My dream finally came true. I got to eat a meal at Next, and not just any meal their tribute to El Bulli. El Bulli was a restaurant located on the Costa Brava in Spain near Barcelona. Consistently for 30 year El Bulli was considered the best restaurant in the world until in closed permanent about 9 months ago.
The owners of Next have been inspired their whole careers by a meal they had at Next and what Ferran Adria has done his whole career. In fact Grant Achatz staged (worked for free in the kitchen) at El Bulli several times. Those times are what inspired this menu, 29 courses of some of the most influential and important dishes in culinary history.
So here we go.
Once you get to you're table you get your first indication that you aren't necessarily at El Bulli. El Bulli placed a rose on every table. Next hangs them above the table. A fun somewhat innovative twist that sets the table for what's to come well.
Once you're reservation time hits, sit back and enjoy the ride. A trademark of a meal at El Bulli was that courses came at a fast and furious pace. This was no different. Apparently, the tradition at El Bulli was to start with a cocktail. The first course was a wonderful version of that. We have a frozen caipirinha that was made with liquid nitrogen. On the end of the spoon was a tarragon concentrate that is mixed into the ice cream. The smooth texture provided by the liquid nitrogen gives you the impression that you're actually drinking a caipirinha.
The second course was one that when I first saw it on the menu I wasn't sure what to think. It's tempura fried trout roe. I love tempura, but trout roe, or any roe, for that matter is not something I seek out to eat. But the idea of seeing fish eggs covered in batter and deep fried was too intriguing to be put off by the idea of eating fish eggs. Over all I was impressed. The batter was light and perfectly fried, and the eggs on the inside provided the perfect about of salt.
The first 9 courses or so were served with a Cava which is a very dry spanish sparkling wine.
Here are the third and fourth courses. These are Adria's version of sandwiches. The front is an iberico sandwich. The bread is a hollow baguette and it is wrapped in a thin slice of iberico ham (which by the way was the only pork or beef on the entire menu). I had never had iberico ham before but always wanted to try. It's a special ham from a special pig in a special region of Spain and it's supposed to be even better than prosciutto. It was outstanding, but I'm not sure I could taste the difference between prosciutto and iberico. The background is basically an anchovy bruschetta. It's a piece of toast topped with avocado, pear, green onions and anchovy.
The justifiably famous spherical olives. This was probably the dish I was most looking forward to going into this meal. This is one of those dishes that completely changed the way chefs look at food. This dish is olive juice suspended in a skin of olive juice. This dish is made by putting olive juice in olive oil laced with sodium alganate. When you bite in you get a mouthful of olive juice. This dish was amazing, definitely one of my favorites of the night.
The second version of Cava that was served was even drier than the first, but it's designed to be enhanced. In the vials is Pineau des Charentes and Farigoule, basically a sweetener. Honestly, I don't have enough of a palate to say I noticed a huge difference when it was placed in the drink.
The next two courses, we've got one huge hit and one meh dish here. The top picture is how the dishes were placed on the table. The second picture is a close-up of the chicken liquid croquettes. This dish was crispy deep fried on the outside but when you bite in you get a mouthful of a chicken flavored liquid. Simply amazing. The third pic is a runny egg yolk suspended inside of a candy shell. This one didn't do much for me. The egg yolk was great but the shell got stuck in your teeth.
Also notice to this point through six courses, that we've only been given one utensil, a spoon for the caipairinha.
Here we have black sesame spongecake topped with white miso. This is another very famous dish. Ferran's brother Alberto is just as famous as Ferran, except he made his name in pastry. This method was Alberto's creation. Put the batter in a mold, and the microwave, yes microwave for 30 seconds and you have this. This is the first dish of the night that I could really notice Ferran's passion for playing with your premonitions of texture and flavor. This one was primarily made with black sesame but given the color your mouth tells you that you're tasting chocolate and coffee, when neither is in the dish. This texture and flavor thing is a common theme from here on out.
Ferran Adria is very famous for his use of foams and air, something you'll see on a plate at just about every fine dining restaurant in the world now. This course was the first of several throughout the meal. This one was a smoke foam. Foam that was pungently flavored with smoke. So much smoke flavor that I was taken aback with my first bite. This is a dish that I'd rather not eat again.
The third version of Cava got the same sweetener as earlier but we were also given a bottle of bitters to flavor the drink to our liking. An interesting, but in my opinion an unnecessary thing.
Apparently, this is the dish that put El Bulli into the common vernacular. Carrot air with coconut milk. This is another flavor/texture Jedi mind trick that Adria loves to play. Looks like carrot juice, smells like carrot juice, tastes exactly like the best carrot you've ever had but withing a second of putting it in your mouth there's nothing there except the carrot flavor. You're tongue moves around looking for carrot to pick out of your teeth. It's one of the most insane eating experiences I've ever had. This one was mind-blowlingly good, and another bite of culinary history.
Here we have the single best bite of food I've ever had in my entire life. This course changed my outlook on what food can be. This was a religious experience, passout from pleasure good. Just over the moon delicious. If I had keeled over after this bite I would have been a happy happy man. This dish is called cuttlefish and coconut ravioli with soy ginger and mint. The ravioli skin is made of squid and is stuffed with the best tasting coconut liquid I've ever had. You put it in your mouth and you're greeted with an explosion of flavor. I'm not sure this dish can ever be topped by anyone anywhere.
Here we have another one of those mind tricks. Tomato ice. I know what tomatoes taste like, I know what to expect out of the almond pudding on the bottom, and I know those flavors should be great together. It's the cold and flaky aspect that is tough to get past at least from the eye test. Taste it and you taste some of the best tomato you've ever had and because it's cold when you taste it it melts into a wonderful gazpacho. Honestly, though the thing that brought this one all together was the basil on top.
Our next two courses were paired with a hard cider that was made in a lambic beer style, basically during fermentation the wort is allowed to remain uncovered allowing natural bacteria to make the drink very sour. This was easily the best hard cider I've ever had.
The second of three dishes that when I first heard of them I was really scared. The front we have crab suspended in a hot aspic and in the back we have a mini corn cous cous. Aspic is essentially jello, in this case it was flavored with crab. The mystery of this dish is that it was served hot. For those not paying attention, jello melts when it's heated, but as you can see the aspic is in perfect shape. This is the second of the scary dishes that really surprised me, this one was another home run.
One of the prettiest plates of the night. Cauliflower cous cous with hard aromatic herb sauce. When this dish was presented the waiter asked us a question, "does a sauce have to be liquid" Of course the answer is no, but it makes you think is the stuff on the outside that is to make up the sauce freeze dried and thus will turn to liquid when I taste? Well the herbs were not freeze dried but made a very nice counterpoint to the cream cous cous.
This was an interesting place to break out some sherry as a pairing, but it really worked for the next two courses.
This is the suquet of prawns. Poached shrimp served with cucumber and a cream sauce. Ultimately, this dish was pretty run of the mill, though the shrimp were some of the best I've ever had.
This course might have been the most surprising of the night. Called potato tortilla, but it's obviously not a tortilla. These are the best and richest mashed potatoes you've ever had. At the bottom of the glass is carmelized onions and something else that I can't remember, but wow, this was another clear favorite of the table.
Another texture mix-up. This is the trumpet carpacchio. What do you think of when you hear carpacchio, cold paper thin beef served with parmesan and lemon juice. The bottom is the carpacchio of the trumpet mushrooms, which play with your mind that is convinced you're getting meat. Then you've got some potatoes and a little bit of salad on top. This was another big favorite of mine.
Easily the best plating of the night. This is a true homage to Barcelona. Antoni Gaudi is an impression architect that designed many buildings in Barcelona. If you've ever been you know the buildings he did. As part of his architecture he incorporated a lot of mosaics and that's what this dish plays off of. The based is a bag with water and shrimp which provides the background. Then the plate comes in with a filet of red mullet topped with a mosaic of veggies, the most intensely flavored red pepper sauce I've ever had and some sort of pickled vegetables. This dish was awesome.
This was the course I was dreading most during the evening. on the left we have a combo of eel and bone marrow, which are probably two of my least favorite flavors on the planet. In the middle is an edible flower and then the right is a poached cucumber. The plate was eaten right to left. The eel and bone marrow turned out to be awesome. The fatty richness of the bone marrow really cut the fishiness of the eel.
This was the main reason I did the mixed pairing rather than the wine. The restaurant teamed up with Half Acre Brewery in Chicago to come up with a beer specifically for this menu. The beer is called Sanguis which means blood. This beer is brewed with 20 pounds of beets added to the wort.
The last savory course of the night, and the first and only instance of game on the entire menu. Civet of rabbit with hot apple jelly. Basically is braised barbecued rabbit served along with apple jelly and a foie gras sauce. This dish was really rich and I struggled to finish it.
Another ridiculously famous dish, the gorgonzola balloon. A balloon is filled with liquid gorgonzola cheese and rolled around in liquid nitrogen. The result is a frozen hollow ball of pure cheese that melts in your hand before you can get it to your mouth. This was a really fun dish, but we couldn't finish. Mostly because this thing was huge, and no matter what size table you have it's the same size.
By far the richest dish of the night. Foie gras custard an carmel sauce. This is fat mixed with fat and then steamed served with sugar. It's a dish that just shouldn't work but somehow it does and it works really really well.
Probably the most interactive dish of the night, the spice plate. The dish comes out with apple jelly on the base and then 12 different spices around the outside. Your job as the diner is to compete against your table mates to see who can identify the most. Overall, I got 9 out of 12 right. The correct answers are in the black envelope.
The only, what I believe was a non-alcoholic cocktail. This is a mixture of white tea, lychee, and nectarine.
The only epic fail of the night. This is a sheet of ice that is suspended over a bowl and then topped with peppermint powder, muscavado sugar and green tea powder. Then you break the ice and you're supposed to enjoy. My dining partner and I both hated this dish with a passion.
The first of the true desert courses. Chocolate in textures. On the plate you've got a chocolate ice cream basically, some sort of hot chocolate almost brownie and then paper thin chocolate sails with a garnish of gold. This was a fun dish to work your way through the different textures.
Three more deserts, on the left, chocolate doughnuts, a thin chocolate shell filled with coconut liquid, then we have puff pastry webs which were very similar to a churro and creme flutes, paper thing pastry flavored like a creme brulee.
The final course, the farewell. Three bowls are placed in front of you with latex gloves. The bottom of the bowls are rounded so as the plate is put down the bowls start waving at you. Kind of a lame novelty but fun none the less. One of the bowls is filled with passionfruit marshmallows.
Overall, this meal was amazing. My dining partner and I were talking about this during the meal. Yes, it was $500 but you have to remember that the restaurant that created these dishes is closed, Next was given Ferran Adria's blessing to do this menu. There are approximately 900 people in the world that will get to experience this and then no one ever will again. Plus throughout the meal, we ate 4 or 5 dishes that completely revolutionized the way food is cooked today.
I had so much fun with this meal, and like I feared it only makes me want to go to other menus more. Thankfully the other two menus this year are shorter so there will be more seats available. Hopefully I can get my hands on some.
