EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS

Directed by Gereon Wetzel
Spain/France/Germany, 108 minutes
Documentary
Print courtesy of Kino Lorber
SUN OCT 16 @ 6:30PM | Salem Cinema

Three-star chef Ferran Adria is widely considered the most innovative and craziest chef in the world. In his kitchen, that which was once familiar disintegrates. Each year, his restaurant El Bulli closes for six months – time for Adria and his culinary team to retire to his Barcelona cooking laboratory to create the new menu for the coming season. From the initial experimentation to the premiere of the finished dish, with many an ingredient examined in a totally new way, we are whisked away on a delightfully savory escape. “Creativity means not copying” becomes the motto of their everyday pursuits and taste and texture are systematically analyzed, boiled, roasted, fried, steamed – then vacuumized, freeze-dried – and finally tasted. After all, decadence evolves in the diffuse realm between the intentional and the accidental, the experience and the unfamiliar. When the time comes for the restaurant to re-open with its brigade of 35 international cooks, the defining decisions are put to the test. It’s truly cooking like you’ve never seen.

Filmography: Castells (06), Die Reproductionskrise (08)