MovieChat Forums > El Bulli: Cooking in Progress (2011) Discussion > This type of 'cooking' is a joke on the ...

This type of 'cooking' is a joke on the wealthy

posted 12 years ago by rockmail
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Just like the over inflated and extremely hyped art world, restaurants like this one are all flash and no substance.

Nothing they attempt is to prepare great tasting food or extra special hosting and comfort for their guests, it's all about creating press releases and using the most expensive ingredients and labor intensive recipes possible so as to charge massive markups on the food.

Everything is about entertainment, oddball effects, weird textures, and shocking the patrons. Nothing intrinsically wrong with food theater, but personally I'd rather have a big fantastic bowl of lamb stew than have my taste buds shocked but some odd foam/gel infusion. It's all a joke by worn out chefs who care more about becoming wealthy than putting in an honest day's work.

And the rest of the world seems to agree, as the subject restaurant of this movies apparently closed now.

[–] liberandosth 11 years ago

"It's all a joke by worn out chefs who care more about becoming wealthy than putting in an honest day's work."

Actually this couldn't be farther from the truth, otherwise why would they close down for months at a time to create an entirely new menu. They are obviously incredibly passionate about their food and treat cooking as an art form. They closed because Ferran is an artist and not really a business man. Even though it cost around $400 s plate, they had been operating at a loss for years due to the massive amount of overhead it costs for all these ingredients and to employ 40+ chefs, and etc.

That being said i was slightly disappointed by the documentary, though. I love documentaries shot in the cinema verite style with no talking heads or narration, but i feel this documentary left alot out.

I am not drinking any *beep* merlot!