Ferran Adrià and the Art of Food

Foam, powder, essence, jus – the deconstructions of haute cuisine are now familiar features on the menus of top restaurants around the world.

“Not more nitrous ice cream”, the discerning diner might think, “… Not another pistachio crisp.” But fine dining has not always been such. When Ferran Adrià and Juli Soler took over as head chef and maître at elBulli in 1984, the Costa Brava restaurant served refined but fairly classic Michelin-starred fare. The seventies Diner Gastromique menu may have included eight courses under the early influence of Nouvelle Cuisine, a ten-point movement towards lighter, more experimental cooking coined by two French journalists in 1973. But elBulli’s food was not yet an art.

The establishment had been opened by Dr Hans Schilling (and his charismatic wife Marketta in 1965), who is photographed in the first historical section of the exhibition with her two flat-faced French bulldogs, from whom the restaurant takes its name. For the couple it was a choice between a mini-golf and a beach bar; they chose the latter, then expanding to become a restaurant, which Ferran Adrià joined on an apprenticeship in 1983, becoming head chef just a year later. Soler and Adrià’s eventual joint ownership of elBulli, their dedication to inventing dishes that took ingredients back to their origins before sending them some place far flung, would mark out the restaurant as one of the best in the world

This reverential exhibition begins at the end of elBulli’s story, with a video of the processes behind Adrià’s final dish before the restaurant closed in 2011 – a reworked Pêche Melba. Here we learn the typically thorough research and testing behind each of elBulli’s recipes – what will later be introduced in flow diagrams of the “creative process” out of which an idea for a new plate comes. From the Pêche Melba wikipedia page to moulds of peach stones which become Japanese mochi, the ultimate dessert is one of composite parts: a raspberry-verveine influsion, an iced plate of slivered fruit, a layered cone of something like zabaglione cream. As we watch the video attentively, the visitor beside me asks wryly: “How many eggs were in that?”

Part of what makes this exhibition a revelation, then, is the making public of what once was a private process. We glean an insight into elBulli’s kitchen and laboratory, into the signature approaches and development of recipes behind a listed dish. There are now 1,846 of these, compiled, along with many techniques for preparation, into encyclopaedic files and soon the online Bullipedia. We learn from examples of the reels of handwritten notes taken during the six months each year the restaurant closed for research: a Campari vinaigrette was too bitter, where a vermouth version worked better; various methods of steaming or vaporisation are recorded with precise annotation and occasionally illustration.

There are details too that will appeal to those with a desire for more than just food porn. The will to document the process of invention and design is clear, as Adrià asks: “What would happen if we knew exactly when puff pastry, mayonnaise, or the omelette had been created?” The team’s sense of humour also comes through, as said omelette is compared to a mini-skirt, in terms of how one basic design can adapt to new trends and styles.

It’s hard to exhibit a restaurant’s legacy without the presence of actual food, so for the most part, recipes are documented on a photo and video timeline – from almond terrine with tender squid skewer to vanilla potatoes with crayfish – the dishes becoming seemingly less like food, more like conceptual art, as the years go by: Irish coffee of green asparagus; hot black truffle jelly with cod skin; carrot air with bitter coconut milk; smoke foam. The chronological layout feels a little too linear – in fact, the animated happenings of the restaurant are more effectively communicated in the 2011 film El Bulli, Cooking in Progress, which covers much of the same informative ground.

The exhibition format is though able to present the restaurant’s physical archive – its vast cataloguing of cooking processes, its gastronomic paraphernalia – the crockery, tableware and utensils left over from its productive life. Crude plasticine models used to trial the size and shape of food elements are on show. The evolution of the establishment’s graphic identity is traced through decades of menus and stationary. An architectural model by Enric-Ruiz Geli reveals the future for the coastal Cala Montjoi site, as it is transformed into the elBulli Foundation and “experiential” visitor centre.

A resolute homage to Adrià, his experimental cuisine is likened to science, music, philosophy and literature. By the last rooms, this waxing lyrical may start to tire. But at a moment in which food and design are frequently celebrated as one, from Mondrian cakes to atomic tapas, this colourful display presents a holistic impression of food that may justly be called an art.

Fino al 29 settembre 2013
elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food
Somerset House, London