El Bulli: historia de un sueño

ELBULLI, THE HISTORY OF A DREAM

AUDIOVISUAL CATALOGUE 1963-1986

It's the third time that this genius of experimental cooking

has topped the list of the 50 best restaurants on earth.

Who's the best chef in the world? I said: "It is Ferran Adrià."

We need to learn to talk to each other,

scientists and cooks.

Spanish cuisine continues to impress the world.

Ferran Adrià's elBulli has once again been voted best restaurant on earth.

One, two... three!

We said to ourselves: "We want to live here."

He said: "But there's no one here."

I said: "No, but there will be."

At that time, she and Dr. Schilling were always adventurous.

They went to a quiet area and took that road which goes to elBulli

without knowing where it would lead them.

Because it was so narrow they couldn't turn back,

so they kept driving looking for a place

where they could turn around with their caravan,

and they arrived in Cala Montjoi.

We were able to buy something.

We bought at a good price, just a strip of land.

This house was built between 1956 and 1958.

I think it was '57.

At the time there were no machines. There wasn't even a road.

The materials were brought by hand.

My husband, was a well known doctor,

I met him during the war when I assisted him

in operating theatres where they worked on corpses.

That's how I met my husband.

My husband started with his idea of mini golf.

I told him: "Don't build a mini golf here.

It's windy and it's hot in summer, people won't come here."

People would play and then leave without paying.

They'd ask for the clubs, play a round, and then not pay.

We didn't make one cent out of it.

Just the opposite, in fact. I had to pay and pay and pay.

The love had gone,

but the affection and respect they had for each other remained.

That's what I think it was.

He did nothing without her and she did nothing without him.

In business that is; their private life was different.

In my mind, we never separated, not in my heart, never.

Never. Never.

It hurt, but I could see that his interest lay elsewhere.

That's right.

It was a girl who had been my maid back in Germany,

and he'd brought her with us. Erna.

Erna was her name. You knew that, right?

I noticed that I wasn't first, you know?

So I had to work and get on with my life.

To be honest, I think

it actually benefited the doctor,

to have, in effect, two partners.

When Hans returned to Germany, Marketta stayed here.

He didn't abandon her.

Separated, but not abandoned.

He came every month and helped a lot.

So I think he did it for her,

so that she might have something in her life.

Marketta couldn't rebuild her life

because she always believed Hans would come back here. Always.

That he would live out his days here.

I met Doctor Hans Schilling in Brussels, through Erna.

He told me he had a house in Spain, in Roses, on the Costa Brava,

and he wanted to open a beach café.

Yes, I built a shack so that people wouldn't get wet.

But if it had ever caught fire...

because it was next to the barbecue.

It was a bar, a bar with no name,

a real beach café with a thatched roof,

four posts and a small bar, that was it.

So Marketta and I served the drinks,

just us two, and José.

Then they talked about making it a restaurant, a small restaurant.

We didn't have pneumatic drills or machines.

So they measured it, from here to there,

and I set to work with a pick and shovel.

The concept of the beach café had now passed.

People still called it the German Bar

but Hans had a lot of dogs then, bulldogs.

That was when it got the name elBulli.

From the dogs I had. I had four or five bulldogs.

What shall we call this bar? Let's call it... Bulli,

elBulli, which came from the word bulldog, elBulli.

And elBulli stuck.

Ever since that second year, it's been called elBulli.

The first chef at elBulli, I can claim that honour

because it was me, thank God.

And I'm still alive, I'm not dead.

I used to cook leg of lamb,

roast chicken, cold starters, salads...

Lots of people came to eat here.

She'll tell you, quite a lot of people came.

I learnt it all in a week,

because I saw that we needed to do it.

I did prawns in the fireplace, when it still existed,

24 or 50 prawns every night.

Then there was... What's his name? Otto Müller.

He came here as a cook, but there was no kitchen,

there were just two gas rings as you went into the restaurant,

by the dining room, next to the chimney.

At that time we decided to make a menu,

the leg of lamb,

the shoulder of lamb,

grilled fish...

And then Dr. Schilling had the idea

to do flambés at the customers' tables.

He also asked me to carve at the table,

prepare desserts, flambé fruit...

All at the table.

This terrace was already here.

There was a bar here, where the window is.

There were tables here. You could sit here and eat and drink.

And there were the same tables back there too,

and you could sit there to eat.

His idea was always...

he had a vision of making this the best restaurant in the world.

He didn't say it like that, but his idea, his vision

was to be one of the great restaurants on this coast.

The restaurant was much smaller before,

then an extension was built.

Years later, the dining room was extended further.

He showed up with the plans from a top class restaurant

over there, in Düsseldorf.

It was beautiful, but it blocked the sea view.

And we said to him: "You can't do that.

Open the view towards the sea."

So the doctor made this dining room, And he did it...

with these few tables here.

And then he wanted to make it bigger,

this part here, he made it larger.

There was an arch there which people walked through.

He said: "I want a bar here and I want more tables here."

So he had this part made.

They closed this part off and extended the dining room.

In '68, Manfred and Gabi arrived, she was a waitress,

and he knew very little about cooking.

The first menu was drawn up by Manfred and the doctor.

I arrived in March 1970.

When Mr. Müller arrived, we developed

a more elaborate menu:

entrées, desserts,

more elaborate and more refined main courses

more like French cuisine,

with more garnish and better presentation.

Oki was a great chef,

especially for cold dishes like puffets.

We started changing things quite a lot:

more refinement, more quality,

using Nouvelle Cuisine.

We continued until '74,

when Jean-Louis Neichel arrived

and continued the work I had started,

and elBulli and the dishes on the menu improved

even further thanks to him.

Every new chef that arrived at elBulli

raised the quality of the cooking and the menu.

But the real improvement came with the arrival of Neichel.

Neichel worked in Dortmund,

in a restaurant owned by Mr. Spieker.

Spieker brought him to Spain

and opened a restaurant here, in Santa Margarida.

Later, Dr. Schilling had a meeting

with Mr. Spieker and Neichel.

And that is how Neichel ended up working here.

Then, because elBulli was closed during the winter,

he helped me by sending me away to other famous restaurants,

three star restaurants in France,

Alain Chapel, among others,

and that completely opened my mind.

He said: "we have to do the same cuisine they do in France here."

Obviously, neither of us knew the gastronomy of Spanish culture,

so the first years at elBulli we did haute gastronomie française,

and we started getting a different, higher level of customer.

During that time, Néstor Luján came here,

he was the first person to write an article on elBulli.

That publicity brought our first customers from Barcelona,

who were people who could afford to pay 300 pesetas.

When local people went there,

we had very little money to spend

so we took our own food from home,

and, at the very most, we'd go there and have a coffee

because it was all we could afford.

Unlike a lot of chefs,

who went to France to buy their produce,

he started to meet and use local suppliers.

We made a creamy sauce with sea urchins.

They weren't used in Spanish cuisine.

So, because we couldn't buy them,

in the afternoon, the cooks and the dishwashers

went down to the sea to collect sea urchins.

We opened them and discovered something really special.

Those sea urchins were all the rage for four or five years.

Neichel also brought two other institutions to the restaurant

which remained really important:

the cheese trolley and the dessert trolley.

They were absolutely spectacular.

Then, one day, Michelin came and they gave us a Michelin star.

At the start, throughout Spain, Michelin only gave