elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food
Heading across the pond this summer, Road Trips Foodies?
London’s Somerset House will host a major retrospective exhibition on a global icon of gastronomy, Ferran Adrià, and the restaurant he built to become the world’s best, elBulli.
Set for July 5 through September 29, 2012, elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food will be the world’s first exhibition dedicated to a chef and his restaurant, and will showcase the art of cuisine and cuisine as art by taking a behind-the-scenes look at the legendary laboratory and kitchen of the internationally renowned eatery that delighted diners in Cala Montjoi, Spain (map) for over 50 years.
Charting the evolution of elBulli, the exhibition will feature an in-depth, multimedia display of each of the essential ingredients that make up the culinary creative mastermind of Ferran Adrià and his team: research (handwritten notes and hand-drawn sketches), preparation (plasticine models, which were made for all the dishes served as a means for quality control of color, portion size and position on the plate, and the specially-designed utensils used), presentation (original tasting menus, cutlery laid on the tables and salivating shots of the creations taken from the catalog to be published by Phaidon next year) and plaudits (original restaurant reviews and other press clippings).
Combined with archive footage of the chefs and clientele, the exhibition’s ephemera are testament to Adrià’stalent, genius and ambition. (And, yes, it’s true: elBulli is now closed.)
If you plan to go, you might want to buy your (timed) ticket in advance to be sure you can get in while you’re visiting London.
You’ll find Somerset House on the Strand, London WC2R 1LA, England, United Kingdom (map).
(Image courtesy of Somerset House)