UPDATE: El Bulli to close permanently; see below.
Following Cook It Raw! in Italy, I tagged along to the big daddy of chef conferences in Madrid.
MadridFusion, a yearly world-all-star gastro-vaganza, has pretty much operated as house stage for Ferran Adria, the Catalan genius (no better word) who is the foundational figure for so-called "molecular cuisine." (Which he himself prefers to call "techno-emotional" -- shall we just say "meta-cuisine"?)
And Adria it was who supplied the event's blockbuster news. His surprise announcement (seems even staffers didn't know) that his El Bulli, #1 restaurant in the world, would close for the 2012 and 2013 seasons was front-page news in Spain. Adria will use the period to "reinvent" the place before reopening in 2014.
It's a bold move and a savvy one. Apparently the burdens of handling reservations and press (reservation requests have topped hundred of thousands annually; El Bulli has no PR agency) have taken their toll. Also, there's been something of fatigue over Adria's tour-de-force art-like approach, partly owing to a reckless ad-hominem attack by a conservative fellow Catalan chef, the well-starred but much over-shadowed Santi Santamaria.
Triple- A
R to L: Arzak, Adria, Aduriz
I snapped the three generational lights of Spanish innovative cooking at the conference's large-scale award ceremony for Spanish culinary achievement. They are Juan Marie Arzak (Arzak in San Sebastian), who forged new regional Spanish cuisine back in the '70's and bravely decided to embrace the iconoclasm of Adria, here symbolically at center; and Andoni Aduriz (Mugaritz in Basque Country), whose technical and emotional subtleties, and shift to haute-botany, make him perhaps the most influential figure to younger avant-garde cooks worldwide.
I say "perhaps". Who indeed will take over from Adria?
Will it be Aduriz?--or the long-esteemed Catalan Roca brothers, with Spain's latest three stars? Or maybe U.K. visionary Heston Blumenthal? Copenhagen's rising Rene Redzepi, the forager of the wildenrness and pioneer of new Nordic cuisine? Alex Atala from the brave new world of Brazil? Grant Achatz, Chicago's otherworldly innovator? Or perhaps Massimo Bottura from Italy, at once hero of tradition and artful dreamer?
Or will it be the triumph, at last, of proto-naturalist Frenchman Michel Bras?
We will find out.
UPDATE: El Bulli Closing Permanently
Yesterday Adria announced he's in fact closing the restaurant permanently. He'll transform it (news reports don't say when exactly) into an academy for "culinary study." Meaning he will be seeding the profession with his vision of cuisine in a concerted way. His leadership to endure, even more strongly?
And how many people you think are now going to try to eat at El Bulli before it shuts down?
Meanwhile back in Madrid: Showstoppers
Aduriz's on-stage demo was by consensus one of MadridFusion's highlights, particularly a dish involving creating a second skin for a chunk of salsify. Alas, your correspondent missed it. But I did see the demo by Tokyo's extraordinary Hiroshiro Narisawa, who had just wowed us at Cook It Raw!, and did so again here with an approach that gave new meaning to the term "natural." Among other things he planed a cedar plank on stage and soaked the shavings in sake before wrapping them around a piece of meat for curing. And he showed footage of his earlier culinary creations for.... Dior. He had people raving.
Chef Narisawa Explains
Cedar shavings with that?
The press goes Felini-esque for a Narisawa creation
Also on hand from Cook It Raw! was Rene Redzepi, whose Noma restaurant is rated #3 in the world. He showed off his aplomb, and the new sharing spirit of chefs--another Adria and Spain inspiration--by mc-ing a "jam session" of lesser-known Danish colleagues.
Monsieur Ducasse Doth Not Protest
Spain's economy is in the tank, very badly, and as you'd expect, MadridFusion this year was slighter, with less crowds and sponsors. Perhaps to help bolster the gate, Mr. France himself, Alain Ducasse, was invited south to receive a "genious" (as appropriately translated) award. Ducasse has been on an indefatigable campaign to tell the world it's got France's haute-culinary decline all wrong.
The French are still smarting, peut etre, over this old New York Times magazine anointment of Adria's Spain as the new kingdom of cuisine.
Ducasse held a press conference, a masterpiece of not being drawn to express the Gallic scorn he so obviously harbors for these 'upstarts from the land of bullfights and castanets' (as one 3-star French toque put it when the Times Mag piece appeared.
Ducasse Exercises Diplomacy
Comme des Garcons Memories
Charles Schumann, star mixologist from Munich, was there to demo his starshine. He is also the well-known face for Hugo Boss's fancier line of menswear. I hadn't seen him since we once shared a Paris runway for Comme des Garcons--some twenty years ago. (my one scary time on a fashion runway). We hugged briefly, he gave me his card, I insisted on giving him mine. (I confess I had to really insist. So goes the world...)
Runway Days (I'm at R)
Los Asturianos
One of my favorite meals took place away from conference doings, at Los Asturianos, a little marvelously artisanal wine bar fronted by gastro-TV personality, writer, and sommelier Alberto Fernandez Bombins. Alberto's mother makes Asturian classics like fabada stew in the tiny kitchen, and winemaker brother Belarmino produces two fine line of vinos, Tres Patas and Malpaso. A meal at Los Asturianos is always a rite when we're in Madrid. Foodies, movie producers, and neighborhood locals all rub elbows there,
Los Asturianos
C/ Vallerhermoso, 94
34-91/533-5947
Alberto of Los Asturianos, at semi-rest
What Madrid Is Losing
Madrid's center is one big jumble of roadworks now. The mayor wants to pedestrianize with a vengeance; streets and avenues are being torn up for below-ground parking.
Cervantes Watches The Upheaval
Under the banal glitz of renovation,the gritty Madrileno authenticity is slipping away . This old ceramics shop by central Plaza Santa Ana has been around for some one hundred years. Will such modest artisanal places be only memories shortly?
I used to buy each year's bullfighter calendar at this torero apparel shop near Plaza del Sol. But it closed a year ago.
Old Bullfighters Calendar, Defunct Store. 
Lagrimas de Eros
I slipped out to catch the final days of Tears of Eros, a sensational art exhibition shown jointly at the Thyssen Museum and Caja Madrid. Marvelous funky wide-ranging work, curated with lively sophistication. Oh how 19th German-speakers and the Neo-Classicists (and many others) loved their sex-and-death. Rich in museums, Madrid is.
Even David Beckham Was Gazable, Artfully
Photo: TheInsider.com
We of the Press
As usual a quality group of food critics were on hand, including this time Ruth Reichl, ex-chief of shuttered Gourmet, looking very glam despite, as she quipped, "losing my job." Vogue's Jeffrey Steingarten, still the man eating everything, was there, too, as was editor in chief Dana Cowin of Food & Wine, which is still going strong . (Not my usual crowd; but then again, maybe they are...).
A new face on the bus was blogger James Moore, a Hollywood talentman whose passion for food has found a highly popular and tasty form in his site CooklikeJames. Was his presence one of the signs of the future's onset--along with the presence of HuffPost?
Sort of Adria-esque, you might say? If you were straining (really hard) for a closing metaphor.