
For six months of the year, renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adrià closes his restaurant El Bulli and works with his culinary team to prepare the menu for the next season. An elegant, detailed study of food as avant-garde art, EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS is a tasty peek at some of the world's most innovative and exciting cooking; as Adrià himself puts it, "the more bewilderment, the better!... (Full plot summary below)
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For six months of the year, renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adrià closes his restaurant El Bulli and works with his culinary team to prepare the menu for the next season. An elegant, detailed study of food as avant-garde art, EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS is a tasty peek at some of the world's most innovative and exciting cooking; as Adrià himself puts it, "the more bewilderment, the better!
Leave your thoughts about El Bulli: Cooking in Progress.
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEl Bulli becomes a haunting celebration of the human desire to turn food into art - even if the results are consciously insane. |
| Shockya.comBrent SimonA rather elegantly simplistic and hands-off exploration of food as avant-garde art that cooks up all sorts of elemental yearnings in the tastebuds of viewers. |
| Film Journal InternationalDoris ToumarkineEl Bulli suggests that food embraced the Adrià way is akin to a religion: You're a believer or you aren't, as scientific rigor and originality show the path to gastronomic enlightenment. |
| St. Paul Pioneer PressChris Hewitt (St. Paul)As it lingers over chefs chatting and organizing, it requires more patience than, say, an episode of "Top Chef." But I bet adventurous eaters will be intrigued. |
| Seattle TimesMoira MacDonaldYou leave "Cooking in Progress" with respect for a man who followed his vision, and with fascination at the idea of food as artistic expression. |
| The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThere's nothing particularly distinctive or engaging about Wetzel's fly-on-the-wall style, which feels like second-hand Frederick Wiseman. But for hardcore foodies, El Bulli offers a clear, unvarnished look at the master at work. |
| Boston GlobeWesley MorrisWetzel's challenge is to film the experiments so that the process itself is legible. We're made to marvel at slow-cooked, freeze-dried, unappetizingly bagged food, the way some mushrooms, when delicately sliced, evoke fruit and some crustaceans resemble side-sleeping snooze-bar slappers. |
| San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoA fly-on-the-wall look at the inner workings of the famed Spanish palace of avant-garde gastronomy that closed its doors in July. If you're passionate (and open-minded) about food, you'll be fascinated. |
| The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe film never quite pins the chef down about any of this but in his menu introduction to the staff or off-hand remarks to long-time colleagues you begin to understand the mindset. "The more bewilderment, the better," he declares. He is not joking. |
| Filmcritic.comChris BarsantiWetzel gets in tight and close on Adria's dishes but resists turning the film into some food-porn banquet |