Food­ies around the world have heard of, and dream of din­ing at El Bulli, a restau­rant in Spain named for the orig­i­nal owner’s French Bull­dogs. This is a restau­rant which breaks the rules of fine din­ing and con­ven­tional gas­tron­omy world-wide. The word din­ing doesn’t even cover what peo­ple expe­ri­ence at El Bulli. Per­for­mance art may come closer with food as the star, directed by Fer­ran Adrià and his team as they meta­mor­pho­size the known into the unfa­mil­iar, spec­tac­u­lar, and delightful.

Sat­ur­day will be El Bulli’s last din­ner ser­vice, though the work­shop, Taller, will remain and con­tinue culi­nary exper­i­men­ta­tion. El Bulli’s press release tan­ta­lizes with the promise of an El Bulli rebirth in 2014. It promises a redi­rected El Bulli after two years of plan­ning and remap­ping the restaurant’s direc­tion with the empha­sis on seek­ing the lim­its of a restau­rant… with …research pri­or­i­tized over pro­duc­tion. These same two years will also be used to pro­duce an ency­clo­pe­dia based on 30 years of work and exper­i­men­ta­tion in the El Bulli kitchen.

Fer­ran Adrià has authored many books on his restau­rant and will be releas­ing a cook­book, strangely focused on tra­di­tional cook­ing meth­ods and recipes, this Octo­ber. (Per­haps as a cleans­ing move away from the com­plex and back to the basics as he gears up for a retool­ing?) The book is avail­able for pre-order through Ama­zon, along with most of his other books. Pre-order: The Fam­ily Meal: Home Cook­ing with Fer­ran Adrià.

To read more about El Bulli, visit the El Bulli web­site. Trans­la­tion in Eng­lish is avail­able. (Just look for the lit­tle EN.)

Feel­ing dis­ap­pointed you’ll never get to dine at El Bulli? Expe­ri­ence the next best thing, a won­der­fully detailed, pho­tographed, and video-blogged visit to dine at El Bulli by Adam Roberts at The Ama­teur Gourmet blog. Din­ner at El Bulli: The Great­est Restau­rant in the World

Guess which recipes are real El Bulli dishes and which are made up, and even cre­ate and sub­mit your own recipe with a chance to have it pre­pared by a chef at Slate.com. They are run­ning a con­test. The El Bulli dish-name gen­er­a­tor.

Would rather share a visit to El Bulli with your bully? Load up the couch with your favorite snacks (whether that’s pop­corn or a froth of sea anemone). Then tune in to Anthony Bor­dain: No Reser­va­tions on the Travel Chan­nel, Mon­day, August 1, 2011 at 9 ET/8 CT to watch: Episode: El Bulli.

Read more about El Bulli from these news sources:

 

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