Saturday, April 28, 2012

Movie Review: El Bulli: Cooking in Progress (2010)

This documentary takes the viewer inside and behind the scenes at the famous El Bulli resturant in the Catalonia area of Spain.  This is apparently one of the most inventive resturants out there as evidenced by this film.  The film follows chef Ferran Adria and his staff for a year.  The first half of the year Adria and his top staff close the resturant and head to a cooking lab in Barcelona to invent new tastes, flavors, receipes, and ultimately the new menu before heading back to reopen the resturant for the second half of the year.  Once reopened, the head staff work on creating and perfecting the new menu items before they are worked into the 35-course 3-hour meal served each night. 

I enjoyed this film because the food lab portion was so in-depth.  The chefs were scientific about their experimentation but there's also an art to creating innovation in anything so it's an interesting process they have.  Then there's seeing the research put into practice once they are back at the resturant.  Much trial and error goes into creating "magic" as Adria calls it. 

This film in in Catalan so subtitles are a must and also due to the subject matter this film isn't for everyone.  Serious foodies will love it and anyone who is interested in behind the scenes of such an innovative resturant.  Solid B in my book.

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