El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

El Bulli has been called the best restaurant in the world and its three-star chef, Ferran Adrià, deemed a brilliant innovator and the father of molecular gastronomy. Adrià is widely considered the best and craziest chef in the world. In his kitchen, that which was once familiar disintegrates. Anything goes -- except copying oneself. His restaurant, located outside of Barcelona, closes each year for 6 months, as Adrià and staff sequester themselves to concentrate on creating the new culinary wonders that will become their next 30-course menu. (The restaurant accommodates only 50 for dinner, despite two million annual requests for reservations.) This is cooking as avant-garde art: a cocktail composed of hazelnut oil, salt, and water or a dessert of freezedried peppermint and ice shavings. Surrounded by bizarre hi-tech equipment, elaborate containers, chopping blocks and knives, they experiment with making mushroom juice and sweet potato meringue. Gereon Wetzel's elegant, observational documentary captures the razor-sharp, science-fiction sensibility at work. Adrià exclaims: "The more bewilderment, the better."