El Bulli: Cooking In Progress (2011)

59% of critics liked it
(32 reviews)
46% of users liked it
(340 ratings)

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… More 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!" --(C) Alive Mind

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 48 min.
Directed By: Gereon Wetzel
Genres: Documentary, Art House & International, Special Interest

In Theaters: Jul 27, 2011 Limited
On DVD: Mar 27, 2012
Studio: Lorber Films

Critic Reviews

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
If you're passionate (and open-minded) about food, you'll be fascinated.
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
If your idea of fine dining is pumpkin meringue sandwiches, bone marrow tartare with oysters, tea shrimp with caviar anemones, and ice vinaigrette with tangerines and green olive, then by all means make haste to El Bulli.
Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times
Offers a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at the Spanish restaurant hailed as the most influential eatery in the world.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
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.
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
El Bulli becomes a haunting celebration of the human desire to turn food into art - even if the results are consciously insane.
Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail
El Bulli barely registers a pulse stronger than a book's.
Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl
...will appeal to two types of people: those with a deep and highly specific interest in the art of cooking, and those interested in extreme craftsmanship as practiced in any line of work
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
You leave "Cooking in Progress" with respect for a man who followed his vision, and with fascination at the idea of food as artistic expression.
Brent Simon, Shockya.com
A 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.
Jim Schembri, The Age (Australia)
Even docs need a third act.
Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
Director Wetzel doesn't so much explain the surreal mindset of Adrià as he does simply hang out and film the proceedings. But seriously, what revolutionary proceedings they are.
Cara Nash, FILMINK (Australia)
It's intermittently fascinating, but this strictly fly-on-the-wall doco sometimes feels tedious and soulless.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul), St. Paul Pioneer Press
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.
Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters
In El Bulli: Cooking in Process, the chef Ferran Adrià hovers and nods, sits and tastes, or -- most often -- walks through the frame, head bent and phone to his ear.
Simon Miraudo, Quickflix
I wasn't necessarily expecting Blumenthal's ridiculously theatrical flourishes in El Bulli, but a little joy or wonder would have been nice. Instead, we are treated to visuals of lots of pretty looking food, eaten stoically by [Chef] Adria.
Jim Slotek, Jam! Movies
We're spared the pandemonium of "reality TV" kitchens. El Bulli's is a remarkably quiet kitchen by comparison, with a dutiful sense of urgency but no panic.

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Jeff T

Taking the word "documentary" incredibly literally, EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS is a document of the food development process at a cutting edge Spanish restaurant. The chef closes the restaurant for six months so he and his team can create the molecular gastronomy wonders… More
Taking the word "documentary" incredibly literally, EL BULLI: COOKING IN PROGRESS is a document of the food development process at a cutting edge Spanish restaurant. The chef closes the restaurant for six months so he and his team can create the molecular gastronomy wonders that makes his restaurant so strange and popular. But because the film is unfiltered by the filmmaker in any way, he just points the camera at them and watches, very little emerges, except for the fact that this food seems very strange, and as far as I can tell, kind of off-putting. There's time spent in the lab, then time spent at the restaurant premiering the dishes, but all I learned is that weird food can be served in tiny little bites and still look beautiful but sort of inedible. In the end it left me wanting to cook some Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and watch CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS - food and a documentary, American style.