ElBulli

Can the World's Best Chef Save Spanish Tourism?

Filed under: Dining

Chef Ferrán Adrià, the innovative visionary behind the strange and wondrous cuisine of El Bulli, a restaurant widely reputed to offer one of the most amazing dining experiences in the world, has a new job. The chef has been charged with helping draw tourists to Spain. Tourism is a big part of Spain's economy but like other destinations it has seen visitor numbers decline. So the tourism industry is calling out the big guns. Adria will team up with the Esade Business School in Barcelona and La Caixa, the savings bank, to head the Tourism Management and Gastronomy School. Adrià will give classes one week each year teaching innovation and creativity to hospitality business owners. The London TImes reports that Adrià has met José Luis Rodríguez, the Spanish Prime Minister, to ask for €14 million to back the project which should begin next year.

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Tags: el bulli, ElBulli, ferran adria, FerranAdria, spanish tourism, SpanishTourism

World's Best Chef To Open A Pizza Place

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

What does the chef at the world's best restaurant do for an encore? How about opening a pizza joint? The LA Times reports that El Bulli chef, Ferran Adria has been in Italy studying pizza making. it's quite a change in direction for a man famous for his devotion to molecular gastronomy. But Adira has promised that his planned pizza restaurant in Barcelona, Spain will be a straightforward affair, no foams, no liquid nitrogen or strange balls of flavor, just your basic pizza pie.

Some Italian chefs are skeptical about the pizza skills of Ferran Adria and his pastry chef brother Alberto feeling that pizzamaking is more of a calling than something you can just quickly pick up. But for the Adrias the new planned venture offers a chance to cook for far more people than the small amount who eat at El Bulli each year. Let's just hope we don't see Adria frozen pizzas in the market in a few years right next to the Wolfgang Puck boxes.

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Tags: el bulli, ElBulli, ferran adria, FerranAdria, fine dining, FineDining, pizza

El Bulli Is The Top Restaurant Yet Again

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

Once again the molecular gastronomy stylings of chef Ferran Adria have pushed Spanish restaurant El Bulli to the top of another world's best restaurants list. El Bulli won the top slot in the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2009. The list is the result of a poll of more than 800 chefs, critics managers and others done for Restaurant Magazine.

According to the AFP, Adria is quoted as saying it was an important night for Spain (in addition to El Bulli, two other Spanish restaurants, Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca were in the top five). He dedicated his award to Heston Blumenthal, whose restaurant, The Fat Duck was in the second position. Adria praised Blumenthal for his honesty. Blumenthal closed his restaurant briefly over a potential food poisoning scare earlier this year. Restaurants in the top ten from the U.S. were Thomas Keller's Per Se and Grant Achtaz's Alinea in the US.

Off the list this year was Gordon Ramsay's flagship London restaurant. Bloomberg reports that it was in 13th place last year but didn't even crack the top 100 for 2009. He did squeak onto the list in slot 91 with his restaurant Maze.

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Tags: el bulli, ElBulli, ferran adria, FerranAdria, fine dining, FineDining, heston blumenthal, HestonBlumenthal, restaurants

The 10 Hardest to Get Restaurant Reservations

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

This is the time of year where special occasions and rare visits from family and friends are plentiful, and although home cooking is a big part of the season so is eating out -- because when people are in from out of town you hardly want to take them down to the local "all-you-can-eat for $4.99" buffet to celebrate their visit. But if you don't want to get stuck choosing between either the buffet or McDonald's then you might want to plan ahead, because as we all know everybody else in town is going to have the same idea!

If you have plans to hit the local fine dining hot spot this holiday season you better check to see if it's on this Forbes list of the top ten toughest to score restaurant reservations:

Gallery: Ten of the Toughest Restaurant Reservations

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Tags: babbo, dine, dining, elbulli, food, french laundry, FrenchLaundry, gordon ramsay, GordonRamsay, le bernardin, le comptoir, LeBernardin, LeComptoir, little owl, LittleOwl, minibar, mozza, per se, PerSe, reservations, restaurant, restaurants

El Bulli is Still the World's Best Restaurant

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining

What does it take to be the best restaurant in the world? Ask El Bulli, who holds the honor for the second year in a row according to Restaurant magazine's ranking of the top 50. Last year El Bulli squeezed out Fat Duck for the top spot, and this year all top six spots remain the same. The United States made a respectable showing also, with two restaurants in the top 10: The French Laundry and Per Se, and among others Alinea in Chicago made the list for the first time this year at #36.

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Tags: alinea, dine, dining, el bulli, ElBulli, Fat Duck, FatDuck, france, french, per se, PerSe, restaurant, restaurants, spain, the french laundry, TheFrenchLaundry

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