Inside Spain's Most Legendary Kitchen

Carol Kaplan With two million applications for a mere 800 reservations, the world-renowned restaurant El Bulli in Roses, Spain, is one of the culinary world’s most sought-after destinations. American chef Jody Adams dishes on how she got in.

To think of writing about Ferran Adrià and El Bulli is to think about trudging along in the footsteps of 2,500 other food journalists, according to the Barcelona restaurant’s Web site (elbulli.com). The restaurant, the man, the cuisine, and the science have received more attention than anything of their ilk, and with good reason: Adrià is a genius (check). His food is revolutionary (check). The inventiveness of what Chef Adrià and his staff accomplish in their kitchen is unrivaled, and it is generally accepted that he has blown apart the concept of what food is, and how it can be prepared like no one else (check). So what else is there to say?

“It was a kitchen, filled with people pierced and tattooed with spiked hair. Everyone was so delighted with what they were doing. The pastry chef was positively impish in his delight.”

Well, there’s a great story from Jody Adams, chef-owner at Rialto in Boston, about how she scored a reservation at El Bulli. One of the great chefs of Boston, and of our time, Jody is intelligent, talented, and her food has garnered all kinds of awards.

Out of the blue, Jody received an email in November from the Physics and Applied Science Department at Harvard, inviting her to two events, both of which were given equal weight in the letter. One was a chocolate lecture for kids. The other was a lecture by Ferran Adrià. “You may have heard of him,” the email said.

Jody immediately RSVPed, went to the presentation—standing room only, four overflow rooms with satellite televisions filled to capacity—and was wowed. The only oddity was that in the lengthy presentation, delivered in Catalan through an interpreter, Adrià never once used the word “flavor.” He did, however, say he firmly believed that his work was going to transform everyday cuisine as we know it.

The next night, due to a family emergency, Jody wasn’t in the restaurant, but Adrià and his colleagues were, and by all accounts they were very impressed.

But the following night Jody was back in the kitchen, and a table in the private dining room requested her presence. She popped out, and it turned out to be a group of scientists who wanted to tell her about a fellow scientist they had just seen. Of course it was Adrià. All jazzed up, they talked about him, and lo and behold one of the women at the table had just secured a reservation at the El Bulli and had the fourth seat at the table open. She asked if Jody wanted to join them, and without missing a beat Jody said yes.

Jody called the woman the next day to offer her the out—after all, they had never met before, and Jody was being generous with the wine—but the invitation stuck. The woman had secured the reservation by talking about a science experiment she had been working on involving spicing, and one of the coveted tables was bestowed upon her.

At an International Culinary Institute conference in 2007, Jody had attended a talk with a collection of Spanish chefs who had been flown over, and was blown away. At that time, she returned to her restaurant and asked the team, “Should we be getting nitrous oxide and canisters? Should we be foaming?” The answer was no, and every time it was brought up, the consensus was it wasn’t Jody, it wasn’t Rialto.