Look at this picture of a monkey eating a banana. Is this cooking?” asks my tour guide, Polini, totally deadpan. It might seem like a strange question, but I’m at the elBulli 1846 Museum, dedicated to the boundary-pushing, three-Michelin-starred elBulli restaurant that stood here for 47 years. We’re on the east coast of Spain’s wild Costa Brava. This restaurant, responsible for redefining fine dining, was so revered that it was voted “best restaurant in the world” five times by the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards before it closed in 2011.
I’m quietly, and philosophically, contemplating the question, as I know food isn’t just food here. I consider the act of finding a banana, sitting down, peeling, eating and enjoying it. Though there’s no heat involved, which we usually associate with cooking, I nonchalantly say “yes, why not?”, hoping my abstract approach prevails. Abruptly, the American man behind me, who just moments ago eagerly asked to join our tour, sternly snaps, “No”. Unsurprisingly, he soon distances himself.
ElBulli was the pioneer of molecular gastronomy, using a scientific approach to food, with innovations such as “deconstructing” and reimagining a familiar dish to create something unexpected, as well as turning anything possible into gels, emulsions or foams. It was famed for its “spherification” technique (turning liquids into spheres with thin skins), best seen in the famous liquid olives that literally burst with flavour.
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The restaurant was run by chef Ferran Adrià and his brother Albert, who both joined in the Eighties and took it from one Michelin star to three. At this point, it received two million reservation requests each year but could accommodate about 8,000, and had a 12-month waiting list. The pair rethought what food could be, and the world of restaurants was never the same again. Like couture fashion, these techniques filtered down and created the modern food scene we have now.
It’s a legacy that still lives on in this area, most notably in the little coastal town of Cadaqués, just 10 miles north of Roses. It’s home to alumni chefs of elBulli, known as Bullinianos, who trained at elBulli and have gone on to open their own restaurants. It’s also become a mecca for others who have been influenced by the restaurant to work here and open their own restaurants.
The bohemian village, home to around 3,000 people, is sandwiched between the Pyrenees and Barcelona. It’s one of Spain’s most inaccessible places as the only road snakes up into the mountains, before dropping down via multiple hairpin bends into Cadaqués. This has helped preserve its rugged charm. It’s the easternmost point of Spain and was adored by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (you can still visit his home) and many of his contemporaries, including Matisse and Picasso. Cadaqués is made up of steep cobbled streets, whitewashed buildings that sit on the mountain’s edge around the horseshoe-shaped bay, and the Baroque church that dominates from above.
The most well-known elBulli legacy restaurant here is Compatair (meaning “to share”), which opened in 2012 and is the brainchild of three Bullinianos – elBulli’s most prominent head chefs who all worked under Ferran. Their names are Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch, and Mateu Casañas, the latter of whom is cooking at the restaurant the day I visit. The ethos, though rooted in elBulli’s quality and techniques, was modernised and focuses on sharing plates. Fittingly, I’d booked it as my next stop after the museum, to get a little taste of what elBulli was, considering I was about 15 years too late for the real deal.
Set inside an 18th-century building with a spacious courtyard, one of the most distinctive dishes here is the anchovies and almond “mato” cheese. On first hearing the description, it sounded like a questionable combination. The mato cheese, a flat square block like feta, is made with almonds and replaces a more traditional Catalonian cheese, which is similar to ricotta. It’s adorned with little drops of truffle oil; a dark honey is drizzled diagonally over it, and it’s topped with pine nuts.
Frankly, it looks rather unappealing. On the side are dark anchovy slivers on thinly sliced pieces of toast. I’m advised to start with a bite of the salty anchovies and alternate between the two. The final bite needs to be the cheese, our server advises. The entire dish is wonderfully salty and creamy, but surprisingly balanced – like a savoury and nutty soft ice cream, which wasn’t anything like I was expecting.
Cadaqués’s newest opening is Oli Bar, which flung open its doors in May. Set in a cave-like space with dim lighting and uneven, curved white walls, it’s a former olive mill with the original millstone. The large open kitchen juts out into the dining room, with stools around it, where we sit and watch the chefs seamlessly float around one another, quietly perfecting their craft.
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The restaurant is co-owned by two Catalan chefs, Monty Aguiló and Vito Oliva, and Valentina Audisio, who is married to Monty. “We knew what sort of restaurant we didn’t want to open… one that didn’t serve croquetas and pan con tomate,” says Aguiló.
The cooking is elegant and sharp at Oli Bar, with sharing plates and eclectic influences from across Spain and the Med. Here, I have the most incredible locally caught carabineros (large bright red prawns, which retain their colour even after cooking). Hefty in size, they’re butterflied and have a little smoky taste to them. At the top is a little dollop of egg yolk infused with miso. Aguiló tells us to mix it over the entire meat – its umami flavours are intense, smooth and utterly magnificent.
“ElBulli became the biggest influence in the gastronomy world,” says Aguiló. “All the biggest chefs have had some relationship with elBulli, such as restaurant Noma’s René Redzepi and Italy’s Massimo Bottura, or people have worked with someone that worked there.”
This is Aguiló’s connection. Albert Raurich, who was born in Cadaqués, was the foremost head chef of elBulli for over 10 years and Aguiló worked with him at the Michelin-starred Dos Palillos in Barcelona.
Just a few minutes walk away from Oli Bar are restaurants Talla and Batalla Taverna, also owned by Vito Oliva, who opened the former in 2012, not long after Compatir. I’m so late booking here that I only manage to get one of the few tables inside – the real draw is those on the seawall, overlooking the bay.
One of its key dishes is the rather experimental carbonara truffle tortilla – essentially a domed omelette with a liquid filling. When I carefully slice into it, a frothy carbonara sauce rushes to escape and coat the plate. Doused in shavings of parmesan, it’s indulgent and is definitely one to share.
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For most Bullinianos, their time working at the restaurant has shaped their approach not only to food, but also to running kitchens, even if they’re not three-Michelin-starred. Chef Rob Roy Cameron, who has just opened his debut restaurant Alta in London, worked at elBulli for its last season and then at Albert Adrià’s spin-off restaurants, 41 Degrees and Tickets in Barcelona.
He says working there taught him “more about the philosophy and the approach to the kitchen”. It also instilled creativity and steered him away from classical French methods. “ElBulli taught me you don’t need to follow the classic route to do something. You just need to know what you want to do, and then you find your own way of doing it,” he says.
For the final part of my trip, I head an hour and 20 minutes south of Cadaqués to the incredibly beautiful Torre Ronsat Estate, a traditional Catalan estate surrounded by olive groves, to join Suki Sjodahl Staples and Steve Wilson on one of their Mediterranean Food Journey retreats. They usually span a half or a full week and delve into the delights of Mediterranean cuisines, with olive oil tasting, foraging, vineyard wine tastings, and numerous cooking lessons.
Wilson, the retreat’s chef, tells me they decided to create the retreats here because, as a young chef, he was inspired by elBulli. “I used to dream of working there, but for some reason felt that it was out of reach,” he says, adding that he still studied its books and recipes. Plus, Sjodahl Staples’s father ran a restaurant in Cadaqués in the early Noughties, where she worked while at school and later lived in Cadaqués for 10 years.
“Suki infused me with a love of the region,” he adds.
The day I join them, Wilson teaches some of Spain’s signature dishes, including paella and one of its simplest creations, pan con tomate, as the dishes he likes to teach now are more like the ones your grandmother would share. We learn the Catalan way of making pan con tomate with glass bread – a traditional Catalonian bread with a very thin crust and airy interior – which only requires rubbing garlic and tomatoes over it, then drizzling with salt and olive oil.
The more common way is to grate tomatoes, strain the water and add salt and olive oil, before spooning it onto bread rubbed with garlic cloves. Both are delicious not only in their sheer simplicity but also owing to the excellent quality of ingredients, and it’s hard to decipher which I prefer. Wilson agrees. “Which is best is open for debate, especially in something that’s such a core part of the cultural cuisine,” he says.
The following day, back at home, I was craving pan con tomate, so I recreated it as best I could. Without Spanish glass bread or sun-ripened tomatoes, it was inevitably a pale imitation, but I saw the simple act of grating fresh tomatoes and drizzling quality olive oil in a new light. I realised I had prepared food very simply to enjoy, in a sense, a sort of cooking – just like the monkey with its banana.
Emma was hosted by Mediterranean Food Journey retreats for the final portion of her trip
How to get there
Fly into Barcelona or Girona (roughly 2hr 30min from the UK on airlines including easyJet and Jet2), and then hire a car to drive to Cadaqués. Alternatively, you can get the Eurostar to France, hire a car and drive the remainder of the journey.
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