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El Bulli: Cooking in Progress Photos

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Movie Info

Chef Ferran Adrià spends half the year making new culinary creations for his restaurant.

Genre:

documentary
Original Language:

Catalan
Director:

Gereon Wetzel
Producer:

Ingo Fliess
Writer:

Anna Ginestí Rosell, Gereon Wetzel
Release Date (Streaming):

Jan 25, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA):

$222.6K
Runtime:

1h 48m
Production Co:

if... Productions, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Bayerischer Rundfunk

Cast & Crew

Ferran Adrià

Christian Rioux

Gereon Wetzel
Director

Anna Ginestí Rosell
Writer

Gereon Wetzel
Writer

Ingo Fliess
Producer

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

All Critics (47) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (28) | Rotten (19)

Wetzel's documentary never really gets under Adrià's skin - but the creation of the frozen, juiced, glossy surfaces of the food is fascinating.

August 1, 2018 | Full Review…

Sophie Mayer
Sight and Sound
There is no doubting that even this overlong examination of culinary expertise and experimentation will become a classic.

July 27, 2012 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Derek Malcolm
London Evening Standard
There are enough outbreaks of culinary weirdness to keep true enthusiasts distracted.

July 27, 2012 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Donald Clarke
Irish Times
As an advertisement for the restaurant, this works well, but the issues - the art of cuisine and cuisine as art - are not discussed very thoroughly.

July 26, 2012 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
"Make it magical," Adri often urges his acolytes, and it's advice Wetzel would have done well to heed.

July 26, 2012 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Robbie Collin
Daily Telegraph (UK)
The dishes stream past our eyes and noses, exposing one of the film's two deficiencies. We need scratch'n'taste cards for all this, don't we?

July 26, 2012 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Nigel Andrews
Financial Times
This fascinating study turns out to be, fittingly, an epitaph...

August 19, 2019 | Full Review…

Brian D. Johnson
Maclean's Magazine
If you're already an Adrià-convert then seeing the great gastronome at work may well be more than enough of a draw -- just don't expect to learn anything profound about him or his unique culinary approach for the proceeding 148 minutes.

January 30, 2019 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Daniel Green
CineVue
Not only does the food look barely edible but the film is remarkably unilluminating about the history of the restaurant, the characters or those who ate there.

July 30, 2012 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Henry Fitzherbert
Daily Express (UK)
The result is hypnotic rather than instructive and, like TV cookery programmes, it's a cinematic experience resembling lap dancing overseen by a duenna.

July 30, 2012 | Full Review…

Philip French
Observer (UK)
Offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of culinary science and it's hard not to marvel at the skill and expertise on display, but the fly-on-the-wall style strips the film of context and it ultimately becomes a little dull.

July 25, 2012 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Matthew Turner
ViewLondon
Although we get little of the flavour of the man behind the restaurant, Wetzel captures the essence of Adri's process of sublime culinary creation.

July 16, 2012 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Miles Fielder
The List

View All Critic Reviews (47)

Audience Reviews for El Bulli: Cooking in Progress

Aug 04, 2011

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.

Jeff T Super Reviewer