I wrote an article that explores the effect of El Bulli’s imminent closing on Spanish cuisine, but its chef, Ferran Adrià, has influenced cooking all over the world, especially in haute cuisine. I asked some American chefs (and one restaurateur) to assess the legacy of Mr. Adrià and his cocina de vanguardia — the term he and others prefer over “molecular gastronomy.”
David Chang, chef of the Momofuku restaurants in New York City
No one has ever questioned the food status quo with the intelligence and the ferocity of Ferran; he was the first person to ask “why” about every single thing in a restaurant. The fact is, he moved the entire spectrum of food in every direction, so that as a chef, even if you don’t like his style, he redefined everything you do. Closing down for half the year to do research? Changing the entire menu, 50 new dishes, every year? Amazing. And the point of all the technology and the innovation is to search out the new and the delicious. El Bulli was the best meal I ever had in my life. The whole time, I said to myself, “I need to quit, because I could never come close to doing this.” I have tried, and what Ferran taught me with that is that failing is necessary. You have to try new things, like putting liquid in a deep fryer. It’s going to explode, but you learn something.
Katie Button, who just opened Curate, a tapas bar in Asheville, N.C., and who was an apprentice at El Bulli in 2009
What I learned most from my time there was organization and a way of running a kitchen. It takes 70 people to serve one meal, and with the right systems, the restaurant runs as smoothly a ballet. The systems remove the chances of making a mistake. That is now my goal for my restaurant. The food I do here is very traditional Spanish, but I have a mayonnaise that is straight from El Bulli. It’s put through a nitrous oxide siphon, to serve with chilled white asparagus and lemon-tarragon vinaigrette. Americans don’t like mayonnaise as a sauce as much as they do in Spain, but we have already changed a lot of minds with the texture of this one. An El Bulli ingredient that I think will last in Western kitchens is obulate, a Japanese edible paper made of potato starch. It drapes like a napkin when it’s hot, it’s crispy when it cools off, and it tastes like nothing, so you can make it sweet or savory or whatever you want it to be.
David Kinch, chef at Manresa in Los Gatos, Calif., and dean of the French Culinary Institute’s new California campus
I first went to El Bulli on a Sunday night in 2000, right after Adrià had abolished the à la carte menu. I had 35 courses, and afterwards, I said something smart-ass to him like “I bet I couldn’t come back tomorrow and get something different.” He went over to the book, wrote me in on Thursday at the kitchen table, and gave me 35 completely different courses. I said it half-jokingly but he took it as a creative challenge. He placed creativity as a supreme value right up there with taste. But for me, I don’t think it is. I flirted with the the methods and ingredients, but with the daily grind of running my business and developing my own style, it didn’t last. Adrià himself was such a strong creative force, and his food showed who he was and where he was and where he came from. That’s what I strive to do here in California; that’s what I think everyone can learn from Adrià. But I’m not so sure that his style will work for others. A lot of that postmodernist food, it gets a lot of press, but how many people do it well?
Dan Barber, chef at Blue Hill in New York City and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.
Just 10 or 15 years ago, it would have been unimaginable to think chefs would regularly moonlight as chemists, or that three-star Michelin meals would (or could) consist of 45 courses, each as unrecognizable as the next, or that fine dining would look so radically different. Adrià’s legacy allows us – and not just us chefs, but anyone in any art, or any industry or profession – to think that we have the potential to reshape and redefine our field. Adrià’s story is more universal than his ideas. Anticipating that an industry (not to mention an art, not to mention a world order) could turn so completely on its head would have been preposterous.
Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Cafe, Shake Shack and Gramercy Tavern, among other places
Had you asked me five years ago, I’d have bemoaned the ubiquity of foam as Adrià’s legacy. Today I understand how wrong that is. He pushed chefs everywhere to question the very identity and character of what they were cooking and putting on a plate. (Is a tomato really a tomato? Is that white blob really cheese?) And he inspired a generation of chefs as performance artists — selling an experience, if not always an act of restoration. In the end, I suspect that the umami one gets from old-fashioned techniques like roasting and sautéing will win out over sous vide.
George Mendes, chef at Aldea in New York City and an apprentice at El Bulli in 2007
So many young chefs come into the restaurant and want to learn to use xantham gum, but they don’t even know how to use salt yet. When I was training I felt it was my responsibility as a chef to learn the basics, and that is what Adrià did. He was a creative genius, but at the end of the day, he was also a Spanish chef and he knew that with all the foams and textures in the world, the food had to taste good. I took what he did and tried to cook from my Portuguese background. My duck and rice wouldn’t be as refined as it is without him, or my bacalao à Brás, a Portguese lunch of salt cod scrambled with eggs, crispy potatoes and black olives. Instead of serving it in a bowl as a lunch dish, I made a snack out of it and served it in an eggshell with a tiny wooden spoon. It makes people smile. Sometimes people forget about that playful, humorous side of Ferran and his food. I never forget what he would say every day at the morning meeting of all the chefs: “We are in what some people call the best kitchen in the world, about to embark on a 14-hour workday, and serve 50 people a meal they have waited years to eat. But please,à remember to have fun. It’s only cooking.”