The drift towards the tasting menu has forgotten a great little detail: the diner
Throughout the summer of 1991, the sculptor Xavier Medina Campeny, friend and client of elBulli, had a series of conversations with Ferran about art and creativity after which he invited him to work in his Palo Alto workshop.
Creativity and gastronomy decontextualized from its natural space: a kitchen. It was perhaps the germ of the later hurricane, of the birth of techno-emotional cuisine and from the covers of The New York Times Magazine, Le Monde and Time.
In 2001 elBulli decided to close at noon for the first time in its history; they began to serve only dinners (an unusual case in what until then we understood as a "restaurant") with the idea of leaving more space for reflection that adds to Another historic decision: the elimination of the menu as such and the commitment to the tasting menu as the only vehicle for his gastronomic proposal.
Of the eleven restaurants awarded three Michelin stars, only Martín Berasategui and Lasarte maintain the menu
It is one of the key points (number twenty-two, exactly) of his essential Synthesis of elBulli's cuisine: “The tasting menu is the maximum expression in avant-garde cuisine. The structure is alive and subject to change. It is committed to concepts such as snacks, tapas, avant desserts, morphings, etc.”.
And the flapping of this butterfly in Cala Montjoi, south of Cap de Creus, produces a seismic cataclysm in all gastronomy to come, present and future; like a coquinero snap of the fingers of Thanos, simply it shattered the idea of what for much of the planet was, is, a great restaurant.
You just have to look askance at our haute cuisine (it always seemed a bit stupid to me about 'high' and 'low' cuisine, rather I believe —like Diego Guerrero— that there is really only good and bad cuisine) to Verify how far the debacle has come: Of the eleven restaurants awarded three Michelin stars, only Martín Berasategui and Lasarte (this one, housed in a 5GL hotel) maintain the menu.
The rest: DiverXO, El Celler de Can Roca, Quique Dacosta, ABaC, Arzak, Akelarre, Azurmendi, Aponiente or Sant Pau, tasting menu and ball point. It's inexplicable.
"I value a daily menu that reflects the proposals of a dynamic market," says Juanjo López, from La Tasquita de Enfrente
Also for Juanjo López from La Tasquita de Enfrente, "In every business, each one is free to do what they deem appropriate, but I value a daily letter that reflects the proposals of a dynamic market, with respect for temporality and seasons”.
Tasting menus? Well, they should be more open. and not so closed; with the difficulty that this entails, but adapting to the demands of a gourmet client”, he comments.
The concept of a great restaurant has turned towards a present where the chef is the star and the diner an excuse
What is a great restaurant? In the words of 'enthusiastic of the art of restoration' Matoses, a perfect restaurant would be one “where you feel comfortable, where you receive love in the form of a bite, a drink, a gesture. He does not understand classes or categories, but he does understand the art of restoring, of generating an honest code that unites restorer and visitor, of caring, of seducing”.
And another point that, I suspect, is becoming more and more common among race gastronomes: “Perhaps I perceive the perfect restaurant as a business away from artifice; celebration, generosity, sensitivity, passion, pursuit of excellence" he continues.
"Establishments managed by restaurateurs and chefs, inheritors of an incomparable tradition, who economize on ephemeral techniques and who are not always seduced by the influence of modernity”, he says.
They are restaurants with religious respect for the will of the diner, but it is the vanguard is not about you. It never was.
In the words of Matoses, a great restaurant is "one where you feel comfortable, where you receive love in the form of a bite, a drink, a gesture"
Andoni Luis Aduriz , perhaps the most farsighted head of this moment where all the cuisines of the world converge is at least more honest in his speech: “We are fully searching and what we can offer the diner is a journey through those doubts; but it is not a friendly space or one of certainties”.
And I'm afraid that the client is no longer the protagonist of this story. A story where creativity, the search for limits, the ego, the avant-garde and the elitist nature of what a good part of modernity understands as a great restaurant have turned towards this present where the chef is the star and the diner just an excuse.
To begin with, by denying him his most basic satisfaction: choosing the dishes, deciding what he is going to eat. I think it was Santi Santamaria who said that "gastronomy is an act of generosity".
I hope the menu returns to the big restaurants. I wish.
"Gastronomy is an act of generosity" Santi Santamaría