Michelin realm, immensely. Immensely.
I mean, undoubtedly so. together with, you know,
the movements in France, the new avant -garde,
the nouvelle cuisine, El Puy. It's crazy. So
many restaurants that function like the way that
they are now, the designs that have come out
of it, the techniques, so much stems from El
Puy, I think, more than people realize. Yeah,
I completely agree. And so I was going to ask
you, like, what, like, in terms of restaurant
systems? But like the central table for mise
en place, like in modern kitchens, that's something
that was coined by them. Like having like a long
prep table where if you have 12, 15, 20 cooks,
everybody's doing the same thing. So if there
is a potato to be peeled, everybody peels potatoes
and there they're done. and then the next thing,
and the next thing, and the next thing. And I
remember doing this at Mugaritz, and all of the
restaurants that stemmed out of El Bulli used
this approach. And I think it's very useful because,
especially with large teams, with smaller teams,
maybe not, but it's this feedback you get right
away of, oh, no, you're doing it wrong, or you're
too slow, or you're faster, because the whole
team works like an engine, you know, like a production
machine that is... Doing whatever. I mentioned
peeling potatoes, but it can be very complicated
stuff like, I don't know, deboning a squab or
something like that. You know, like this kind
of thing that it's better to have someone who
knows how to do it just in front of you and watch
closely and imitate. Yeah, absolutely. I also,
I really liked that when I was in Mucaritz. It's
a very interesting style of prep. I don't see
it that much anymore, honestly, but it definitely
has its place. And yeah, for sure, it stems from
El Bui. And it's cool, you know, like to have
this like prep table and to, you know, like you're
like Frenching a French trimming a rack of suckling
pig. and everybody wants to do it the best and
the cleanest and the fastest right and if you're
working with fuckers like me you know you're
having a really bad time because i'm going to
be like i'm going to look at your rack of rack
of cycling pick i'm going to be like chef you
wanna you want to revisit that or like you we
used to have competitions about it you know who
could do it the fastest we would do the cleanest
pushes yourself also you know But also everybody's
involved. Everybody's on the same level. Kevin
was your nemesis. Nah, man, I didn't really have
that with Kevin, unfortunately. I mean, fortunately
for me, I guess, because Kevin is a fucking machine.
My two biggest peers were Iñaki Mbolumburu and
Santiago... Mr. Amalur. Shout out to him. Great
cook, great guy. And Santiago Lastra, who now
owns Col in London. He's got a Michelin star
and he's doing modern or contemporary with a
strong basis on fermentation of Mexican food,
which I think is super interesting. It's basically
Mexican Noma in London. He's like the Gagan of
Mexican food, you know. But talking about Noma,
Noma, again, super influential, right? One of
the most influential restaurants of our time.
Also, I would say Noma is definitely up there
when you talk about one of the most influential
restaurants of our time, when we talk about avant
-garde cooking and Michelin star cooking and
stuff like that. But Rene Redzepi was a stagiaire
in El Puy and then went back to open Noma together
with Klaus Meyer and a lot of the systems that
were, you know. Adapted there, they came from
El Bouy, like the prep, the stagies, the kitchen
layout, you know, the menu setup. He also stashed
out the French Laundry, which I think is like
a very interesting combination, going to both
of these restaurants that both have like this
strong traditions and systems and stuff, and
combining it with a complete different approach,
because Naumann has nothing to do with El Bouy
or French Laundry in terms of their conceptual
proposal. You know, it's like a... Like a complete
different direction. Hey, Phil, have you subscribed
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What's a newsletter about, Eric? Every month
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grandmother's secrets. When did you discover
El Bulli? Do you remember that? Like the first
time you heard about it or you saw it or anything?
Yeah, I do actually. I was already like very
into cooking even before I started cooking. I
think I must have been like 14. I was already
informing myself about so much regarding cooking.
And I was in the process of coming to the conclusion
that I wanted to become a professional chef.
I was considering a couple of other things. And
El Bulli, like I grew up in Spain. El Bulli,
obviously a big name. I don't really remember
how I found out about them, but I got like really
fascinated by this idea. And my parents got me
one of the El Bouy books as a present. So I was
already in my like teenage room before I ever
started to cook. Okay, but you mentioned like
this idea. What is this idea? And secondly, of
course, which book? So the book was A Day in
El Bouy. I don't know if you know it. Ah. Of
course, I have it. This idea of cooking as a
very high craft with no boundaries. I mean, a
couple of boundaries, obviously, but boundaries
that can definitely also be broken. And I thought
it was fascinating. I was fascinated by somebody
taking steps into the unknown with the basis
of cooking. craft that they were doing right
rooted in tradition rooted in nature and just
going going beyond and i remember like reading
this book and being so fascinated by the fact
that you you know what a restaurant is like you
go in you prep you have service you do it all
over again and the way that they were sort of
like describing how the creative development
worked how the day is set up you know the chefs
come in they do their prep how the kitchen is
set up how the menus are set up how they do the
dish tastings et cetera, et cetera. I just thought
it was fascinating. In my case, I was even thinking
about becoming a chef. I did like a cook course
with a relatively famous chef. Well, not actually
a well -known chef in Venezuela, Elena Ibarra.
And this was like a show cooking course, you
know, like she would cook with an assistant and
there were like six people or... maybe eight
or ten, sitting at a bar counter, and she would
cook and explain, and so it was like half dinner,
half course, show cooking kind of thing. And
somebody asked her about Ferran Adria, and she
was like, well, yeah, it's like a completely
different approach, because I remember she literally
saying, for example, if you get a tortilla, a
potato omelette made by him, he will... break
it apart and make a foam and put the potatoes
on top and give it to you in a martini glass.
And I thought this was like a metaphor, like
whatever, like a thing. But that's an actual
dish from El Bulli, you know, like it's one of
the classics from El Bulli, which was not created
by Ferran Adrià. He actually took it from Xavier
de Sagristat, which is a legendary Catalan chef.
But yeah, and I think that's a great finger food.
I've had it like in... you know, like these cocktail
events, and then these glasses arrive with this
tortilla that you scoop from a martini glass,
and it's super nice. But yeah, this idea of,
at the beginning, he had this trend that he called,
I'm talking about Ferran Adrià, the head chef
at El Bulli, and maybe like the architect of
these ideas, he would call it the construction.
I heard that at the beginning, they would call
it... Decomposition. Which sounds like Rotterdick.
And they sound like that. Maybe that doesn't
sound so good. So the idea is that you have a
composition, you break it into parts, and you
rebuild it in a different way. And that's something
they would do a lot, especially in the 90s. And
it's one of the signature thought stands from
El Bulli, doing that. And, yeah, this idea of,
like you say, like, for me, the first thing that
came to my mind, yeah, was, like, modern art.
Like, taking food and turning it into, like,
these strange designs, and the dishes would look
like sometimes, like, micro -ecosystems, or sometimes
just, like, one item, and you would eat it. Not
even a dish, but something that you would have,
like, because they had, I don't know, like, it
was a lot. I think it was, like... 30 courses
per menu or something like that. And some of
these courses were just a smell. They would give
you something. You would smell it. Okay, next.
And these things bring you to this journey of...
and sensations and stuff that you offer. And
I found that to be extremely interesting, especially
as a culinary student. Yeah, absolutely. It's
kind of like this school that's kind of like,
well, why do we do certain things this way? Why
can't it be something else? Why not? Let's explore
that option. Also, like, obviously, we're talking
about El Puy, we have to talk about Sosa and
about all the ingredients and the techniques
that were developed in that time that are now...
Almost a staple standard in, you know, a vast
amount of kitchens, you know, the use of xantana,
of agar -agar, of lecithin, right? That came
from the food industry rather than restaurants.
And that is so commonplace now, you know, even
in small neighborhood restaurants like wine bars
and stuff, you'll find a tub of xantana or agar
-agar or like whatever it is, soy lecithin. And
it's crazy to think about the fact that they
established that. At some point, they were prohibited
in restaurants in Italy. I don't actually. Do
you remember that? Yeah. They were banned. It
was illegal. It was illegal to use Xantana in
Italy. And you would see chefs burning. Yeah,
we don't want this shit here. This is that. I
don't know if that's still the case, but I remember
reading that in the newspaper. This was in the
mid -2000s. I don't remember that. It's definitely
not the case anymore. I mean, so many of the
Italian Michelin star chefs, for me, are so very
decompositioned to a point where I'm sort of
like, what is going on? It's such a normal thing
to use now, like sherry vinegar. You have it
in your cupboard. I remember at the beginning
they had the... So they would commercialize all
of these agents, like emulsify agents or thickening
agents or all this kind of stuff that, as you
say, they took it from the food industry. Maybe
also one milestone we can forget about or ignore
are the foams, you know, like these guys. I remember
reading a quote, I don't remember from who, that
said that innovation is seeing what everybody
sees. and finding a way to use it nobody has
ever done before, right? Or that could be an
approach of innovation. And I think that's pretty
much what they did. So there were these chantilly
devices that you would use to whip cream, and
you would add cream, and just add some CO2. What
is it? No, it's not CO2. And then you have this
chantilly foam. So using the same device, we're
putting... potatoes or whatever even cod or corn
and doing these foams with completely different
things they just there were some rules that it
needs to have like some protein some gelatin
or some fat or in order to become a foam but
yeah creating like like a whole new category
of dishes that didn't exist previously and it's
not like a huge boom for a while i think today
it's already it's demo day like nobody those
forms anymore i think or at least not the way
they were being done 20 years ago i still do
what are your opinions you brought up an interesting
point it's sort of like oh it needs to have some
protein needs to have a certain amount of fat
our understanding of things that we have as chefs
nowadays has deepened so much you know like for
example One of the most famous dishes from El
Bouilly, the carrot foam. And, you know, there's
like this glass bowl that's like cut angular,
you know, and it's sort of like foaming it up
and it's like creating these sort of like soapy
bubbles almost. And it's like, yeah, because
carrot has a lot of natural lecithin, you know,
and like nowadays I'm in the kitchen and I'm
sort of like, yeah, you know, you can add a splash
of milk because it has like, you know, it'll
add like, you know, protein and lecithin to it
and it'll foam up easier. You know, Noma did
the same thing with fermentation, right? Like
our knowledge as chefs with fermentation, enzymatic
reactions, all that sort of stuff, you know,
is so much vaster. And El Bouy did the same with
these sorts of things, right? Like it deepened
the understanding of what things actually are
and not just taking them for granted. This almost
scientific approach, some people can get into
it, cool, you don't have to, but it has enriched
our knowledge and our understanding of the craft
itself. And that's pretty big. Phil! Did you
know we've already made nine episodes of The
Line? Oh, really? People sure love our crazy
abuse stories working in restaurants. Yes, they
do. But now we're interested in our listeners'
stories. Oh, yay. I would love to listen to more
crazy stories about people getting abused in
restaurants. So if anything crazy ever happened
to you working in professional kitchens, if you
want people to make fun of your disgraces the
same way we make fun of our disgraces, send us
your stories from the line and we'll feature
them on the show. DM us on Instagram, send it
as a text or voice note. We'll share our favorite
ones in the next Little Line episode. So keep
it short and sweet. Because trauma brings people
together. There are also like a lot of things
we don't even think about that were coined or
introduced or popularized by Bully. You know,
like there's this documentary. It's like a extremely
long documentary that is the whole. whole, whole,
whole story of El Bulli, you know, like, because
El Bulli started in, like, in the mid -70s. I
don't know if even earlier, but, yeah, at the
beginning, it was, like, just a restaurant next
to the beach with grill, and then they started
bringing chefs from France, and then the level
got a little bit better and better and better,
and then at some point, Ferran got there, and
for some reason, very young, he became the head
chef, I think in 1982, which is a while ago,
you know, like a while. Way, way longer than
we think about El Bulli. I think El Bulli started
to become relevant 10 years later than that with
the books of Mediterranean cuisine. And in 94,
I think it was already like a top player, like
a place people would talk about. I think 98,
they got the third Michelin star and also some
articles in the New York Times that made it.
Yes. king of the culinary world for at least
10 years after that. But yeah, like in the early
phases, and in this documentary, they tell how
they... So they claim in this documentary that
they were the first one to do plated desserts
like... Like we understand a plated dessert today.
Not, you know, like cutting a cake slice and
putting some dots of sauce around or having a
bowl where you put like a peach melba, you know,
like that. You put a marmalade and a bowl of
ice on top. Like this kind of, no, I'm talking
about like a composition, like a complex composition
that you would usually only do for the savory
cuisine and the sweet domain. I think that's
a hard claim. to say that. And I can't think
of a way to counter -argument it, saying, no,
this and this person was already doing painting
desserts in the 80s or something like that. So
I think that's something interesting to check.
Absolutely. And that's crazy. I mean, I'll buy
it, honestly. And it's crazy to think about because
that's something that we do so naturally. Now
we kind of think about, when I start thinking
about doing desserts... that are like not traditional
you know i'm kind of like okay i started thinking
about different components like an ice cream
here this that blah and it's so natural and i
mean that kind of brings us to another very very
big very important point if we talk about el
bui which is albert adria you know and the the
impact that albert has has had on the culinary
world not just with pastry is I think he coined
the term sweet cuisine. This is not pastry. This
is sweet cuisine, like cuisine on the sweet side.
Also his book, The Desserts of El Bulli, that's
like a super cool book. And this was written
in the mid -90s as well. And it's a book you
still can see and use. Well, he created, which
is a recipe I actually learned for the first
time from Michael Hopfel, which is a whipped
crema catalana. So he came up with this stuff
that you use. You do basically like a creme anglaise,
but very fatty with only cream, only egg yolks.
And then you whip it and the foam sets once you
whip it with a KitchenAid. Or you can use also
a whipping siphon. This is a pastry elaboration
that a guy like Michael Heffel was doing just
like that. So it's something that... chefs know
and do is that like a you know like a new thing
in the family of creme patissiere creme anglaise
and now you have this in that family of elaborations
and it was created by him and there is no discussion
about that this is something people know yeah
yeah absolutely i mean there's so many examples
of that and it's nuts right i mean sort of like
if somebody came to you right and it was sort
of like hey here's a kitchen come up with a technique
that's never been done before it's fucking difficult.
I mean, go ahead and try, right? But people have
been cooking for a long fucking time, and people
have had a lot of fucking time on their hands.
It's hard. Like, everything has been done before.
What did El Bouy come up with? You know, it's
kind of like... Right. It's sort of like the
Coulant of Michel Bras, right? It's something
that you see everywhere internationally now.
It's like the most standard dessert in any sort
of like bistro and, you know, it's packaged and
frozen. In supermarkets. In airplanes, you get
like a microwave Coulant, you know? Yeah, supermarkets,
you know, you can just buy it. Like I've had
Coulants in like little dive bars in Neukölln,
right? Like it's fucking everywhere. And like,
what did they do? Like spherification. Maybe
they didn't invent it as a technique itself because
it was part of the food industry, but as an application
in a restaurant. Correct. I think that has the
same merit. Taking something that was there all
the time, like the whipping cream bottle, and
using it, doing something that now you see wherever,
that is a technique that... I think after the
phone, it was second, like on that level of creating
something that people reproduce all over the
world. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like now that
we're talking about it, what always fascinated
me about El Buoy, because we can talk about all
these aspects and they're all really cool and
they're all really fascinating, but really one
of the coolest things behind it is the mindset.
Like if you listen to like Ferran talk or Albert,
right? And they're talking about how they're
conceptualizing stuff. And he's sort of like,
yeah, and like the texture and this and that
and blah, because. Ferdinand is a very good cook,
you know, and they cooked traditional food for
a really, really long time. And a lot of their
food is based in tradition. And, you know, when
you understand Spanish food as what it really
is, you can see a lot of Spanish elements in,
you know, even things that are not specifically
Spanish with jamón ibérico and garlic and this
and that and almonds and whatever, you know,
the oiliness of things, you know, the like the
drinks with the slick of oil. his mental approach
to searching for a new texture changing the temperature
of something how that like impacts you it's it's
super free i mean the guy is a genius you there's
no arguing about it he's a fucking genius you
can like what he does or you can hate it you
can say this not doesn't interest me at all that's
fine like that's totally fair you don't have
to like it he is a genius so like you just reminded
me of the first book i had from piranha i downloaded
it And it was like, I think the first, you know,
the old ones that were black with some white
lines, like a blackboard with some chalk drawings
or something like this. And it was the first
album that was 94 to 98. And this was around
2003, 2004 when I got that. So you would buy
the book and it would come with a CD and the
CD would have... all the recipes, and that's
what I downloaded, the CD, and I could have access
to that. I remember you had to burn the CD to
use it. You couldn't use it just like that because
it was kind of like a software that ran on CD
or something like that. There was a whole section
of what they called beers. So they would do like
a drink and a foam to have the effect that you
have when you drink a beer, that you feel the
foam, and then you have the... And they would
play around with this complete, like, you know,
it could be like a sweet pea beer with whatever,
a prawn foam or stuff like that, like completely
mixed up, like sweet and savory, hot and cold.
And, you know, like this experience of, you know,
putting a drink as a course, it's actually something
very simple technically, but creatively it's
something no one had ever done before. And I
think that's also like a core idea in the mindset,
like this motto they had. creativity is not copying,
which is not a phrase from Ferran Adria, but
it's a phrase he, it's almost his nowadays because
he made it like this big thing about what creativity
is. And it's, for me, it's an approach of creativity.
It's not like an axiom, like it should be that.
But yeah, it's a search that is very present
and all of the things they did in that period.
Crazy that, this is the curse also, right? Because
El Puy, like I, I've never been to eat. It closed
before I even started cooking, which is very
sad. But like, I'm a big fan of their work. I
really am. What I'm not a fan of is the wave
of molecular restaurants that it launched, you
know, that were sort of like copy pasting the
techniques in the dishes, selling the sensation
and the wow effect over what you were actually
consuming. i we've talked about this so many
times that it's you buy the spectacle not the
substance and i fucking hate that and with el
bui i do believe even though i will never find
out i'll never be able to find out that there
was spectacle but there was also substance behind
it because this was such a such a novelty and
it's what a lot of people talked about it was
a cheap like gateway for people to be sort of
like let me copy that And people will be sort
of like, oh, wow. And maybe it'll overshadow
the mediocrity of my actual work. There's a lot
of that, like a lot of modern chefs that just
take, you know, like this kind of box and they
reproduce that in the restaurants. And they think
that's something, you know, and I think that.
people can smell that you know like if there
is not authenticity that's something you say
that you say that i mean there's gagan in in
thailand you know this is like a mega celebrated
restaurant and if you look at a lot of the dishes
it's basically albui dishes but the flavors are
changed for indian flavors And there's a lot
of controversy about it because if like 70 %
of the menu is albouy dishes just with the changed
ingredients and you're sort of like, well, how
authentic is it? Yeah, sure, you can make me
a yogurt sphere with this and that and blah,
and maybe it will be tasty, but it's kind of
like, well, you know, creating is not copying,
you know? Yeah, like I said, like I wouldn't
say that's a rule that you should never break.
But it's for sure an interesting approach. You
said El Bulli closed before you even started
recording. I think El Bulli closed when we were
working together at Margol. Do you remember this
picture? So is it the last? Yes, I can see it.
By the way. So this is the last waltz of El Bulli,
which was the closing event. And I think they
really wanted to showcase how many chefs they're
influenced. And this is just insane. By the way,
this is... Xavier Sagristat, the guy that invented
the foam tortilla. But we have here José Andrés,
Joan Roca, Antonia Duris, Albert Adrià, René
Redzepi, Graham Ackerts, Massimo Bottura, Albert
Raurig, who is the guy from Disfrutar, you know,
Oriol Mateu, and the other guy. It's just crazy,
you know, like how... Well, this is a little
bit the who's who. Maybe not today. Today's gastronomy,
for sure, 10 days ago, this was the who's who
in the world panorama. Yeah, absolutely. And
there are a lot. How pissed would you be if you
were in that picture and you were the guy behind
the dog statue that you can't see? How fucking
pissed off would you be? And we're like counting
off people. We're sort of like, José Andrés.
And the guy behind the dog statue that nobody
will ever remember. And I mean, who would you
say are the ones holding the torch of this, you
know, the legacy of El Puyi today? Because, I
mean, many of these guys, you could say that.
I mean, I think any answer would be right if
you choose any. Like, you know, it could be Oriol,
it could be Albert, it could be René. or Andoni
or John Roca or Jose Andres, you know, like,
or even Massimo Bottura. Yeah, I mean, for me,
obviously, Andoni and, like, the guys from Disfrutar,
like, put aside because they are quintessentially
El Bui for me. They are El Bui. You know, Andoni,
he was there for some time, but, like, those
guys, they were there beginning to end. They
live and breathe El Bui. Same as Albert, you
know? I don't remember the name of the other
guy. But they say the other guy, that's the most
bully. I have to check it now. He was the most
bully of them all. Because he started in El Bulli
when he was 17 years old. And he cooked there
for 15 years only. And he became head chef very
young. Killing machine, that's what I know from
what I've heard. Yeah, probably. I mean, you
can say Grant Ackert's very close to it, you
know, with his own style. Andoni, obviously,
you know, then ventured into very different things,
but very close. And I mean, I think Rene also,
you know, I mean, especially in the beginning,
like the style was different, but the setup of
the kitchen, like the whole thing was so close.
It's very interesting how similar. el bouy and
noma are in the effect that they've had not in
the end like what you actually get on the plate
but in the background things but also like i
could say the same thing about noma that i said
about el bouy i love the positive effects that
noma has had on the culinary world internationally
from high -end restaurants to low -end restaurants
i really i love it Yet there is such a huge wave
of copycat restaurants that make a cheap imitation
that try to create a similar vibe. And they hide
behind sort of like, oh, this is fermented, blah,
blah, blah. And you eat it and you're like, ugh,
right? One last thing I wanted to ask you. Like
you said, we should organize a potluck food trip
to Enigma. Why Enigma? What is it that makes
you so fascinated about this restaurant? Anybody
that knows me knows that I like a very different
style of cooking than, you know, what they did
at El Bui. That's kind of like what I'm into.
But as I mentioned before, I'm a very big fan
of El Bui, what it was. I think Enigma is run
by Albert, right? I think. Albert Adria? Yeah,
yeah, of course. It's Albert Adria. Today, 2025.
Enigma is Alberto Adria. He used to have El Barri
restaurant group, which for me, personally, tickets
was part of El Barri. El Barri was the restaurant
group. There were like six or seven restaurants.
For me, it was the most exciting restaurant group
there ever was. So there was tickets, Enigma,
also like a Mexican one, like a cocktail place,
like a vermouth place. And with COVID, everything
closed. They kept only Enigma. So today that's
what Albert D 'Aria is. Yeah. Well, I think Enigma
is the closest thing, probably, I'm assuming,
that you can get to experience what El Bulli
was in a completely new form, obviously in a
new shape. But I think it's the closest that
you can get. And honestly, even though I'm not
into that style of food that much, like I'm not
into the whole sort of like alchemist kind of
thing, but the stuff that I've seen at Enigma,
it looks super interesting. Yeah, I would love
to go. We have to go. next year