El Bulli Bye Bye

[lsanderson]

HURRY! Ferran Adrià at El Bulli, his restaurant in Roses, Spain. Reserve soon, to make your friends envious.
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: February 16, 2010

SO El Bulli, as we’ve all heard by now, will close.

But was it ever really open in the first place?

For too many people it wasn’t, because they couldn’t plan as far ahead as El Bulli has long required them to and make a reservation some 6 or 9 or even 12 months ahead, fixing a far-off vacation with that sort of exactitude, letting one restaurant and one meal stand as the tent pole around which a year’s worth of travel was organized. El Bulli has a limited number of seats; a table there is yours for the night; the restaurant shuts down for extended periods of the year. And yet tens of thousands of gourmands worldwide clamor to get in, because a visit there is synonymous in many circles with real gastronomic erudition. The arithmetic is brutal. More