Spain's elBulli, repeatedly voted the world's best restaurant before it closed more than a decade ago, is set to reopen as a museum dedicated to the culinary revolution it sparked.
Nestled in an isolated cove on Spain's north-eastern tip, the museum has been named elBulli1846, which is a reference to the 1,846 dishes groundbreaking chef Ferran Adria says were developed at the restaurant.
“It's not about coming here to eat, but to understand what happened in elBulli,” Adria, 61, said of the restaurant he helmed for more than two decades.
The museum will open on June 15, about 12 years after the restaurant served its final dish to the public.
Visitors will be able to see hundreds of photos, notebooks, trophies and models made of plastic or wax that emulate some of the innovative dishes that were served at the eatery.
A foundation set up to maintain elBulli's legacy invested €11 million ($11.8 million) in the museum. Plans to expand the building on the idyllic Cala Montjoi cove near the towns of Roses had to be adjusted after running into opposition from environmentalists.
Pushing the culinary envelope
Adria pioneered molecular gastronomy, the culinary trend that deconstructs ingredients and recombines them in unexpected ways. The resultant dishes have surprising combinations and textures, such as fruit foam, gazpacho popsicles and caramelised quails.
Under Adria's watch, elBulli achieved the coveted Michelin three-star status. “What we did here was find the limits of what can be done in a gastronomic experience,” the chef said. “What are the physical, mental and even spiritual limits that humans have? And that search paved paths for others.”
Some of the world's most famous chefs were trained by Adria at elBulli, including Denmark's Rene Redzepi of Noma and Italy's Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana and Torno Subito, Dubai, fame.
Adria headed to the white-walled restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean in 1983 for a month-long internship on the recommendation of a friend. He was invited to join the restaurant's staff as a line cook the following year, and became its solo head chef in 1987.
He bought the restaurant in 1990 with his business partner Juli Soler, who passed away in 2015.
“The most important thing that happened to me at elBulli is that I discovered for the first time passion for cuisine,” he said. “At the table, when the staff ate together, we did not talk about football or our weekends, we talked about cuisine.”
The restaurant usually opened only six months a year, to give Adria and his staff time to conceive new dishes. The set menu comprised dozens of small dishes, and cost about €325 at the time the restaurant closed in 2011.
A team of 70 people prepared the meals for the 50 guests who managed to get a reservation.
Why did elBulli close?
Adria said he accepted that his culinary innovations did not please everyone. “In the end, they are new things and it's a shock after the other. It is normal that it makes you reflect on what you like,” he said.
In the final years of the restaurant, demand for reservations was so high that Adria allocated seats mostly through a lottery.
When he decided to close the restaurant, he justified the move saying it “had become a monster”.
“I was very certain that we were right to close. We had reached what we felt was a satisfactory experience at the maximum level.
“And once we reached it, we said: 'Why do we have to continue?'. The mission of elBulli was not this, it was finding the limits.”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
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