Spain from an English perspective

A recent culinary ‘congress’ in Madrid grouped the crème-de-la-crème of Spanish cooks in one kitchen.

Spain’s famous El Bulli restaurant is no longer the best in the world. But a small group of daring Spanish chefs has made their country the centre of the culinary zeitgeist, leaving France behind. There are some characters that have put Spanish cuisine firmly on the map.

Ferrán Adrià was showing off his new creation, called ‘air of carrot’. He followed this with caviar of melon, spaghettis of mango and a dish called ‘mummy of salmon’. Another typical day in the never-boring life of Adrià, whose speciality is his famous foams, created to add more than a little extra to the taste of any dish.

Gourmet magazine has called him “the Salvador Dalí of the kitchen”. Others regard him as simply the best chef in Spain.

According to Juan Mari Arzak, who is considered the father of modern Spanish cooking, “Ferrán Adrià is the most innovative man in the history of cooking.”

Adriá is, of course, the head chef at El Bulli, a restaurant near Rosas, on the northern coast of Catalonia, which has achieved fame worldwide. In 1997, El Bulli acquired its third Michelin star, one of only three restaurants in Spain to win this accolade. To add to this, it was given the rather onerous title last year of the best restaurant in the world, in a poll of restaurant critics.

One indication of El Bulli’s prowess – and by turns that of Adrià - is the waiting list for a table is at least a year long.

But many still make the pilgrimage to this now legendary eatery, in spite of its inaccessible location at the end of a narrow, winding mountain road, or the fact that it only opens five days a week, and is closed for four months of the year while Adrià is abroad, searching for new inspiration and ideas with which to astound his patrons.

Adrià, 41, learned his trade from working his way up the ranks, then spending time in France, learning from the best. His secret is his determination to experiment. He uses only fresh food and adapts classic Mediterranean dishes giving them a new spin.

“It is a movement in Spain. It is not only me. In a culture with a very strong traditional gastronomy, there is a cuisine for the first time with new techniques and concepts. It is a new nouvelle cuisine” – Ferrán Adrià, chief chef El Bulli.
In many dishes, he adds his famous foams. These consist of aerating ingredients with a siphon, introducing minute bubbles to the texture, a technique which is common for some desserts but which Adrià applied to savoury dishes. His philosophy is to provide unexpected contrasts of flavour, temperature and texture. The idea is to provoke surprise and delight the diner.

The meals at El Bulli are of epic length. The sample menu consists of more than a dozen dishes, accompanied by as many different aperitifs. Most visitors gorge themselves for three hours. But prices are not exorbitant at an average of EUR 123 a head without wines. Most first class restaurants will charge double if not more.

A typical dish on this very untypical menu is Adrià’s treatment of Catalonia’s most famous dish, pa amb tom àquet, which is grilled bread, rubbed with tomato and drizzled with olive oil. It is transformed into a white sorbet made from skinned tomatoes and topped with a dry cracker filled with olive oil.

Other dishes are equally strange: a chicken croquette contains liquid consomme. A “Kellogg’s paella” consists of puffed Rice Krispies, with a seafood concoction added.
It’s an inspired modern variation on the Spanish custom of enjoying a series of different tapas at bars and taverns at midday.

But Adrià is only one of a small number of Spanish chefs who have revolutionised cuisine and made the country – at least in the eyes of gastronomes the world over –the most exciting place to eat now. Marc Veyrat, a French chef whose two restaurants have received three Michelin stars, said recently the most creative cooks in Europe were no longer French; they were Spanish.

Or as another commentator put it: “You can still eat very well in France, as you did 20 years ago. The problem is that almost everywhere you eat in France, it could still be 20 years ago. The French nouvelle cuisine revolutionised the culinary world, but over the past decade, French innovation has congealed into complacency.”

The two places where the culinary stars are coming from are Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Juan Mari Arzak, a three-star chef who is considered a father of new Spanish cuisine, said: “Adrià is the most imaginative cook in all history.” Adrià himself is modest enough to admit it is not all his own doing. “It is a movement in Spain,” he says. “It is not only me. In a culture with a very strong traditional gastronomy, there is a cuisine for the first time with new techniques and concepts. It is a new nouvelle cuisine.”

Many Spanish chefs have adopted Adrià techniques, but what the best young cooks have taken from him is his ability to experiment.

Apart from Adrià, two exciting Basque chefs who are part of the same ‘nueva cocina’ movement are Arzak and Pedro Subijana.

Some believe this new attitude of experimenting with food, which began in the 1970s, only gathered momentum with the death of General Franco in 1975. Suddenly everything new was welcome — and the fresh wind that stirred up Spanish film, literature and design also swept into the kitchen. The Basque country has always had a rich gastronomic tradition. But Arzak, Subijana and a small group of chefs formed a group to discuss how to create new menus and stir up forgotten dishes.

In San Sebastián, the more progressive customers were invited for a free tasting of new dishes. The diners liked what they were tasting. Soon other chefs were asking to join. Now culinary bravado seems essential in Spain.

One of the ‘hottest’ young Spanish chefs is Andoni Luis Aduriz, who learnt his craft at El Bulli. An idealist, for Aduriz innovating what is important. He says: “Picasso would never have painted as he did if he cared whether people liked his painting. Do you think there are more than 10,000 people who like Ferrán Adrià’s food?

The difference in Spain is, nobody likes or understands what El Bulli does, as nobody understands the way of painting of Picasso, but nobody says it is just nothing – Andoni Luis Aduriz, highly-rated young chef. “The difference in Spain is, nobody likes or understands what El Bulli does, as nobody understands the way of painting of Picasso, but nobody says it is just nothing.”

Other restaurants which have sprung up in Barcelona, in the wake of the success of Adrià, are Commerc 24, Cata 1.81, Santa María and Estrella de Plata. They all have daring young chefs who want to take risks.

One of these, Comerç 24, in the highly fashionable El Borne district of Barcelona, is rung by a disciple of Adrià’s called Carlos Abellán who spent seven years learning his craft at El Bulli.

Adrià explains the attitude in Spanish cooking: “We are passionate about technique but we are not so worried here in Spain these days about setting up the Great Restaurant with loads of waiters and sommeliers hovering solemnly around. “A sense of play in food is the key to the new Spanish cuisine. And tapas are the emblem and expression of this.”

For the master, the ‘nueva cocina’ could be the way cooking will go in the future.
Adrià says: “This is only the beginning. Let’s see where it leads. But I suspect it will go far because this is such a wonderfully fun way to eat. It might be seen as a fun way to enjoy food in what some believe are increasingly globalised times.”