Nearly two years ago, the Epicurious food and dining website declared that Barcelona had, in its words, jumped the shark. Long known as a culinary leader for its regional chefs’ efforts at the forefront of the tapas movement and more widely acclaimed for advances in molecular gastronomy, the city and wider region had lost their creative juice, slowing under over-indulgence and over-exposure. However, as the New Year arrives and the region struggles to figure out a path forward without the aid of its flagship of culinary innovation, Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli, the local menu is showing new signs of life with a return to traditional staples – delicious simplicity. Though, this being Catalonia, … [Read more...] about Catalan cuisine faces the future by returning to its roots
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Kitchen Colossus takes time out
In 1959, the jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins stunned his colleagues and admirers by withdrawing from the music scene. Popular and critically acclaimed he may have been, but the self-styled “Saxophone Colossus” was also jaded, feeling he had taken his music as far as it would go in a certain direction. For the next couple of years the only place he would play in public was on New York’s Williamsburg Bridge, where his tenor horn accompanied the sound of passing boats and trains. New York’s jazz scene may seem a long way from the kitchens of the Costa Brava, but Catalan chef Ferran Adrià, for many an artist every bit as accomplished as Rollins, has just announced his own withdrawal from … [Read more...] about Kitchen Colossus takes time out