Hunting and Gathering: Through the Rabbit Hole to El Bulli
By Lisa Barlow
I am sitting in the most celebrated restaurant in the world and I have just been served a piece of ice. It is almost as if the pretty white bowl in front of me is empty, except that across its top is a perfect meniscus of clear frozen water. “Frozen Pond” the waiter announces with a smile, while another waiter taps mint dust with green tea and sugar across the top. We are handed spoons and asked to crack the ice. “Tastes like a stick of gum” my husband whispers. But I am decades away in a pink polka dotted parka that I have unzipped to fill with wind so it will sail me on my childhood ice skates across Long Island’s Mecox Bay.
Many things can happen to you if you are lucky enough to eat at El Bulli, Ferran Adrià’s extraordinary culinary laboratory on Spain’s Costa Brava. And you may not really understand the nature of your experience until it is long over. Certainly there is the excitement that you are about to enjoy a great meal, as well as recognition that you are part of history. El Bulli, the restaurant, will close at the end July. But there are many other emotions engendered by what is on your plate to take you by surprise. Frozen water, for instance. What starts out as a joke (the emperor, or in this case, the diner, has no clothes!) turns into a well-placed palate cleanser with Proustian effects.