Barcelona is the setting for Ferran Adrià’s return to the kitchen, as the chef recreated his 1987 “Gaudí red mullet” dish for a new mini-documentary. The film, Gaudí, Adrià y el regreso del salmonete, is part of Gaudí Year.
The dish first appeared on El Bulli’s menu and is known for its use of vegetables to echo Antoni Gaudí’s trencadís mosaic style. Adrià prepared it at Dos Pebrots, the Barcelona restaurant co-founded by Albert Raurich, a former head chef at El Bulli.
According to the documentary’s producers, Adrià rarely cooks in public and usually works intensely only in private. The project also revisits the 1993 book El Bulli, el sabor del Mediterráneo, which featured the dish on its cover and is now sold online for between €800 and €4,000.
The original version was part of El Bulli’s 1987 tasting menu, which cost 5,800 pesetas, about €35. That menu included black truffle mousse, langoustine ravioli and small scorpion fish with rosemary butter. Adrià does not see the red mullet as one of El Bulli’s key dishes, but he does value its visual design and its link to Nova Cuina Catalana.
The documentary starts at La Boqueria market, where ingredients were sourced from Peixos Marta, before moving to Dos Pebrots for the cooking session and interview. Adrià, Raurich and Takeshi Somekawa, another El Bulli alumnus, also updated the recipe with a food additive that acts as an adhesive, something not available to avant-garde restaurants in 1987.
Adrià has asked Dos Pebrots to serve the updated dish for a limited period. The project links El Bulli’s former home in Roses with Barcelona, while keeping the focus on the dish’s artistic and culinary legacy. For more Catalonia food coverage, see our news page.
