February 23rd, 2010
The famed el Bulli, the Spanish restaurant repeatedly crowned the world’s best, is to become a non-profit foundation from 2014, its avant-garde chef Ferran Adria announced Monday.
The Michelin three-star restaurant will become a “foundation for all avant-garde gastronomy lovers.., a breeding ground for new ideas and for new talents,” he told a news conference at a culinary fair in the city of Santiago de Compostela.
The private foundation will grant between 20 and 25 scholarships annually for chefs and other industry professionals and one of its long-term aims will be to compile an “exhaustive and detailed” encyclopedia of contemporary cuisine.
January 27th, 2010
Molecular gastronomy maven Ferran Adria has announced that he will close his famed Catalonian restaurant El Bulli for all of 2012 and 2013.
The three Michelin star El Bulli, tucked away on the Catalan coast, was last year named the world’s best restaurant by Restaurant magazine in Britain.
“El Bulli is not closing down. I need time to decide how 2014 is going to be . . . I know that when I return it will not be the same”
January 18th, 2010
Britain got its fourth three-star Michelin restaurant on Friday as French chef Alain Ducasse’s restaurant at The Dorchester Hotel earned the rare top ranking.
Ducasse joins Heston Blumenthal, Gordon Ramsay and Alain Roux in the three-star elite club in the 2010 Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland.
November 4th, 2009
According to TMZ, Roman Abramovich dropped $47,221.09 on lunch at famed New York eatery Nello’s on Friday.
The tab came to $47,221.09. He added another $5,000 tip (on top of the $7,328 gratuity already included) for a total of $52,221.09.
The lunch menu comprised of filet mignon, white truffles and a bunch of expensive wines and it fed ten people at the table.
October 27th, 2009
This 11 pound, 70-year old lobster is currently available for purchase at New York’s Oceana restaurant for $275.
Oceana purchased the 11-pound crustacean earlier this week after customers complained that the restaurant’s lobsters weren’t big enough.
(Because lobsters’ age can be determined by weight, the Oceana owners believe the 11 pound crustacean, nicknamed “Peter,” is approximately 70 years old).
October 20th, 2009
Paris’s Michelin-starred restaurant, the Tour d’argent, is to sell 18,000 bottles of wine and spirits in an auction which is expected to raise about a million euros.
The d’Argent restaurant, which dates back to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best in the world.
The restaurant is also selling some very old spirits, like three bottles of a Clos du Griffier Cognac from 1788, the year before the French Revolution.
