Restaurant Magazine recently voted El Bulli the best restaurant in the world. Situated in Roses, on the Costa Brava, approximately two hours north of Barcelona, it is open only from April to September. During the other six months, the chefs are holed up in their laboratory in Barcelona devising new and exciting recipes. El Bulli is said to be booked out a year in advance, and virtually every serious chef reckons that Ferran Adrià, the genius in the kitchen, is the most influential and gifted man in the culinary world.
I had wanted to eat at El Bulli for years, but never had the chance. Last year, my wife and I and another foody couple hatched a plan to celebrate my birthday there the following September. You cannot book a table until mid-January, so I made a note in my diary and emailed them on the first day the phones opened. I gave them a choice of two Fridays and two Saturdays either side of my birthday. A day later an email arrived, with a table at 8pm, for four, on the first of the Fridays - perfect. It all seemed very easy for a restaurant that is supposedly impossible to get into.
The plan was to splash out on a grand scale on the big night, but keep the transport and accommodation budget firmly under control. easyJet offered the cheapest flights and the Hotel Terraza in Roses was refreshingly inexpensive and delightful, with big rooms, a lovely private beach, two pools and a gym.
We wandered along the beach and grabbed a late lunch at a charming cafe called Si us Plau. A main course each, three beers, two bottles of inoffensive local rosé and a salad in the middle cost the equivalent of £24 - awesome value. After a stroll, a snooze, a bottle of champagne and a round of mini golf on the roof of the hotel, we climbed into a taxi for the 7km drive over the headland to a tiny bay called Cala Montjoi.
We were remarkably composed considering we had been looking forward to this meal for so long, although secretly I was feeling a little weird, as if I had stagefright. The drive to El Bulli is on a tiny, bumpy road which snakes up over the headland; in the fading light, we were treated to rocky, elvish moorland, the gleaming Med and some seat-gripping corners.
And then you see it. A small, impossibly cool, glowing El Bulli sign at the side of the road, and you dive off down a dramatic driveway. The entrance is magical, dotted with modern sculpture and a glorious view through the trees to the bay. My heart was racing.
We were welcomed into the low hacienda-style restaurant via a cloistered area, passing a large picture window into the kitchen. I looked in: it was huge, gleaming with acres of steel, stone and pale wood. The design was stunning, with more than a nod to the Starship Enterprise. I have seen many kitchens in my time, but this was something special, and the sheer number of staff was staggering.
We were shown to our table and presented with our menus - all 27 courses. At the time of booking, we had ordered four of their legendary gastronomic menus, warning that one of us was vegetarian. No problem, veggie dishes were substituted where necessary.
We were all given a "welcome" mojito cocktail of deepest emerald green. Made from rum, sugar, lemon and mint, it was a shock to the palate. The alcohol didn't hit you, rather it was the intense mintiness and palate cleansing properties that amazed. After slotting this down, I felt alert, fresh and vital, as if my head had been given an instant spring clean. I was ready.
We took the wine waiter's recommendation on our first glasses of wine. The girls had cava, ordinarily a dull Spanish fizz, but this one was finer than any I have ever tasted in the UK, while the boys had a pinpoint accurate manzanilla sherry, which was topped up whenever we got halfway down the glass.
The staff were extraordinarily well informed, as you'd expect in a restaurant of this calibre. And they had to be, because the next four hours involved tasting some of the subtlest, most explosive and bizarre flavours of my life. And, at every juncture, we had questions about the dishes. They told us what each dish was, how to eat it and in what order.
Then, out of thin air, a wave of nibbles (they call them snacks) appeared, each wildly different in texture, flavour, and aroma. Pork and honey scratchings; pistachios covered in yoghurt, then caramel, then curry, peanut and chocolate; an impossibly light, dusty popcorn piece served on a spoon, which disintegrated and then disappeared on the tongue; sheer glass panes of sweet nori seaweed; tiny puffed quinoa grains in a cornet; and a parmesan and lemon crunchy asteroid ball.
I was reeling as the flavours cavorted around my palate. We couldn't believe what was happening. I grabbed the wine waiter and asked for a bottle of albariño. I knew a few of the producers on the list, but he opened a wine I had not tasted before. Once again, it was the best version of this Galician grape I had ever encountered.
The next dish was simply entitled bread with tomato. It was a round ball of crunchy bread, a little smaller than a golf ball, sitting on top of a tiny mug of what appeared to be vanilla ice cream. All of the crockery and cutlery is designed specially for each course, although they had clearly nabbed a consignment of Action Man-sized mugs for this dish. Our instructions were to pop the bread in whole and chew, then spoon up the matter in the mug. A big factor in this otherworldly cuisine is the element of surprise, and this dish had it down to a fine art. The bread puff exploded in the mouth to reveal a warm scented olive oil, which when combined with the tomato flavoured ice sherbet was a stonking combo.
Then came the mysteriously titled golden egg, a tiny scarab-sized, sweet button of exoskeleton, which when bitten released the most intense, melting, warm yolk. This was swiftly followed by a mini parmesan ice cream sandwich and a trout egg tempura, in the thinnest coating, but brimming with glossy, wildly juicy fishy flavours. This was the first opportunity to see how the veggie alternative would measure up. The dish in question was a plump apple jelly lozenge which when popped into the mouth revealed a splash of juniper and sherry vinegar at its core - sensational.
The first of our tapas courses arrived, an almond ice cream with garlic and balsamic - intensely aromatic and sensuous. I even asked the waiter when it was appropriate to pop to the loo, not wanting to disturb the even tempo of the courses arriving at our table.
The freeze-dried, shaved foie gras with consommé and tamarind was extraterrestrial. The bar code of different vegetable jellies was a hilarious colour-coded guessing game. The cauliflower couscous was so aromatic and aromatherapeutic that I felt healthier than ever after one bite. Spanish omelette was served in a martini glass and we were instructed to scoop down and up through the suspension to collect the onion from the bottom of the glass and the potato froth on top.
A tartare of cuttlefish was sensual with black ink and brown foie flavours to overload the senses. Risotto a la Milanese was made with chopped bean sprouts, creamy froth and a separate saffron slick. A translucent squid pillow erupted to reveal coconut milk, and you added tangy lime, mint and ginger to the package - a brilliant Thai squid dish. Spider crab, sardines and rabbit followed as main courses. Sometimes, I just shut my eyes and wallowed in the sensory bombardment, only to reopen them and see my companions doing the same.
The puddings came zooming in - a mad lychee jelly, a chocolate sablet with verveine and hazelnut and a mixed plate of nibbles including mini raspberry ice cream cones, a welly boot of melon on a stick and mysterious pineapple chunk creations. All I could think of was Harry Potter, shards of white chocolate with black olive that looked like impossibly sheer slices of stilton, saffron balls, rosewater balls, peppermint jellies . . . and on and on.
We enjoyed a glorious half bottle of sweet red wine, then perfect coffee and it was time to go. The bill was shockingly fair. We had enjoyed aperitifs, four bottles of wine, one half bottle of sweet wine and four set menus, and it had just about made the £150 per head mark.
El Bulli has three Michelin stars, but it doesn't play by any conventional food rules I know. So how on earth do you classify a restaurant in a league of its own?
It certainly was the most otherworldly culinary experience I have ever encountered. I am poised by the computer to book again in January, because I simply must experience this again. Perhaps I'll see you there.
· The Wine List 2003 is published by Headline @ £7.99.
Way to go
Getting there: easyJet.com (0870 6000000, EasyJet) flies to Barcelona from Liverpool, Luton and Gatwick from £15.90 one way
Getting around: easy Car.com rents cars from Barcelona (online bookings only).
Where to stay: Hotel Terraza, Roses, Costa Brava (+972 25 61 54); €115 for a double room B&B.
Where to eat: El Bulli, Cala Montjoi, Roses, Girona (+972 15 04 57); gastronomic menu is €115 per head without wine.
Further information: The Spanish National Tourist Office, 22-23 Manchester Square, London W1M 5AP (020-7486 8077, 24-hour brochure request line 09063 640630, Tour Spain). Country code: 00 34. Time difference: +1 hr. Flight time London-Barcelona: 2hrs 20mins. £1 = €1.53.