El Bulli: Cooking in Progress 2011

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This is such a unique opportunity: to observe a year in the extraordinary and revolutionary school of food preparation founded by Ferran Adria. I just had to take it. But if you're looking for interviews or commentary by food critics and diners or insights into the origin of what has been called molecular gastronomy, then the film will disappoint. The filmmaker simply camp out in Adria's lab and later kitchen to watch him assemble his next dining experience.

The movie lets its audience answer the most obvious questions the whole Ell Bulli experience raises: Is this a culinary freak show? Is this really where fine dining is headed? Adria's influence in restaurant kitchens all over the world is a given. But is the idea of disguising food so that what looks like a raisin is actually pumpkin while the pumpkin is actually a raisin really anything more than elaborate game of hide-and-seek with diners?
The great modern artists tore traditional art apart through cubism, surrealism and finally abstraction. So too does Adria force everyone to rethink the whole notion of haute cuisine. This is beyond fusion, beyond world cuisine. It forces a new approach to flavor, intensity and satisfaction.

I did enjoy it, and wish I would have visited EL BULLI while it still existed, as it has now passed into the culinary history.