Sharmila on Food

El Bulli

“Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds’ eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little DARK RED sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.”  Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

If I wanted to, I could probably leave this review at that.  Because that’s what it’s like, really, El Bulli.  Well, it was for me anyway.  Four and a half hours of the type of glee, fun and excitement that we all too rarely experience as adults.  The type of sheer, unadulterated joy that is more the preserve of childhood.  And that’s what makes it such a special place.  How often do you manage to capture that childlike pleasure when you’re all growed up?  This isn’t serious, stuffy, 3* dining.  This is giant edible globes that taste of cheese.  Strawberries that are actually tomatoes.  Raspberries that aren’t raspberries really, and they taste of sesame anyway.

I was preparing myself for disappointment, and accepting that I may not really like everything I ate.  I hadn’t prepared myself for one of the most fun evenings of my life. It did start off quite strangely though.  We arrived early, 15 minutes prior to our 7:30pm seating.

And the entrance was locked.

And we were the only people there.

I can tell you now, the amount of fear I had endured that we’d a) got the date wrong, b) that this was all a big practical joke and we didn’t have a reservation, or that c), the restaurant was going to burn down prior to us eating there, was, at that point, further compounded by some vague fear that we would just be left, sitting outside El Bulli, with no way to get in.  Like some surrealist conceit.

So we waited outside. This meant effectively standing on the side of a mountain road. Then, bang on 7:30, someone popped over to unlock the gate, and we were in.  We were the first people in there, save for two chefs who had travelled from the UK. I hadn’t comprehended that there would be staggered sittings, but then that made complete sense once it dawned on me that we were being served a gazillion courses.

38 courses, including all the beautiful snacks, “cocktails” and suchlike. The fact we weren’t sick by the end is testament to the balance of the menu - little meat, small dishes, lots of seafood and fruit/vegetables (if you can call them that).  We did feel pretty wasted by the end of it, but I’ve felt worse in some high end establishments where I’ve only had three courses.

And we did drink five bottles of wine between four of us. 

I’m not going to go into detail about all the dishes. I also didn’t take photos of many of the courses.  I didn’t want to. However, I took a few, just to showcase some of the dishes that just looked so silly, fun, or beautiful.  As well as these dishes, some of my highlights were a “mojito baguette”, “mimetic peanuts”, the most ridiculously sublime ajo blanco and gazpacho, and some ham fat and ginger snap that was the hammiest thing I’ve ever tasted. There’s no point in me trying to describe what these dishes are, really, as they are just bonkers and bear little relation to any type of comparable dish, or normal plate of food.

There were only a couple of dishes I found challenging. One was an incredibly fishy form of bisque, alongside a rawish langoustine. However, there was nothing here I didn’t like, which was surprising in itself. Even better, there were so many dishes I really loved. The frequent exclamations of “oh my god that’s amazing!” are testament to the fact I wasn’t the only one who felt the same.

Here are some of the dishes:

Tuna, almonds, almond cream, and strawberries that were tomatoes. And some jelly. Now, I hate cooked tuna. But I loved this. The tuna was cooked, but so moist and delicate.  I wouldn’t have thought this would have been something I would like, but I really did.

Oaxaca taco. Probably the most avocado-thing I’ve ever eaten. That’s a good thing.

Natural scampi. Or, as we kept on shouting “scampi Christ”, in a highly blasphemous fashion. The sauce on here is sesame. It was beautiful with the just cooked langoustine meat. Again, something I would never have conceived as working.

Ceps “coca”.  Yes, these were actually ceps, rather than unicorn tears fashioned to look like ceps. One of the simpler dishes of the night, but wonderful for it. And very pretty.

Sugar cube with tea and lime.

Doesn’t that just look silly and fun?

The most amazing petit fours I have ever had. They arrived in what can only be described as a giant jewelry box. Even though we were getting on for abject drunken messes, we had a good go at eating as many of these sublime chocolates as we could.

We stumbled out gone past midnight on a total high. I wouldn’t be lying if I said I felt low afterwards, knowing I would never experience some of those highs ever again. But at least I got to. And it lived up to, and went beyond what I could imagine.

That really was a golden ticket.