Review of Anthony Bourdain Decoding Ferran Adria
Posted on April 26, 2007, by Conor O'Neill, under Bandon.
Best programme about food I’ve seen in over a year. What makes the guy from El Bulli tick?
Rated as /5 on Apr 26 2007 by Conor O’Neill
I’ve been a big fan of Anthony Bourdain since I read Kitchen Confidential and my opinion of him just grew and grew with the TV shows and his Les Halles cookbook.
I was flicking around Sky the other night and spotted “Anthony Bourdain decod….” in the channel guide on UK TV Food. I pressed the info button and was thrilled to see that he was going to meet with Ferran Adria of El Bulli, rated best restaurant in the world for the past two years.
Adria is famous for a type of cooking which some coin “molecular gastronomy” and for which Heston Blumenthal in The Fat Duck is also famed. The basic idea is that you analyse what you are doing from a rigorous scientific viewpoint which enables you to come up woth new processes, tastes and textures that more traditional chefs could never do.
At the low-end you have things like “foams” which are already hackneyed and being done by people of far less talent in many restaurants around the world. These are whipped up foams of things like carrot so you get taste but no “body”.
The programme started well with Bourdain saying he didn’t think much of this view of cooking. It lacked heart or passion and seemed to be more concerned with shock than taste.
But he headed to Barcelona and was told first to check out a “ham” shop caled Jamonissimo. I was in heaven watching them thinly slice various types of Jamon Iberico like Salamanca. The fat was almost melting at room temperature. Pure food porn. The point of the exercise was to give Bourdain some idea of where Adria is coming from in terms of pure taste and pure texture.
Aside: We get small blocks of Serrano and Jamon Curado from my parents when they come back from Spain. Sibéal, aged 3, loves it and calls it Special Ham.
Bourdain then headed to the workshop to meet the team. And it was a proper team where everyone had equal say. Adria just sees himself as the front-man for the team. This was an incredible place where they spend hours every day trying ideas out, rigorously documenting them and then deciding if they could go on a menu.
A few things they showed included cooking sardines in such a way that they looked raw but were fully cooked, searing a peach so it had the texture of fois gras and trying a chemical that you can either taste as bitter or not taste at all depending on your genetic make-up!
Then it was time for the meal which was just mind-blowing. You get up to 32 courses over 5 hours in a restaurant which has 55 chefs and 55 seats. Each course is barely a mouthful or two but each one is amazing in execution. I’m only going to list a few but I was drooling at every one.
Apple Caviar: Somehow they can make tiny balls which have the shape and texture of caviar but burst to reveal a taste of pure apple.
Pasta-less Ravioli: Large globules of pure pea puree held together only by willpower.
Jamon-Tuna: Fat belly of tuna cured like jamon and sliced wafer thin. You get a tweezers to pick it up.
The amazing thing about the whole meal was that it was very relaxed, the restaurant looks pretty standard Spanish style and is not overly formal at all. I have no idea how much a meal costs and I know the waiting list is a year but some day, SOME DAY, I’m eating in El Bulli.
Oh and Bourdain was utterly convinced by the end.
19 Replies to "Review of Anthony Bourdain Decoding Ferran Adria"
conor on April 26, 2007
It must have been popular as you can get the DVD on Amazon. I’m tempted as I’m guessing there is more stuff on the DVD.
I forgot to mention that at the end they went to Ferran Adria’s favourite restaurant. A tiny local fish place with single owner/cook who does everything on a big grill plate and let’s the fish speak for itself. Looked like a chipper but the fish looked fantastic.
irishflirtysomething on April 27, 2007
note to self, never read your blog until AFTER I have eaten. Am off to eat fridge.
conor on April 27, 2007
One thing I realised watching it, which I should have known already, was to keep the jamon curado out of the fridge. It dries up and the fat gets hard.
I took it out yesterday and leep it wrapped in the kitchen. Now every time I go through the kitchen, “special ham”, the evil harlot, beckons.
Ah dammit, I’ll be back in a sec, I have the smell in my nostrils.
John on April 29, 2007
Bourdain’s write-up of his visit to El Bulli is one of the articles in the bound collection “The Nasty Bits”.
conor on April 29, 2007
Ye shouldn’t have told me that, now I’ll be forced to order it.
Jose Maria on May 11, 2007
Regarding conor’s comment on where to keep spanish serrano ham of the “iberico de bellota” kind (top quality):
- If the ham is a bone-in piece, you would keep it out of the fridge, at room temperature, standing on a ham holder. (Of course, anyway it wouldn’t fit in a regular fridge!!) You would not remove the outer layers of skin and fat.
- If it is a boneless full piece, it is most likely that you will be slicing it by means of some kind of slicing machine. You should keep it in the fridge, packed in kitchen paper. The thing with iberico de bellota is that its fat melts at pretty low temperature, so if you leave it at room temperature the slicing is going to be quite messy. Just cut the slices while it is still cold, and let them rest for a few minutes at room temperature before eating.
- If what you have are pre-sliced vacuum packs, just keep them in the fridge. Open the pack and leave at room temperature for about 1 hour before eating.
BTW bear in mind that to fully enjoy one of these hams, one should cut it by hand. Doing otherwise is like drinking the finest wine in a plastic glass.
More information on how to cut and eat iberico ham:
Iberico serrano ham slicing, serving and storage
conor on May 13, 2007
Thanks for that great advice Jose Maria.
I moved some jamon curado out of the fridge recently as I thought that the fridge was drying it out too much but then I did run into the problem of the fat being too soft.
We always cut by hand using super-sharp knives!
Marie on June 6, 2007
I think that place is heaven, the show itself was cloud nine. I watched it yesterday, my stomach kept on rambling.
How bout the cotton candy like fish which Bourdain described as creepy? Haha, I’d like to try that.
Jose on September 29, 2007
Yes, thanks for all this information!
Jose on September 29, 2007
For more information watch the forum of Spanishtaste
conor on September 30, 2007
Normally I’d treat that as spam (the comment, not the ham 
) but it looks like an interesting site.
Owen on October 28, 2007
Hi, thanks for the info.
I am interested to buy this dvd, but cannot find any info. regarding the region it needs to be watch.i.e if iit is compatable to EU region 2. Can anyone who saw the dvd answers my question please, thanks
conor on October 28, 2007
It is also available from Amazon.co.uk here: http://tinyurl.com/3yt4u6 so I would expect it to be Region 2.
Even if it is not, most DVD players in Europe can be made multi-region with a few key presses on the remote. What is your exact model?
Owen on October 28, 2007
My exact model is a Pioneer dvd player model DV-373-S
conor on October 28, 2007
It looks like that model is often sold with multi-region enabled. If not, then the instructions here should help:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks/pioneer-dv-373/4508
At your own risk!
Owen on October 28, 2007
Ok thanks for all your help
saki bergh on September 6, 2008
love the review. fascinating program. i am going to barcelona soon, does anyone know what Ferran Adria’s favorite restuarant is, the little fish shop?
Conor O'Neill on September 6, 2008
Hi Saki,
I think this might be the place:
http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2007/06/rias_de_galicia.html
Deborah on April 26, 2007
I can’t believe I missed that! Sounds amazing… we’re big Bourdain fans in this house! Gordon Ramsay was there in a different show a few weeks ago, but it seemed to focus more on Ramsay and his antics than the cooking which was a shame.