It's arguably the best restaurant in the world...
There have been many many articles in the Times and Time Magazine, etc...
Adria runs not so much a traditional kitchen as much as a "laboratory" He is the best known figure of molecular gastronomy, he makes ingredients into new forms and serves them in fantastic new ways -
Check out their website:
http://www.elbulli.com/index2.php
you can click on "english" at any point
Also check out this recent thread at eGullet with photos of a meal:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=89733&hl=bulli
Plus if you do a search on that site there is several pages worth of posts...
I say "arguably" in the title of my post because Adria's style can be intimidating and prohibitive for many - in his restaurant it's more of an experience than a meal, I mean you can have a meal with 30 courses and very few of them will feature an ingredient in it's natural state -
Michelin has awarded the restaurant 3 Michelin stars, the most it awards -
As a student of food and cooking, you really do need to know what he is al about - here is another article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Bulli
To have worked or even have done a stage at el Bulli is a huge boon for a culinary resume - even just to have experienced his food and methods is a privilege...
Me, I have never managed to get a reservation - it's like a lottery and it takes a lot of perseverance and quick dial/fax fingers!
I have eaten at The Fat Duck here in England, Chef Heston Blumenthal is in the same sort of vein as Adria - we had the tasting menu, 26 courses of foods such as pollen encrusted sweetbreads, bacon and egg ice cream, and licorice coated salmon with amond and milk cream.
As for buying his books, they are great books, but I would not expect to make any of the recipes in them, I would say they are not "cookboks" per se, but more like an album with beautiful picture of his food and his methodology -
Have fun discovering!
