Film
El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
- Light-hearted
- Slow-burning
A documentary about Ferran Adrià and El Bulli during its closed season, watching the chef and his team devise next year's menu from nothing. It's a meditation on creative process, obsession, and what it means to push a medium to its limits. For anyone fascinated by mastery, innovation, or the philosophy hidden inside technique.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you find yourself curious about how a dish gets invented, the messy trial and error of a kitchen chasing an idea, and you enjoy watching obsessive craft turn into something close to philosophy.
Skip it if you want a story with a plot, a clear arc or a payoff at the end, since this is mostly prep, experiment and discussion, and a meal you cannot taste can feel frustrating.
What it asks of you: Settle in for a full feature-length stretch of patient watching, where scenes of tasting, debating and testing build slowly and reward attention rather than rushing to a point.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Jiro Dreams of Sushi2011
A Japanese sushi master's decades-long pursuit of perfection. Like El Bulli, it finds profound beauty in repetition and refinement, and asks what it means to dedicate your life to a single craft.
But Meditative and slow. If you want drama or conflict, this film offers neither—just an old man thinking about rice.
Chef's Table2015
An episode-per-restaurant series that goes where El Bulli goes: inside the mind of obsessive cooks. Visually gorgeous and deeply respectful of what chefs actually do when the doors close.
But Seven episodes is a lot of time to spend watching people make food. The reverent tone isn't for everyone.
The Hundred-Foot Journey2014
Two chefs and their restaurants clash; food becomes the language for a much larger human story. Less experimental than El Bulli but just as convinced that cooking matters.
But It's a crowd-pleaser with a predictable shape. If you want real innovation, this trades it for comfort.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Synecdoche, New York2008
Both are studies of artistic obsession collapsing under its own weight—the creator's inability to finish because perfection keeps receding.
Charlie Kaufman's film about a theater director building a replica of New York inside a warehouse. Like El Bulli, it's about an artist trapped inside their own vision, unable to finish, unable to stop. Both works are about process as obsession and creation as a way of understanding the self.
But Deliberately confusing and emotionally punishing. By the end you may feel like you've been worked over, not entertained.
More like this (6)
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown2013
Anthony Bourdain travels the world eating and talking. Food is the through-line but so are culture, power, and what we owe each other. Broader than El Bulli but asks bigger questions.
But It's television for television's sake sometimes. The philosophy gets buried under tourism.
Babette's Feast1987
A French chef feeds a small Danish religious community. A quiet film about generosity and the transformative power of a meal. Food is philosophy here, not spectacle.
But Slow and spiritual. If you want to watch technique, the camera often turns away from it.
Ratatouille2007
A rat who dreams of cooking in Paris. Pixar made this as a love letter to what chefs actually believe: that cooking is art, and an artist has a voice that matters.
But It's a cartoon. Some people will tune out before they let it in.
Tampopo1985
A Japanese film about a woman perfecting ramen. It's surreal, comic, and utterly sincere about the obsession that drives craft. A very strange cousin to El Bulli.
But Weird and digressive and genuinely absurd. Most of it is not about ramen. That's the point but not everyone's point.
Salt Fat Acid Heat2018
Samin Nosrat teaches cooking fundamentals with infectious joy. It's philosophy through technique, and it respects both the cook and the audience.
But Educational TV, which means some people will assume it's boring before they press play.
Koyaanisqatsi1983
Both are formal experiments that trust the audience to find the meaning in rhythm and pattern rather than being told what to think.
An experimental film with no dialogue, only Phillip Glass's score and images of nature and civilization in collision. Like El Bulli, it's about pattern, repetition, and the search for meaning in movement and form. Both work on you without explanation.
But No story, no characters, minimal context. Some people find it pretentious; others find it hypnotic. You'll know which one you are by minute five.
People
Cast
- Ferran AdriàHimself
- Oriol CastroHimself
- Eduard XatruchHimself
- Eugeni de DiegoHimself
- Aitor LozanoHimself
Directing
- Gereon WetzelDirector
Writing
- Anna Gnesti RosellWriter
- Gereon WetzelWriter
Production
- Ingo FliessProducer
- Jutta KrugProducer
- Petra FelberProducer