Getting to El Bulli was never easy, nor was it easy for Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía, who yesterday got to know Ferran Adrià’s new creative space, chosen as the setting for their second visit to Girona, after the one that last year took them to the Dalí Museum, in Figueres. The old restaurant, now converted into a museum and information centre, promotes innovation, teamwork and creativity, principles that fit in with the ideas of the Princess of Girona Foundation, which this Wednesday celebrates its big day with the delivery of the awards for young talents at the Camiral de Caldes de Malavella hotel.
In the choice of El Bulli 1846, in addition to being a space recognized throughout the world, it was also taken into account that it is far from an urban center, which facilitated the organization and development of the visit.
The King and Queen’s daughters flew from Madrid to the Girona airport yesterday morning and went directly to the Camiral hotel, the operations center for the events scheduled yesterday and today. Early in the afternoon, Leonor and Sofía held a meeting with a group of young participants from various FPdGi programs, with whom they exchanged opinions and experiences, and shortly after they visited, without it being planned, or at least that is the version of the Zarzuela, the headquarters of the Princess of Girona Foundation, located in a street near the AVE station. A stop of barely 20 minutes, but of high symbolic value, since, due to the lack of institutional collaboration and the manifest rejection of the municipal representatives and pro-independence groups, the events of the Princess of Girona Foundation have not been held in the city since the 2017.
After the visit, the Princess and the Infanta, accompanied by Francisco Belil, president of the FPdGi, and the director, Salvador Tasqué, resumed their journey towards Cala Montjoi and, after passing through Roses, had the opportunity to discover, from the car in the who traveled, the beauties of the Cap de Creus natural park. Units of the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Civil Guard monitored the journey by land and also by sea, but, despite the announcement of concentrations of pro-independence groups, the truth is that along the entire route the only presence outside the visit of The Princess and the Infanta were the few cars that left or went to Cala Montjoi. Ferran Adrià, the mayor of Roses, Josep Martínez (PSC), were waiting for them at El Bulli 1846; the Government delegate in Catalonia, Carles Prieto, and the Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Morillo.
Leonor and Sofía, like all people who see the natural beauty of the Costa Brava for the first time, did not miss a detail of the landscape upon arrival at the museum. The Princess wore a long orange dress knotted under her chest, by Lady Pipa, and her sister Sophia, hers, a red mid-calf jumpsuit, by Sfera; both chose to wear wedge espadrilles.
At the end of the visit, two hours after their arrival, Leonor and Sofía could already be included in the list of Bullinians, given that yesterday, during the tour, they were guided by Ferran Adrià, who continues to manage the now virtual stoves, of which It was the best restaurant in the world. Led by Adrià, the Princess, the Infanta Sofía and the young people from the FpdGi who accompanied them discovered some of the most important milestones of El Bulli and learned how the systematization of innovation was applied to change the paradigm of the culinary world and convert the restaurant in the gastronomic epicenter until its closure in 2011. The Princess and the Infanta began the visit through the building that housed the restaurant and which is preserved as it was the last day that meals were served, with its tablecloths, crockery, cutlery and glassware. Felipe de Borbón and Letizia Ortiz sat at one of those tables a month before their wedding and, over the years, the thousands of people who made this corner of Girona famous throughout the world.
The daughters of the Kings also visited the kitchen to better understand the planning, organization and operation system of a gastronomic restaurant, and in which 28 iconic El Bulli dishes have been recreated. The tour ended at El Bulli DNA, one of the most groundbreaking installations visually speaking –it has the shape of a rock and integrates into the landscape of Cap de Creus–, where all the projects that have been carried out since 2011 and the Space designed for research.
The museum, to which new buildings have been added to the original spaces, occupies nearly 4,000 square meters (2,500 outside and 1,300 inside), was baptized El Bulli 1846, a number that recalls the 1,846 original works that came out of its kitchens and which coincides with the birth year of Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern gastronomy. Inaugurated on June 15, the museum will be open until September 15 and, in winter, it will house the initiatives of El Bulli Foundation.
