by Kon-Yao Kwek

El Bulli, widely regarded by gourmets and food critics around the globe as the best restaurant in the world, will close its doors at the end of this month, after serving up inimitable culinary experiences to its customers for over four decades. But this famed establishment, which sits overlooking the bucolic bay of Cala Montjoi in the Spanish province of Catalonia, has not always been the mecca of haute cuisine. In fact, the story of El Bulli begins with something quite removed from the world of fine dining--the game of mini-golf.

In 1961, Dr. Hans Schilling and his wife, Marketta, visited the town of Roses (which is located near Cala Montjoi) and fell in love with the area. They subsequently bought a piece of land at Cala Montjoi, and decided to set up a mini-golf course. The Schillings owned several French bulldogs of a breed colloquially referred to as "bulli"--thus the name for their business, "El Bulli," was derived.

El Bulli existed as a mini-golf course for just over a year, when in 1963, because of Cala Montjoi's popularity among tourists as a scuba-diving destination, the Schillings decided to open a beach bar. In 1964, after a kitchen and a covered patio, which doubled as a dining area, were built, El Bulli transformed into a restaurant.

The restaurant served only simple dishes at first, but as Dr. Schilling began to grow more interested in experimenting, and brought more and more ideas back from his travels, the dishes became increasingly elaborate. By the time Jean-Louis Neichel arrived to take up the position of head chef in 1975, El Bulli had grown from strength to strength--and it wasn't long before the restaurant won the first of its three prestigious Michelin stars the following year.

Ferran Adria, the man who has achieved renown as the owner and creative force behind the El Bulli restaurant over the past twenty years, first joined the restaurant in 1984. When then-head chef Jean-Paul Vinay announced that he was leaving to open a restaurant in Barcelona, Ferran and a colleague, Christian Lutaud, had also been in the midst of talks to set up a restaurant of their own. They were finally persuaded to stay, however, and the duo took over as El Bulli's chefs de cuisine.

1987 saw supervision of El Bulli's kitchen pass solely into Ferran's hands, as Christian Lutaud left to open a new restaurant. During this time, Ferran had become increasingly engrossed in his cooking, and in 1990, he committed himself fully to El Bulli by buying the Schillings' stake in the restaurant. That same year, El Bulli was awarded its second Michelin star.

The nineties marked a period of rapid evolution for El Bulli--a period in which it developed the unique approach to gastronomy that has set it above and apart every other restaurant. In particular, a series of courses that Ferran and his team started conducting in 1994 forced them to analyze their own work in a very rigorous, almost scientific manner. This avant-garde, experimental approach to food intensified and really took off during the nineties, culminating in the Michelin Guide's conferral of their highest honor upon Ferran's restaurant in 1997--the third and final Michelin star.

Unfortunately, in spite of the long waiting lists of people wishing to dine there every year, El Bulli has been operating at a loss since 2000. This, undoubtedly, is one of the major factors involved in Ferran's decision to close his restaurant. In El Bulli: Cooking in Progresss, filmmaker Gereon Wetzel shows extensive behind-the-scenes footage of Ferran at work, both during the six-month period when the restaurant is closed, and also in the kitchen of El Bulli itself. While Ferran has plans to reopen El Bulli in the future as an educational academy, Wetzel's film may well stand as the final filmed record of a culinary institution destined to go down in history.